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 17
... bread, and although there is often consensus they differ at times on whether a particular food is harmful to human health. Some odd beliefs emerge, in particular that vegetables and especially fruit should be treated with caution ...
... bread to this intolerable deal of sack'. Throughout Shakespeare's plays excessive consumption of alcohol and food promotes sexual excess, as indeed it does in the dietaries. In Measure for Measure Mistress Overdone, the brothel keeper ...
... done, and beetroot of course, and pure wholemeal bread . The next dish was a cold tart, with excellent Spanish wine poured over warm honey. Indeed I ate a lot of the tan, and gave myself such a soaking of honey. There 14 Food in ...
... bread, provoke Prince Hal to remark “O monstrous! But one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack” (1:2.5.543-4). There is, then, an evident tension between the affection with which Sir John is regarded by audiences and ...
... bread than stone. Hence shall we see If power change purpose, what our seemers be. (l.3.50-54) Angelo is indeed a 'seemer' and although his appetite, which he publicly denies, is for flesh in the form of sex not food, his demands are ...
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 |