| Descript |
1 online resource (xi, 202 pages) : illustrations, digital ; 22 cm |
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text txt rdacontent |
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computer c rdamedia |
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online resource cr rdacarrier |
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text file PDF rda |
| Series |
Palgrave studies in literature, science and medicine |
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Palgrave studies in literature, science and medicine
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| Note |
1. Introduction: the early modern womb -- 2. The green womb -- 3. The thick womb -- 4. The fertile womb -- 5. The monstrous womb -- 6. The tomb womb -- 7. The male womb -- 8. Coda: The exonerated womb |
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This book explores how the humoral womb was evoked, enacted, and embodied on the Shakespearean stage by considering the intersection of performance studies and humoral theory. Galenic naturalism applied the four humors--yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood--to delineate women as porous, polluting, and susceptible to their environment. This book draws on early modern medical texts to provocatively demonstrate how Shakespeare's canon offers a unique agency to female characters via humoral discourse of the womb. Chapters discuss early modern medicine's attempt to theorize and interpret the womb, specifically its role in disease, excretion, and conception, alongside passages of Shakespeare's plays to offer a fresh reading of (geo)humoral subjectivity. The book shows how Shakespeare subversively challenges contemporary notions of female fluidity by accentuating the significance of the womb as a source of self-defiance and autonomy for female characters across his canon |
| Host Item |
Springer eBooks
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| Subject |
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Knowledge -- Medicine
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Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Characters -- Women
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Medicine in literature -- History -- 16th century
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Medicine in literature -- History -- 17th century
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Uterus
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Body fluids in literature
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Early Modern/Renaissance Literature
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British and Irish Literature
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History of Science
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| Alt Author |
SpringerLink (Online service)
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