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Pestilence in Medieval and Early Modern English Literature book cover

1st Edition

Pestilence in Medieval and Early Modern English Literature

By Byron Lee Grigsby Copyright 2004
    220 Pages
    by Routledge

    220 Pages
    by Routledge

    Pestilence in Medieval and Early Modern English Literature examines three diseases--leprosy, bubonic plague, and syphilis--to show how doctors, priests, and literary authors from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance interpreted certain illnesses through a moral filter. Lacking knowledge about the transmission of contagious diseases, doctors and priests saw epidemic diseases as a punishment sent by God for human transgression. Accordingly, their job was to properly read sickness in relation to the sin. By examining different readings of specific illnesses, this book shows how the social construction of epidemic diseases formed a kind of narrative wherein man attempts to take the control of the disease out of God's hands by connecting epidemic diseases to the sins of carnality.

    Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: From Sophrosyne to Sin Greco-Roman Medicine--The Christian Adoption of Medicine--Christ, Apostles, and Priests as Doctors--Medicine as Part of Natural Philosophy--The Monastic Transmission and Use of Medicine--The Secularization of Medicine Chapter Two: Leprosy, Bubonic Plague, and Syphilis Leprosy and the Seven Deadly Sins-Theology's View of Leprosy--The Medical Community's Interpretation of Leprosy--Responding to the Plague--Sexing Leprosy in the Modern Period --The Origin of Syphilis--Syphilis and Leprosy:An Interchange of Moral Associations Chapter Three: Leprosy and Spiritual Sins in Medieval Literature The Pricke of Conscience and Gower's Mirrour de l'omme and Confessio Amantis --Amis and Amiloun --Robert Henryson's Testament of Cresseid Chapter Four: Plague as Apocalypse in Medieval Literature William Langland's Piers Plowman --Geoffrey Chaucer's The Pardoner's Tale --The York Cycle: Moses and Pharaoh Chapter Five: Learning to Cope with Disease John Lydgate's Dietary and A Doctrine for Pestilence--William Bullein's Dialogue Against the Fever Pestilence Chapter Six: Leprosy and Syphilis in Early Modern Literature Medieval Leprosy and Its Influence on Syphilis: Fracastoro, Bacon, and Spenser--Jonson, Shakespeare, and Ford Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

    Biography

    Byron Lee Grigsby is Assistant Professor of English at Centenary College in New Jersey. He is the President and General Editor of Medica: The Journal for the Study of Health and Healing in the Middle Ages and Renaissance and has published articles in Modern Language Association's Teaching Medicine and Literature, in Essays in Medieval Studies, and is the co-editor with Steve Harris of Misconceptions of the Middle Ages.

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