Rhetorics of Bodily Disease and Health in Medieval and Early Modern England

Contributors analyze works by Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton among others to track the development of sustained, nuanced rhetorics of bodily disease and health ” physical, emotional, and spiritual. Focusing on literary genres (epic, lyric, satire, drama, sermon) and cultural history artifacts, the volume examines the extent to which rhetorical figures of sickness and health inform literature, religion, science, and medicine in medieval and early modern England and Europe.