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
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... thou hast heard all my progeny, wilt thou bid me to supper? FAUSTUS. No, I'll see thee hanged. Thou wilt eat up all my victuals. GLUTTONY. Then the devil choke thee! FAUSTUS. Choke thyself, glutton! (Marlowe 1993, 'A-Text' 2.3.l40-l54) ...
... thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!” (l0: 17) and when the same book advises “There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink ...
... thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented” (16:25), and mentioned in the homily against gluttony—since an audience might well think there is a ...
... thou embowel me today, I'll give you leave to powder me, and eat me too, tomorrow” (1:5.4.110- l1). Sir John here alludes to mumia, or mummy (the remains of an embalmed corpse often consumed for therapeutic purposes), his obsession with ...
... thou a feverous life shouldst entertain, / And six or seven winters more respect / Than a perpetual honour. (3.1.73-5) and the Duke responds to Escalus's query “What news abroad i' th' world?” with “None, but that there is so great 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 |