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Humoral Wombs on the Shakespearean Stage 2019 Edition
Contributor(s): Kenny, Amy (Author)
ISBN: 3030052001     ISBN-13: 9783030052003
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
OUR PRICE:   $85.49  
Product Type: Hardcover
Published: February 2019
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Modern - General
- Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
- Science | History
Dewey: 509
Series: Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine
Physical Information: 0.56" H x 5.83" W x 8.27" (0.90 lbs) 202 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - British Isles
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

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.