|
|
|||
|
||||
OverviewIn eighteenth-century Britain the worlds of literature and medicine were closely intertwined, and a diverse group of people participated in the circulation of medical knowledge. In this pre-professionalized milieu, several women writers made important contributions by describing a range of common yet often devastating illnesses. In Reimagining Illness Heather Meek reads works by six major eighteenth-century women writers – Jane Barker, Anne Finch, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Frances Burney – alongside contemporaneous medical texts to explore conditions such as hysteria, melancholy, smallpox, maternity, consumption, and breast cancer. In novels, poems, letters, and journals, these writers drew on their learning and literary skill as they engaged with and revised male-dominated medical discourse. Their works provide insight into the experience of suffering and interrogate accepted theories of women’s bodies and minds. In ways relevant both then and now, these women demonstrate how illness might be at once a bodily condition and a malleable construct full of ideological meaning and imaginative possibility. Reimagining Illness offers a new account of the vital period in medico-literary history between 1660 and 1815, revealing how the works of women writers not only represented the medicine of their time but also contributed meaningfully to its developments. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Heather MeekPublisher: McGill-Queen's University Press Imprint: McGill-Queen's University Press ISBN: 9780228019060ISBN 10: 0228019060 Pages: 324 Publication Date: 15 November 2023 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Not yet available This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release. Table of ContentsReviewsPutting women's literary works in conversation with the emergent discipline of medicine in the eighteenth century, Heather Meek explores the nuanced positions of women in relation to the often-competing medical discourses of the time. Never before has a study brought together eighteenth-century medical and women's literary texts in such a deep and extensive way. And the very fact that six major writers of the period can be studied together to demonstrate their serious engagement with what is typically understood as a male-dominated field indicates the immense value of this project. Betty A. Schellenberg, Simon Fraser University and author of The Professionalization of Women Writers in Eighteenth-Century Britain Author InformationHeather Meek is associate professor of English studies at the Université de Montréal. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |