Writing Illness and Identity in Seventeenth-Century Britain (Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine) - Softcover

Thorley, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1349955159 ISBN 13: 9781349955152

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Synopsis

This book is a survey of personal illness as described in various forms of early modern manuscript life-writing. How did people in the seventeenth century rationalise and record illness? Observing that medical explanations for illness were fewer than may be imagined, the author explores the social and religious frameworks by which illness was more commonly recorded and understood. The story that emerges is of illness written into personal manuscripts in prescriptive rather than original terms. This study uncovers the ways in which illness, so described, contributed to the self-patterning these texts were set up to perform.

About this title

About the Author

David Thorley received his doctorate from Durham University, UK. He has taught at the Universities of Oxford and Durham.

From the Back Cover

This book is a survey of personal illness as described in various forms of early modern manuscript life-writing. How did people in the seventeenth century rationalise and record illness? Observing that medical explanations for illness were fewer than may be imagined, the author explores the social and religious frameworks by which illness was more commonly recorded and understood. The story that emerges is of illness written into personal manuscripts in prescriptive rather than original terms. This study uncovers the ways in which illness, so described, contributed to the self-patterning these texts were set up to perform.

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1349955159
• ISBN 13: 9781349955152
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240