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Book ID: CBB568420977

Humoral Wombs on the Shakespearean Stage (2019)

Kenny, Amy (Author)

Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date: 2019
Language: English

ISBN: 9783030052003

Publication Date: 2019
Physical Details: 202 pp.

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Science and gender Medicine and literature Conception (pregnancy) Disease and diseases Humoralism Early modern Shakespeare, William

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.

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Reviewed By

Review Alicia Andrzejewski (Spring 2022) Review of "Humoral Wombs on the Shakespearean Stage". Renaissance Quarterly (pp. 361-363). unapi

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