“A THING LIKE DEATH”: MEDICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF FEMALE BODIES IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

• Authors: Greta Perletti
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

While the hysterical ailments of women in Shakespeare’s works have often been read from psychoanalytical standpoints, early modern medicine may provide new insights into the ‘frozen’, seemingly dead bodies of some of his heroines, such as Desdemona, Thaisa, and Hermione. In the wake of recent critical work (Peterson, Slights, Pettigrew), this paper will shed fresh light on the ‘excess’ of female physiology and on Shakespeare’s creative redeployment of some medical concepts and narratives.

Keywords

EN

arly modern literature and medicine hysteria; interdisciplinary approach; representation

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Gender Studies
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 93-111

Dates

published

2013-12-01

online

2014-02-14

Contributors

author

Greta Perletti

• Universities of Bergamo and Trento, Italy via Salvecchio 19 - 24129 Bergamo. Italy

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/genst-2013-0006