Feigned Illness and Bodily Legibility in Eighteenth- Century British Culture
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Feigned Illness and Bodily Legibility in Eighteenth- Century British Culture Submitted by Jessica Kate Monaghan, to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, January 2015. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. (Signature) ......................................................................................... Acknowledgements Funding for my PhD studies was provided through the generous support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisors Prof. Jonathan Barry and Prof. Nick Groom for excellent advice and support throughout my PhD. I really appreciate all the time and effort that you have dedicated to helping me develop my research. Your knowledge, encouragement, and insight have made it a pleasure to be your student. Thanks to my colleagues at the University of Exeter and elsewhere whose thought-provoking questions prompted me to consider my research in new lights. It has been wonderful to be part of such a lively research community. My thanks also go to Prof. Peter Borsay and Prof. Angelique Richardson for a thoughtful and rigorous examination of my thesis. I very much enjoyed discussing my research with you, and am grateful for your time and feedback. Finally, special thanks go to all my friends and family who have supported me throughout my PhD studies, and beyond. I couldn’t have done this without you. 1 Feigned Illness and Bodily Legibility Chapter 1 – Theorising somatic simulation Abstract The simulation of sickness intrigued British writers from the very beginning of the eighteenth century, attracting attention within a wide range of social spheres. Drawing upon texts from the fields of literature, medicine, theology, welfare policy, the military, and the law courts, this interdisciplinary thesis combines close textual analysis with an examination of social and cultural contexts in order to explain why the issue of feigned illness became such a prevalent and enduring source of debate in eighteenth-century Britain. Both the allure and the threat of simulated sickness lay in the ability of ill health to confer power upon the sufferer. On the one hand ill health might operate as a signifier of social or spiritual importance, yet sickness also functioned as a source of practical power, enabling emotional manipulation, exemption from social duties, and access to resources. The perceived benefits of ill health made the identification of simulated illness a matter of importance, yet the subject would not have attracted such attention were it not for prevailing doubts as to the legibility of the body. As this thesis indicates, the varied attitudes towards and representations of simulated sickness provide fascinating insights into the preoccupations of writers of different spheres and periods. Nevertheless, broader trends in attitudes towards bodily legibility and feigned illness are visible. Early eighteenth-century writers were generally wary of trusting external appearances, while the middle decades of the century were marked by an expression of faith in the natural legibility of the body, as demonstrated by the fashion for the literature of sensibility, acting through feeling, and the medico-literary rhetoric of nerves. Renewed scepticism towards the close of the century resulted in growing debates about the duty of medical practitioners to detect feigned illness, and the methods by which this might be accomplished. While the treatment of the subject evolved, its continued relevance highlights a sustained cultural preoccupation with the legibility of the body and its potential to mislead or even deceive, a subject that continued to fascinate writers to the very end of the eighteenth century. 2 Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................... 1 Abstract ........................................................................................................... 2 Contents .......................................................................................................... 3 Introduction .................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 1 – Theorising somatic simulation ............................................... 23 Chapter 2 – Fashionable illness ................................................................. 58 Chapter 3 – Religious imposture .............................................................. 132 Chapter 4 – Domestic simulation ............................................................. 171 Chapter 5 – Institutional malingering ....................................................... 221 Chapter 6 – A duty of detection? .............................................................. 249 Chapter 7 – Detecting simulation ............................................................. 283 Conclusions ................................................................................................ 318 Bibliography ............................................................................................... 328 3 Introduction ‘The advantages resulting from an affectation of ill health and infirmity are incalculable’, observed the writer Anthony Pasquin in a satirical footnote addressed to the young ladies of late eighteenth-century Brighton.1 Pasquin was not alone in this view, or in his interest in feigned illness. The simulation of sickness for material or social gain had intrigued British writers from the very beginning of the century. As early as 1700, Cloe, the servant in William Burnaby’s comedy The Reform’d Wife, remarked that ‘[t]hese Ladies make themselves Sick, to make themselves business, and are well or ill, only in Ceremony to each other’.2 Feigned illness was not the sole preserve of ladies of fashion however, and the subject attracted attention within a wide range of social spheres. In 1788 William Henry Hall wrote an encyclopaedia entry on ‘Diseases Feigned’, warning that ‘[t]he impositions practised by feigning diseases have lately been more prevalent than ever’, and citing examples of such deceit among beggars and medical charlatans, as well as ladies of high society. 3 This thesis explores the eighteenth-century preoccupation with inauthentic illness, arguing that although fears of feigned illness were often shaped by very specific social and economic circumstances, such concerns were also the product of broader and enduring apprehensions about the legibility of the body. As writers such as Pasquin observed, the allure and the threat of simulated sickness lay in the ability of ill health to confer power upon the sufferer, with concerns about inauthentic illness reflecting contemporary beliefs about the position of illness as both a source of leverage and a form of social signification.4 ‘[I]t opens a timely door for a retreat from company they may either envy or hate; and to lisp, limp, and seem half blind, have the glory of novelty with the million, who will regard them with astonishment’, Pasquin noted, highlighting the ability of infirmity to operate as a practical excuse and 1 Anthony Pasquin (pseud., John Williams), The New Brighton Guide (London, 1796), 25n. 2 William Burnaby, The Reform'd Wife (London, 1700), 10. 3 William Henry Hall, The New Royal Encyclopædia; or, Complete Modern Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, on an Improved Plan (London, 1788), [42n, unpaginated]. 4 The terms ‘signifier’, ‘signify’, and ‘signification’ are used throughout this thesis in their broadest sense, rather than as terms of semiotic analysis. 4 Feigned Illness and Bodily Legibility Introduction also as a form of display or self-fashioning.5 The perceived benefits of ill health rendered the identification of simulated illness a matter of importance, yet the subject would not have attracted such attention were it not for prevailing doubts as to the legibility of the human body. Opinion on this issue varied over the course of the century, with the middle decades witnessing an increased tendency to portray the body as a natural and highly legible signifier of interior and intangible states, while early- and late eighteenth-century writers were more sceptical.6 Despite fluctuations in debates on the subject however, a certain proportion of writers always expressed ambivalence if not outright distrust in the legibility of the body. Historiography In arguing that eighteenth-century concerns about feigned illness stemmed from longstanding ambivalence about the power of the unhealthy body to signify information of social import, this thesis builds upon much crucial earlier and current scholarship in the fields of literature, medicine, and cultural history. Where Feigned Illness and Bodily Legibility breaks new ground is in the evaluation and comparison of attitudes towards bodily legibility across a range of very different social spheres. As a topic that prompted debate in many disparate settings and across the course of the century, the exploration of feigned illness facilitates the examination of eighteenth-century attitudes towards bodily legibility on dual levels, highlighting the specific social, economic and cultural contexts