Title: Pestilence in Medieval and early modern English literature
Description: 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.
Subjects: Diseases, Diseases in literature, English literature, Epidemics, History, History and criticism, Literature and medicine, Medicine, Medicine in literature, Plague, Plague in literature, English literature, history and criticism, early modern, 1500-1700, Plague, great britain, Medieval Medicine, Syphilis, Leprosy, History, Early Modern 1451-1600, Medieval History, Littérature anglaise, Histoire et critique, Médecine dans la littérature, Littérature et médecine, Histoire, Maladies, Médecine, Peste, Maladies dans la littérature, Peste dans la littérature, Médecine médiévale, LITERARY CRITICISM, European, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Early Modern History of Medicine, Medieval History of Medicine, Early modern, Middle English
Places: England, Great Britain
Time periods: 16th century, 17th century, Early modern, 1500-1700, Middle English, 1100-1500, To 1500