Food in Shakespeare: Early Modern Dietaries and the PlaysA 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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 21
... bear” Vegetarian Feasts 4 Famine and Abstinence, Class War, and Foreign Foodstuff Sir Thomas More Close to Home: Dirt, Cannibalism, and the Stereotypes of Ireland Coriolanus Pericles 5 Beyond the Pale: Profane Consumption Hamlet Timon ...
... bear': it seems that Bohemia contains the potential to restore Leontes to his former health, an ironic state of affairs since Leontes has been wholly responsible for banishing that which will benefit him. Chapter 4, entitled 'Famine and ...
... bear in mind that there may have been some exaggeration about the extent and profligacy of Roman feasting (Friedlander 1908, 150). Petronius's Satyricon describes a seemingly never-ending feast with numerous courses, all of them ...
... bear on a side dish. Scintilla was rash enough to taste it, and nearly brought up her own inside. I ate over a pound myself, for it tasted like proper wild boar. To finish up with we had cheese mellowed in new wine, and snails all round ...
... bear a base mind. An 't be my destiny, so; an 't be not, so. No man's too good to serve's prince. And let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next. (2:3.2.232-6) Feeble would presumably have been played by a ...
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 |