The Art of Medicina: Popular Medicine and Popular Literature in Late Medieval and Shakespearean England

My proposed project will analyse the development of popular medical knowledge in late medievalrenaissance England, through the investigation of its representation in popular literature. The scope of my research extends from medieval romance and drama (late C14th), commonly understood as influences on Shakespeare (Cooper, 2010) to the plays of Shakespeare (late C16th). The thesis is divided into two areas of treatment, surgery and magic, which were represented in medieval and early modern literature (Wallis, 2010). The project investigates how the literary representation of medieval-renaissance medical ideas influenced perceptions of the human body and its relative state of health, through depictions of medical conditions and therapies. Popular medicine refers to simplified models of medical knowledge used outside the medieval university and other institutions, composed or compiled in English or Anglo-Norman (Wallis, 2010). Popular literature describes written, theatrical, or oral entertainment aimed at a broadly secular audience (Hanna, 2005).

My first two chapters will explore the influence of representations of invasive and manipulative surgery (drawing on Hunt's distinction, 1992) on medicalised medieval representations of the crucifixion in the Wakefield/Chester mystery plays, alongside their later depiction in the bodily mutilations of Shakespeare's King Lear, Coriolanus and Titus Andronicus. My third and fourth chapters will explore magic (herbalism and charms), employed by informal practitioners within medieval society (defined by Saunders, 2010). These are represented in medieval romances, such as Valentine and Orson, Ywain and Gawain, William of Palerne, and the same popular context is present in Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbet. I will contextualise this material with popular medicine represented in visual culture (medical miscellanies and collections of charms).