Shakespeare, tragedy and menopause : the anxious womb / Victoria L. McMahon.
McMahon, Victoria L.
2023
PR2989
Available Online

Linked e-resources

Linked Resource
Online Access
Concurrent users
Unlimited
Authorized users
Authorized users
Document Delivery Supplied
Can lend chapters, not whole ebooks

Details

Title
Shakespeare, tragedy and menopause : the anxious womb / Victoria L. McMahon.
Author
McMahon, Victoria L.
ISBN
9783031272042 (electronic bk.)
3031272048 (electronic bk.)
303127203X
9783031272035
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27204-2
Publication Details
Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
Language
English
Description
1 online resource
Item Number
10.1007/978-3-031-27204-2 doi
Call Number
PR2989
Dewey Decimal Classification
822.33
Summary
Shakespeare was not only aware of the socio-cultural fears and anxieties generated by the older womans body but with the characterization of his tragic ageing females, Shakespeare becomes the first literary giant to explore the physiological and psychosocial condition that we have come to know as menopause. Although menopause was not defined as a medical, physiological or sociocultural event for the early moderns, this book argues that such a medical and cultural transition can, in fact, be identified by sub-textual clues distinguished by various embodied anxieties. It explores several ageing women of the Shakespearean tragedies as they transition through this liminal menopausal period. Theoretically underscored by humoral theory, the analysis is metonymically centered upon the womb as the seat of menopausal anxiety. These menopausal undercurrents, not only permeate the dramatic action of each play, but also emanate outward to reflect the medical, physiological, cultural, social, and religious concerns generated by the ageing woman of the early modern period at large. Born and raised in Warwickshire, Dr. V. L. McMahon holds advanced degrees in Education, English, and Theatre. As an arts educator for over thirty years, McMahon has written, taught, and implemented Drama and English curricula in Canadas public school system. Having lectured in the Faculties of Theatre and English at the University of Winnipeg, Canada, McMahon is also an actor, director, playwright, and dramaturge and holds a PhD from the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Description based on print version record.
Series
Palgrave Shakespeare studies.
Available in Other Form
Print version: 9783031272035
Linked Resources
Online Access
Record Appears in
Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
Intro
Acknowledgments
Contents
About the Author
List of Figures
1 "Bedlam Dames and Fowle Hags": Uterine Pathologies and Menopausal Ambiguities
Contemporary Menopause
Shakespearean Proto-Menopause
Sociocultural Fears of the Ageing Woman
Theatrical and Literary Archetypes of the Ageing Woman
The Parameters of This Study
Ontological and Semantic Challenges to Defining Early Modern "Menopause"
Humoralism, Natural Science, and the Female Body
Defining the Female Ageing Process
Defining the Proto-Menopause "Event"
The Proto-Menopausal Paradigm

The Ageing Woman and Sociocultural Anxieties
Silencing the Hag
Historical Review of Early Modern Menopause and Ageing
Structural Rationale
Notes
2 Gertrude and the Petrifying Gorgon Womb
Introduction: Columba Chatry, Nostradamus, and the Stone Baby
"The Heyday in the Blood Should Be Tame": Furor Uterinus and Suffocation of the Womb
The Basilisk Gaze: Ocular Fascination and the Heating Womb
Petrifying Older Women: Niobe, Hecuba, and Medusa
"Destroy Your Sight": The Old Woman in the Mirror
Silencing Through Petrification: Medusa's Stare
Notes

3 Tamora and the Invasive Vegetable Womb
Introduction: "Gone to Seed," the Vegetable Madonna and Proto-Menopausal Pregnancy
Fears of the Parthenogenic Womb
The Botanical Discourse of Alien Stock and Invasive Species
"Base Fruit": Of Bastards and Grafting
"In Due Season": That Strumpet Fortune and Father Time
Silencing by Consumption
Notes
4 Volumnia and the Sacrificial Animal Womb
Introduction: The Dog and the Woman at the Dissecting Table
"Like Some Animal Within an Animal": The Wandering Womb and Plethora

"She's a Very Dog to the Commonalty": The Bitch's Animal Instinct
"The Lamb that Baas like a Bear": The Danger of the Female Mouth
Blood-sports and Bear-baiting: Purging the Animal Womb
Notes
5 Lady Macbeth and the Envious Womb
Introduction: "Fit Food for Spite"
The Proto-Menopausal Female: Envy, Madness, and other Passions
Thomas Wright and Early Modern Notions of the Psychosomatic
"Bloody Instruction": How Invidia Worked
Melancholy: Invidia's Humoral Sister
Reason as Prophylaxis
Abject Consumption: The Proto-Menopausal Female and Diabolical Foodstuffs

Silencing Through Self-Cannibalization
Notes
6 Menopausal Cleopatra and the Hybrid Cyborg Womb
Introduction: "Dreams of a New Heaven and Earth"
From Automaton to Cyborg
Mechanical Theory, Mechanical Metaphor
"To Set a Bourn": Reckoning the Immeasurable Womb
"In the Lap of Egypt": Masturbation, Strangulation, and Precipitation of the Womb
The Perpetual Sex Machine: Isis and her Mechanical Phallus Antony
"A Cistern for Scaled Snakes": The Self-Replicating Womb
Silencing the Proto-Menopausal Dream: Descartes Kills the Cyborg
Notes
7 Conclusion

Browse Subjects

Show more subjects...

Statistics

from
to
Export