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About this book
How did early modern people imagine their bodies? What impact did the new disease syphilis and recurrent outbreaks of plague have on these mental landscapes? Why was the glutted belly such a potent symbol of pathology? Ranging from the Reformation through the English Civil War, Fictions of Disease in Early Modern England is a unique study of a fascinating cultural imaginary of 'disease' and its political consequences. Healy's original approach illuminates the period's disease-impregnated literature, including works by Shakespeare, Milton, Dekker, Heywood and others.
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
Reviews
'Fictions of Disease is a wonderful book. Healy does a brilliant job of sketching the range of attitudes to disease and health available in early modern England. Blending scholarly rigor with humane sympathy, Healy focuses not just on what was known but on what kinds of corporeal experience that knowledge made available.' - Professor Michael Schoenfeldt, University of Michigan
'Fictions of Disease in Early Modern England contributes greatly to our understanding of the interplay of the medical and the literary. Through imaginative yet meticulous exploration of the potency of particular medical metaphors, Dr Healy anatomizes dominant models of the body and the body politic and demonstrates their symbolic resonances.' - Roy Porter, Professor of the Social History of Medicine, Welcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College, London
'Healy's book is an excellent and rich commentary on the multiple narratives of medicine in this era.' - Anita Guerrini, Isis
'Fictions of disease contributes to our understanding of the complex interrelation between medical and literary discourses, elucidating why metaphors of the body were so central to early modern political thought. Healy imaginatively maps the moral, religious and political implications of the language of somatic experience in the early modern period.' - Lesel Dawson, University of Leeds, Medical History
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
MARGARET HEALY is a Lecturer in English at the University of Sussex. She has published a study of Shakespeare's Richard II, and many articles on early modern literature, medicine and art.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Fictions of Disease in Early Modern England
Book Subtitle: Bodies, Plagues and Politics
Authors: Margaret Healy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230510647
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts Collection, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2001
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-333-96399-9Published: 07 November 2001
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-42782-6Published: 01 January 2001
eBook ISBN: 978-0-230-51064-7Published: 07 November 2001
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 277
Topics: Early Modern/Renaissance Literature, British and Irish Literature, Internal Medicine, Social Sciences, general, Literary Theory, Cultural Theory