Food in Shakespeare: Early Modern Dietaries and the PlaysAshgate Publishing, Ltd., 2013 M04 28 - 176 pages A study of common and exotic food in Shakespeare's plays, this is the first book to explore early modern English dietary literature to understand better the significance of food in Shakespearean drama. Food in Shakespeare provides for modern readers and audiences an historically accurate account of the range of, and conflicts between, contemporary ideas that informed the representations of food in the plays. It also focuses on the social and moral implications of familiar and strange foodstuff in Shakespeare's works. This new approach provides substantial fresh readings of Hamlet, Macbeth, As you Like It, The Winter's Tale, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Henry V, Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus, Pericles, Timon of Athens, and the co-authored Sir Thomas More. Among the dietaries explored are Andrew Boorde's A Compendyous Regyment or a Dyetary of Healthe (1547), William Bullein's The Gouernement of Healthe (1595), Thomas Elyot's The Castle of Helthe (1595) and Thomas Cogan's The Hauen of Health (1636). These dieteries were republished several times in the early modern period; together they typify the genre's condemnation of surfeit and the tendency to blame human disease on feeding practices. This study directs scholarly attention to the importance of early modern dietaries, analyzing their role in wider culture as well as their intersection with dramatic art. In the dietaries food and drink are indices of one's position in relation to complex ideas about rank, nationality, and spiritual well-being; careful consumption might correct moral as well as physical shortcomings. The dietaries are an eclectic genre: some contain recipes for the reader to try, others give tips on more general lifestyle choices, but all offer advice on how to maintain good health via diet. Although some are more stern and humourless than others, the overwhelming impression is that of food as an ally in the battle against disease and ill-health as well as a potential enemy. |
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... humours or medicine per se. Readers who desire more detailed analyses of the humours are advised to consult studies by Gail Kern Paster and Jonathan Sawday who, amongst others, have located early modern ideas of selfhood in the context ...
... humours in different persons determined their 'complexions', or 'temperaments', their physical and mental qualities, and their dispositions. The ideal person had the ideally proportioned mixture of the four; a predominance of one ...
... humours (Galen & Culpepper 1653, F4v-F5r). But the model is by no means simplistic, also outlined in Culpepper's translation of Galen is what is termed the “commixture” of the humours and eight are listed: chollerick- melancholy ...
... humour that is an integral part of his characterization. Shortly after the Gad's Hill robbery things change and Sir John becomes a more consequential figure. The scene between Hal and his father, King Henry 4, is a tuming point. King ...
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Contents
11 | |
Celtic Acquaintance and Alterity | 37 |
Vegetarianism and the Melancholic | 57 |
Famine and Abstinence Class War and Foreign Foodstuff | 81 |
Profane Consumption | 105 |
Conclusion | 127 |
Index | 155 |