Shakespearean Maternities: Crises of Conception in Early Modern England

Chris Laoutaris

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2008

Shakespearean Maternities

Crises of Conception in Early Modern England

Chris Laoutaris

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748630424

Overview
Contents

About this book

This study explores maternity in the 'disciplines' of early modern England. Placing the reproductive female body centre-stage in Shakespeare's theatre, Laoutaris ranges beyond the domestic sphere in order to recuperate the wider intellectual, epistemological, and archaeological significance of maternity to the Renaissance imagination.

Focusing on 'anatomy' in Hamlet, 'natural history' in The Tempest, 'demonology' in Macbeth, and 'heraldry' in Antony and Cleopatra, this book reveals the ways in which the maternal body was figured in, and in turn contributed towards the re-conceptualisation of, bodies of knowledge. Laoutaris argues that Shakespeare resists a monolithic concept of motherhood, presenting instead a range of contested 'maternities' which challenge the distinctive 'ways of knowing' these early disciplines worked to impose on the order of created nature.

Key Features

Provides a new interpretation of a subject which is becoming increasingly popular among Shakespeare scholars, cultural and medical historians, and feminist critics
Focuses on four of Shakespeare's best-loved plays
Presents striking visual material which forms a central component of the book's critical methodology, including anatomical plates, cabinets of curiosity, early modern follies and grottoes, artefacts of witchcraft and superstition, Renaissance 'monsters', ceramics, portraiture, funerary monuments and statuary
Offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of maternity drawing on literary studies, gender studies, the history of art, archaeology, and the history of the sciences

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	iii
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Note on the Text Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	x
Introduction: Constructing Maternal Knowledge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1 Flesh and Stone: Dissecting Maternity in the Theatre of Anatomy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
Chapter 2 The Cabinet of Wonders: Monstrous Conceptions in the Theatre of Nature Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
Chapter 3 Strange Labours: Maternity and Maleficium in the Theatre of Justice Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
Chapter 4 Speaking Stones: Memory and Maternity in the Theatre of Death Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	212
Postscript: Our Maternities: The Historical Legacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	268
Selected Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	270
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	294

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 320
Illustrations
- Other: 94 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: June 20, 2008
ISBN: 9780748630424