John Donne’s Language of Disease reveals the influence of medical knowledge – a rapidly changing field in early modern England – on Donne’s thinking and writing. This knowledge played a crucial role in shaping how Donne understood his everyday experiences, and how he conveyed those experiences in his work. Examining a wide range of his texts through the lens of medical history, this study contends that Donne was both a product of his period and a remarkable exception to it. He used medical language in unexpected and striking ways that made his ideas resonate with his original audience and that still illuminate his ideas for readers today.
Author(s): Alison Bumke
Series: Routledge Studies in Literature and Health Humanities
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 170
City: New York
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Conventions and Notes
Introduction: Exploring Donne’s Dynamic Comparisons
I Early Modern England’s Medical Culture
II Donne’s Medical Metaphors
III Donne, Robert Burton, and Thomas Browne
IV Reading Donne’s Medical Language
Notes
Part I
1 More Than Skin Deep: Dissecting Donne’s Imagery of Humours
I Early Modern Theories of the Humours
II ‘Too Many Vertues’: Writing to Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford
III ‘Free From Flattery’? Writing to Lady Elizabeth Carey
IV Interpreting the ‘Churches Complexion’
Notes
2 Cures and Currency in Donne’s Letters to Patrons
I Alchemy and Patronage in the English Court
II Donne’s Views On Alchemy
III The Alchemical Basis of Donne’s Flattery
IV Teasing the Countess of Bedford
V Manipulating the Countess of Huntington
Notes
3 Swollen Desires: Dropsy and Donne’s Writing
I Dropsy in Early Modern England
II ‘A Holy Thirsty Dropsy’: Donne’s Holy Sonnet 17
III ‘Th’hydroptique Drunkard’: Donne’s Holy Sonnet 3
Notes
Part II
4 ‘We May Have Recourse’: Describing Illness in Donne’s Devotions
I. Mapping a Disease’s ‘Many Pieces’
II. Matching Disease to ‘What It Resembles’
III. Reading Symptoms That ‘Say Nothing’
Notes
5 ‘Sinfull Inough to Infect’: Donne’s Imagery of Contagion
I Life in Plague-Stricken London
II ‘Confession Works as a Vomit’: Donne’s Sermon On Psalm 38:3
III ‘Purging Physick’: Donne’s Sermon On Genesis 17:24
Notes
6 ‘Holy Perfume’: The Fragrance of Cures in Donne’s Sermons
I Smelling Sin: Donne’s First Sermon On I Corinthians 15:29
II Spikenard and Donne’s Sermon On Psalm 6:2–3
III Treacle and Donne’s First Sermon On Matthew 18:7
Notes
Conclusion: ‘How Lame a Picture’: Depicting the Sick Body
Notes
Bibliography
Index
