Bodies and Selves in Early Modern England

Explores the close relationship between inner psychology and bodily processes as represented in English Renaissance poetry.

Résumé
Michael Schoenfeldt's fascinating study explores the close relationship between selves and bodies, psychological inwardness and corporeal processes, as they are represented in English Renaissance literature. The notion of bodily humors in Galenic medicine provides poets with a compelling vocabulary for describing the ways in which selves inhabit and experience bodies.

Contenu

List of illustrations; Preface; 1. Bodies of rule: embodiment and interiority in early modern England; 2. Fortifying inwardness: Spenser's castle of moral health; 3. The matter of inwardness: Shakespeare's Sonnets; 4. Devotion and digestion: George Herbert's consuming subject; 5. Temperance and temptation: the alimental vision in Paradise Lost; Afterword; Notes; Index.