DOCSLIB.ORG

Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600-1740

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600-1740 Cole, Lucinda. Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600-1740. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.4424519. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages Imperfect Creatures Cole, Lucinda. Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600-1740. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.4424519. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages Cole, Lucinda. Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600-1740. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.4424519. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages Imperfect Creatures Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600– 1740 Lucinda Cole University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor Cole, Lucinda. Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600-1740. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.4424519. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages Copyright © University of Michigan 2016 All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid- free paper 2019 2018 2017 2016 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978- 0- 472- 07295- 8 (hardcover : alk paper) ISBN 978- 0- 472- 05295- 0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978- 0- 472- 12155- 7 (ebook) Cole, Lucinda. Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600-1740. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.4424519. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages Acknowledgments My grateful thanks, first, to my editor Aaron McCollough at University of Michigan Press, who perceived the academic value of this quirky project, and to Mary Hashman, Allison Peters, and others in Ann Arbor who saw it through to the end. During the course of this research, I received help from staff at several li- braries in the United States: The Newberry, University of Southern Maine, University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign, and Bowdoin College. The Kup- ferstichkabinett at the Staatliche Museum of Berlin provided access to the drawings of Jacques de Gheyn II, without which Imperfect Creatures might never have been conceived. Laura Otis, Thomas Pfau, and Heidi Hartwriter provided invaluable scholarly assistance in securing these permissions. In the early stages of this project, Tito Chico and Cristobal Silva at Eigh- teenth Century: Theory and Interpretation gave me the opportunity to edit a special issue on animal studies. Contributors Bruce Boehrer, Erica Fudge, Laura Brown, Donna Landry, Richard Nash, Jonathan Lamb, and Cary Wolfe showed me how animal studies might be done. Rick Barney, Helene Scheck, and the readers at Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, along with participants at a 2009 Rhetorics of Plague conference, offered positive feedback and sound advice as I worked to articulate why, even prior to germ theory, vermin played crucial roles in early modern biopolitics. Over the years, I’ve benefited immeasurably from the conversation, scholarship, and interdisciplinary fervor of my SLSA (Society for Litera- ture, Science, and the Arts) family: Karen Raber (no stranger to parasites), Susan McHugh, Bruce Clarke, Nigel Rothfels, Arielle Saiber, Ann Kibbie, Christopher Morris, Spencer Schaffner, Melissa Littlefield, Carol Colatrel- la, Laura Otis, Stacy Alaimo, Kari Weil, and Susan Squier. The humorous, Cole, Lucinda. Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600-1740. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.4424519. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages vi Acknowledgments wise, and generous Richard Nash has been a pillar of support. Ron Schle- ifer, whose intellectual generosity is well known, gave me crucial guidance at key stages in this process. Rajani Sudan’s cats run through chapter 5, and her cheerful skepticism about the anthropocene partially motivated the final pages of this book. Colleagues at the University of Southern Maine who have supported my work in animal and ecological studies over the years include Eve Raimon, Rick Swartz, Lorrayne Carroll, Wendy Chapkis, Lauren Webster LaFrance, Kathleen Ashley, Susan Feiner, Robert Louden, and Jane Kuenz. Nancy Gish deserves special thanks for her ongoing vermin alerts and Rick Abrams for his early and invaluable comments on Shakespeare. In Piers Beirne, I found a role model and fellow traveler. Because they populated my interdis- ciplinary classes, USM students enabled me to write this book; from Caitlin Huber and Meaghan LaSala, I learned more than I taught. Bret Tonelli gave me courage. My friends at Bowdoin—Da vid Collings, Terri Nickel, and Ce- leste Goodridge— have been good- natured, patient, and valuable listeners through the book’s many stages, and endless sources of texts, food, wine, and insight. Over the past five years, I have leaned heavily on members of my family, and this book is as much theirs as it is mine. First, my parents and my sister Melanie gave me the opportunity for concentrated work when, during my last sabbatical, they welcomed me, and the dogs, while I wrote. My mother, Jean Cole, was an unfailing source of love and inspiration. My father, Mar- vin Cole, passed away shortly after I completed the manuscript, and I only wish that he had seen this book in its published form. It would have made him smile. Finally, my husband Robert Markley served heroically as real- ity checker, mood booster, copyeditor, tea servant, and dog walker. Imperfect Creatures is dedicated to Bob, the most perfect of all the imperfect creatures I know. Cole, Lucinda. Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600-1740. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.4424519. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages Contents Introduction Reading beneath the Grain 1 Chapter 1. Rats, Witches, Miasma, and Early Modern Theories of Contagion 24 Chapter 2. Swarming Things: Dearth and the Plagues of Egypt in Wither and Cowley 49 Chapter 3. “Observe the Frog”: Imperfect Creatures, Neuroanatomy, and the Problem of the Human 81 Chapter 4. Libertine Biopolitics: Dogs, Bitches, and Parasites in Shadwell, Rochester, and Gay 111 Chapter 5. What Happened to the Rats? Hoarding, Hunger, and Storage on Crusoe’s Island 143 Afterword We Have Never Been Perfect 172 Notes 179 Bibliography 211 Index 235 Cole, Lucinda. Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600-1740. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.4424519. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Cole, Lucinda. Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600-1740. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.4424519. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages Introduction Reading beneath the Grain CLOV: (anguished, scratching himself): I have a flea! HAMM: A flea! Are there still fleas? CLOV: On me there’s one. (Scratching.) Unless it’s a crab louse. HAMM. (Very perturbed.) But humanity might start from there all over again! — Samuel Beckett, Endgame In the last three decades, animal studies has influenced every discipline in the humanities, including literary studies, encouraging scholars to acknowl- edge the anthropocentrism of the stories we have been telling about our- selves and the natural world. Nuanced analyses of what Aristotle called the “more perfect creatures” have introduced new life forms into traditional liter- ary and cultural history, so that once- overlooked references to horses, dogs, apes, bears, cats, wolves, and other beasts in early modern texts now shim- mer again with complex meaning.1 Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life recovers a category of creatures—ver min— whose philosophical and literary significance in the period between 1600 and 1740 has been underestimated, if not erased. Historically, “vermin” is a slippery term because it refers neither to a particular biological classification nor to a group of genetically related animals; instead, it names a category of creatures defined according to an often unstable nexus of traits: usually small, always vile, and, in large numbers, noxious and even dangerous to agricultural and sociopolitical orders. The characteristic feature of vermin is they reproduce Cole, Lucinda. Imperfect Creatures: Vermin, Literature, and the Sciences of Life, 1600-1740. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.4424519. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages 2 imperfect creatures so rapidly and in such numbers they threaten to overwhelm their biological, environmental and— from a human perspective— sociolegal contexts. The first full- length study of vermin in the early modern period, Im- perfect Creatures is not a straightforward cultural history but an interdis- ciplinary analysis of how and why these reproducing animal populations, perceived as threats to a fragile food supply, make their way into seven- teenth- and early eighteenth- century literature and philosophy. Vermin play an important role in Shakespeare’s Macbeth; they are natural antagonists in the plague poetry of Abraham Cowley; and they enable Thomas Shadwell’s satire of science, along with his critique of a parasitical social order. As the constitutionally simple beings against which the complexity of the human brain and body are defined, imperfect creatures anchor experiments in early modern neuroanatomy.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Laura Sumrall a Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Science in Fulfillment
    A STRANGE GUEST: THE DEMONOLOGICAL FRAMING OF THE PATHOLOGICAL IN HELMONTIAN MEDICINE Laura Sumrall A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Science in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History and Philosophy of Science The University of Sydney September 2020 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................................. iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ........................................................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................................... v INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Jan Baptista van Helmont and His Histories ........................................................................... 3 Present Purposes .......................................................................................................................... 6 Descriptive Outline ...................................................................................................................... 6 PART I: DEMONS ...................................................................................................................................... 8 CHAPTER 1: THE REGURGITATED KNIFE: DEMONIC POWER AND THE BOUNDARIES OF NATURE ............................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Verse and Transmutation History of Science and Medicine Library
    Verse and Transmutation History of Science and Medicine Library VOLUME 42 Medieval and Early Modern Science Editors J.M.M.H. Thijssen, Radboud University Nijmegen C.H. Lüthy, Radboud University Nijmegen Editorial Consultants Joël Biard, University of Tours Simo Knuuttila, University of Helsinki Jürgen Renn, Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science Theo Verbeek, University of Utrecht VOLUME 21 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hsml Verse and Transmutation A Corpus of Middle English Alchemical Poetry (Critical Editions and Studies) By Anke Timmermann LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 On the cover: Oswald Croll, La Royalle Chymie (Lyons: Pierre Drobet, 1627). Title page (detail). Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical Library, Chemical Heritage Foundation. Photo by James R. Voelkel. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Timmermann, Anke. Verse and transmutation : a corpus of Middle English alchemical poetry (critical editions and studies) / by Anke Timmermann. pages cm. – (History of Science and Medicine Library ; Volume 42) (Medieval and Early Modern Science ; Volume 21) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-25484-8 (hardback : acid-free paper) – ISBN 978-90-04-25483-1 (e-book) 1. Alchemy–Sources. 2. Manuscripts, English (Middle) I. Title. QD26.T63 2013 540.1'12–dc23 2013027820 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1872-0684 ISBN 978-90-04-25484-8 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-25483-1 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
    [Show full text]
  • IL ISKO Encyclopedia
    Vrije Universiteit Brussel Ideal language Laporte, Steven Published in: Knowledge Organization DOI: 10.5771/0943-7444-2018-7-586 Publication date: 2018 License: Unspecified Document Version: Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Laporte, S. (2018). Ideal language. Knowledge Organization, 45(7), 586-608. https://doi.org/10.5771/0943-7444- 2018-7-586 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 23. Sep. 2021 Ideal language by Steven Laporte Table of contents: 1. Introduction 2. Natural and ideal language 2.1 Ideal or merely universal? 2.2 Natural and artificial languages and semiotic systems 2.3 Key components of ideal language 2.4 Knowledge Organisation Systems (KOS) and ideal language 2.5 The Tower of Babel and the monogenetic hypothesis 2.6 A priori philosophical languages 3: Ideal languages in the Middle Ages and early Modern period 3.1 Ramon Llull and the Ars Magna: 3.1.1 A topical outline of Llullian combinatorics; 3.1.2 The Arbor scientiae; 3.1.3 Llull’s legacy 3.2 Leibniz and the Lingua Generalis: 3.2.1 Coding language; 3.2.2 Leibniz’s Legacy 4.
    [Show full text]
  • The Intellectual and Social Declines of Alchemy and Astrology, Circa 1650-1720
    The intellectual and social declines of alchemy and astrology, circa 1650-1720 John Clements PhD University of York History December 2017 Abstract: By the early decades of the eighteenth century alchemy and astrology had ceased to be considered respectable or credible by elite society. Astrology had been removed from university curricula, while alchemy largely ceased to be publicly practised by the educated and respected and became regarded by those of elite status to be little more than a tool for charlatans or quacks. This thesis draws out these twin declines and considers them in parallel, focusing on trying to analyse what changed intellectually and socially within England to so dramatically alter the fates of these arts. There is a scholarly tradition which has discussed the declines of alchemy and astrology as part of a broader notion of a decline in ‘occult practices’ or ‘magic’, an idea which is often twinned with the wider notion of a ‘rise of science’. This thesis will therefore consider alchemy and astrology as connected arts, which nevertheless possessed separate identities, and then analyse these arts’ declines alongside each other. Through this process it will explore to what degree and in what ways one can describe the declines of these arts as part of one unified trend, or if one needs to interpret these declines as purely grounded in their own unique circumstances. By utilising the works of alchemical and astrological practitioners and placing the decline of these arts in a longer historical context this thesis studies what those who practised the arts considered to be their core conceptual components and will therefore analyse how these elements were changed or challenged by intellectual developments that occurred in the second half of the seventeenth century.
    [Show full text]
  • John Webster's the White Devil
    JOHN WEBSTER’S THE WHITE DEVIL: A LITERARY ARTIFACT OF THE JACOBEAN STRUGGLE FOR POWER BY KING, POPE, AND MACHIAVEL by KATHERINE JEANNETTE MOODY CAREY (Under the Direction of Charles B. Davis) ABSTRACT This past century, playwright John Webster has gained in prominence within the canon of English Renaissance dramatic literature. Webster published his first independently written play, The White Devil, in 1612. The play’s title proves enigmatic because no single character within the text is identified as the white devil. Re-examining the play’s title in terms of historical and cultural significance, I posit that Webster’s elusive white devil is the papacy fraught with corruption and abuse of absolute power. I also wish to examine Webster’s play as a comment on the corruption and abuse of absolute political power within the reigning monarchy of James I. Jacobean England’s power structure was evolving from a medieval feudal system toward a class structure including a thriving professional stratum with earning potential, land purchase opportunities, and municipal government representation. Corruption and abuse of power threatened this new-found bourgeois power. If James and the Catholic Church were to realign, divine right absolutism could destroy England’s evolving class structure. Literary anthropology and new historicism offer an avenue for discourse on The White Devil as a seventeenth-century literary artifact. Both James and the papacy claimed divine right absolutism to rule, both considered themselves above subjugation to human law, both demanded complete obeisance of subjects, and both abused their power. Because censorship restricted playwrights’ comments on the reigning monarch, anti- Catholic rhetoric could be enacted onstage, offering the same warning in a safely veiled package.
    [Show full text]
  • Averroes' Natural Philosophy and Its Reception in the Latin West Http
    Averroes’ Natural Philosophy and its Reception in the Latin West Edited by Paul J.J.M. Bakker With contributions from: Jean-Baptiste Brenet (Universite de Paris I – Pantheon-Sorbonne), Cristina Cerami (cnrs, umr 7219:sphere/chspam), Silvia Donati (Albertus-Magnus-Institut, Bonn), Dag Nikolaus Hasse (Julius-Maximilians-Universitat Wurzburg), Craig Martin (Oakland University), Edith Dudley Sylla (North Carolina State University), Cecilia Trifogli (All Souls College, Oxford) © 2015 by Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain / Universitaire Pers Leuven, Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium) ISBN 978 94 6270 046 8 D / 2015 / 1869 / 48 Distributed by Leuven University Press http://upers.kuleuven.be/nl/book/9789462700468 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 2015167 [Bakker] 001-Prelims-print [date 1510191536 : version 1509110900] page -3 AVERROES’ NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND ITS RECEPTION IN THE LATIN WEST Edited by Paul J.J.M. Bakker LEUVEN UNIVERSITY PRESS Reprint from Averroes’ Natural Philosophy and its Reception in the Latin West - ISBN 978 94 6270 046 8 - © Leuven University Press, 2015 2015167 [Bakker] 001-Prelims-print [date 1510191536 : version 1509110900] page -4 © 2015 by De Wulf-Mansioncentrum – De Wulf-Mansion Centre Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain / Universitaire Pers Leuven Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium) All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of this publication may be multiplied, saved in an automated datafile or made public in any way whatsoever without the express prior written consent of the publishers. ISBN 978 94 6270 046 8 D/2015/1869/48 NUR: 732 Reprint from Averroes’ Natural Philosophy and its Reception in the Latin West - ISBN 978 94 6270 046 8 - © Leuven University Press, 2015 2015167 [Bakker] 001-Prelims-print [date 1510191536 : version 1509110900] page -5 ..
    [Show full text]
  • Alligation Alternate and the Composition of Medicines: Arithmetic and Medicine in Early Modern England
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by PubMed Central Medical History, 2005, 49: 299–320 Alligation Alternate and the Composition of Medicines: Arithmetic and Medicine in Early Modern England ALVAN BREGMAN* Practical mathematics in the early modern period was applied to such fields as astron- omy and navigation; cartography and surveying; engineering and military arts, including gunnery; and especially banking and mercantile trade. Those who have written about practical mathematics make no mention of medical applications in their surveys, although there were many cases where physicians set up as mathematical practitioners.1 This article examines medical applications found in practical mathematical literature up to the end of the seventeenth century in England. While instruction in the medical applications of mathematics are scarcely to be found in earlier English publications, we shall see that a sudden minor outburst occurred in the 1650s, when three separate arithmetics appeared with chapters on ‘‘the composition of medicines’’. These chapters were each associated with a mathematical operation called ‘‘alligation’’, a term which means ‘‘tying together’’. There are two main types of alligation: ‘‘alligation medial’’ for simple problems and ‘‘alligation alternate’’ for use when varied quantities and elements are to be mixed. It was the technique called alligation alternate that was adapted specifically to the composition of medicines in these arithmetics. Alligation was a relatively advanced arithmetical operation, presupposing a knowledge of the rules of proportion. As such, alligation was usually presented near the end of arithmetical texts. Most commonly the examples used to explain alligation involved grains, metals, wines or spices.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    Notes Introduction 1. William Lilly, Christian Astrology (London: Printed by John Macock, 1659), b. 2. Lilly, ‘The Epistle Dedicatory’, in Christian Astrology. 3. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy,trans.Donald Tyson (St. Paul: Llewellyn Publication, 2004), p. 5. 4. S. A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses (1486) (Tempe, AZ: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1998), 9>5–9>3, pp. 494–6, 2>75, p. 395. 5. Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy,p.5. 6. Giambattista della Porta, Natural Magick, ed. Derek J. Price (New York: Basic Books, 1958; reprint of London: Printed for Thomas Young and Samuel Speed, 1658), p. 8. 7. A. I. Sabra, ‘Situating Arabic Science’, Isis, 87 (December, 1996), pp. 654–70 (655). 8. It was attributed erroneously to the astronomer and mathematician Maslama al-Majriti (d. c.398/1008), an attribution made in the Muqaddima of Ibn Khaldun. It has become widely accepted that it was penned by Maslama al-Qurtubi as identified by Maribel Fierro and confirmed by Godefroid de Callataÿ. See David Pingree, ‘Some Sources of the Ghayat al-hakim– ’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 43 (1980), pp. 1–15 (1). Abd al-Rahman b. Muhammad– Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddima, ed. Darwish Juwaydi (Beirut: al- maktaba al- asriyya, 2000), pp. 483, 507. Mushegh Asatrian, ‘Ibn Khaldun on Magic and the Occult’, Iran and the Caucasus, 7/1 (2003), pp. 73–123 (97–9). Maribel Fierro, ‘Batinism in al-Andalus. Maslama b. Qasim al-Qurtubi Author of the Rutbat al-hakim and the Ghayat al-hakim’, Studia Islamica,84 (1996), pp.
    [Show full text]
  • PDF (Alchemy and Exemplary Narrative In
    Durham E-Theses Alchemy and Exemplary Narrative in Middle English Poetry RUNSTEDLER, CURTIS,THOMAS How to cite: RUNSTEDLER, CURTIS,THOMAS (2018) Alchemy and Exemplary Narrative in Middle English Poetry, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12593/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Alchemy and Exemplary Narrative in Middle English Poetry by Curtis Runstedler A thesis submitted in fulfilment for the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Durham 2017 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author or the university to which it was submitted. No quotation from it, or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author or university, and any information derived from it should be acknowledged. Runstedler 2 ABSTRACT Alchemy and Exemplary Narrative in Middle English Poetry This thesis examines the role of alchemy in Middle English poetry from fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England, particularly how these poems present themselves as exemplary narratives to raise moral points about human behaviour, fallibility, and alchemical experimentation.
    [Show full text]
  • THE LIBRARY of JOHN WEBSTER the Manuscript of the Catalogue Of
    2 THE LIBRARY OF JOHN WEBSTER INTRODUCTION The manuscript ofthe catalogue ofthe library ofDr John Webster ofClitheroe is to be found today in the archives ofChetham's library, Manchester (Chetham MS A.6.47). It was previously in the ownership of the celebrated Lancashire antiquarian, James Crossley, who was himself given the manuscript on 12 June 1876 by a friend, the Reverend Thomas Corser of Stand.46 The manuscript consists of twenty-two foliated leaves bound with marbled boards and leather spine, and is almost certainly a copy of an original draft, composed by Webster himself, probably for the purpose of evaluating his estate.47 In Webster's will, dated 3 January 1680 (see Appendix 1), the contents ofthe library were valued at £400, a figure roughly approximating to the more accurate catalogue evaluation of £402 6s. 10d. The catalogue is systematically arranged according to subject and book-size and would appear to reflect the original plan ofthe books as they actually appeared on the shelves of Webster's library. It comprises fifteen sections (which, for the sake of convenience, I have labelled A to 0) with 1501 entries in total. This figure, however, is not an accurate assessment of the number of volumes once possessed by Webster. Although it is impossible to give a precise figure,48 a conservative estimate would indicate a total number ofvolumes in the region of 1662 (a figure which includes works from Section M which were not in Webster's possession at the time the catalogue was produced). Clearly, the sheer size of Webster's library is one of its most striking features, but what else, apart from the broadest generalizations, can it tell us about the owner ofthis collection? The limited use of such evidence is all too obvious.
    [Show full text]
  • Improvising the Paradigms: Aquinas, Creation and the Eternal Ideas As Anti-Platonic Ontology the Platonic Philosophy of Eternal
    "This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: “Improvising the Paradigms: Aquinas, Creation and the Eternal Ideas as Anti-Platonic Ontology,” which has been published in final form at DOI: 10.1111/moth.12281. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving." Improvising the Paradigms: Aquinas, Creation and the Eternal Ideas as Anti-Platonic Ontology Rien n’est, du moins rien n’est absolument (dans le domaine linquistique) De Saussure Dans la langue il n’y a que des differences De Saussure Deus . scit enuntiabilia non per modum enuntiabilium Aquinas The Platonic philosophy of eternal ideas was for centuries gladly appropriated by Christian thinkers. Famous warnings about gift-bearing Greeks should perhaps have been heeded, however, since this particular Trojan horse smuggled into the being of the monotheistic creator a pernicious multitude, akin to a viral infection. The logic of Platonic position time and again has invited theologians to locate the archetypes of created things as distinct existences “within” God’s own understanding, but in a way utterly detached from the creative will of God. Hence the problem: if the creature’s free determination by God from nothing is precisely the mark of its creation ex nihilo, yet its proper creaturely identity is already a predefined feature of God’s own being, then either it cannot really be created in the full sense of that word, or else in some sense it always already has been! The considerations that follow will address this conundrum by suggesting that Thomas Aquinas’s rethinking of the creative role of the divine ideas moves in a decidedly more voluntarist direction, extricating them from Platonist ontological assumptions.
    [Show full text]
  • Martyrdom and Nationhood in Seventeenth-Century Drama" (2011)
    University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2011 Sacrificial Acts: Martyrdom and Nationhood in Seventeenth- Century Drama Kelley Kay Hogue Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Hogue, Kelley Kay, "Sacrificial Acts: Martyrdom and Nationhood in Seventeenth-Century Drama" (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 139. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/139 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SACRIFICIAL ACTS: MARTYRDOM AND NATIONHOOD IN SEVENTEENTH- CENTURY DRAMA A Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Deparment of English The University of Mississippi By KELLEY KAY HOGUE May 2011 Copyright Kelley Kay Hogue 2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT Sacrificial Acts: Martyrdom and Nationhood in Seventeenth-Century Drama posits that the importance of sixteenth-century martyrologies in defining England’s national identity extends to the seventeenth century through popular representations of martyrdom on the page and stage. I argue that drama functions as a gateway between religious and secular conceptions of martyrdom; thus, this dissertation charts the transformation of martyrological narratives from early modern editions of John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments to the execution of the Royal Martyr, Charles I. Specifically, I contend that seventeenth-century plays shaped the secularization of martyrdom in profound ways by staging the sacrificial suffering and deaths of female heroines in a variety of new contexts.
    [Show full text]