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Orlemanski explores the texts of her vernacular writers to show how they deployed the rich terminology of embodiment and its ailments to portray symptomatic figures who struggled to control both their bodies and the interpretations that gave their bodies meaning. As medical paradigms mingled with penitential, miraculous, and socially symbolic systems, these texts demanded that a growing number of readers negotiate the conflicting claims of material causation, intentional action, and divine power. Examining both the medical writings of late medieval England and the narrative and poetic works that responded to them, Symptomatic Subjects illuminates the period's conflicts over who had the authority to construe bodily signs and what embodiment could be made to mean.
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Symptomatic Subjects Alembics: Penn Studies in Liter ature and Science Mary Thomas Crane and Henry S. Turner, Series Editors Symptomatic Subjects Bodies, Medicine, and Causation in the Literature of Late Medieval England Julie Orlemanski u n i v e r s i t y of pe n ns y lva n i a pr e s s p h i l a de l p h i a Copyright © 2019 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Orlemanski, Julie, author. Title: Symptomatic subjects : bodies, medicine, and causation in the literature of late medieval England / Julie Orlemanski. Other titles: Alembics. Description: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2019] | Series: Alembics : Penn studies in literature and science | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018045209| ISBN 9780812250909 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 0812250907 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Literature and medicine—England—History—To 1500. | Diseases—England—Causes and theories of causation—History—To 1500. | English literature—Middle English, 1100–1500—History and criticism. | Human body in literature. | Causation in literature. Classification: LCC R702 .O75 2019 | DDC 610.942—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018045209 For my family This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Abbreviations Introduction ix 1 Part I. Thinking with Phisik Chapter 1. Imagining Etiology Chapter 2. Cause, Authority, Sign, and Book 9 41 Part II. Playing with Phisik Chapter 3. Satire and Medical Materialism 81 Chapter 4. Embodying Causation in Exempla 113 Part III. Emplotting Phisik Chapter 5. The Metaphysics of Phisik in the “Knight’s Tale” 147 Chapter 6. Desire and Defacement in the Testament of Cresseid 182 viii Contents Part IV. Personalizing Phisik Chapter 7. Symptoms and the Signifying Condition in Hoccleve’s Series 217 Chapter 8. From Noise to Narration in the Book of Margery Kempe 249 Coda 278 Notes 281 Works Cited 307 Index 325 Acknowledgments 331 Abbreviations DMLBS Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources. 3 vols. Ed. Richard Ashdowne, David Howlett, and Ronald Latham. Oxford: British Academy, 2018. Online edition: http://www.brepolis.net. DOST A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Online edition, 2004: http://www.dsl.ac.uk/. Du Cange Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis. 10 vols. Ed. Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange. Niort : L. Favre, 1883–1887. On