Abstract
The womb wielded a constant threat during pregnancy because of its excessive lust, maternal imagination, and overactive role in gestation. Early modern medicine is full of salacious tales about pregnant women physically imprinting their children simply through the maternal imagination, which lead to fears over monstrous births. King John and The Winter’s Tale are full of remarks about potential monstrosity occurring during pregnancy, and this chapter explores how these masculine fears of the womb’s perceived contamination are proven inadequate and unnecessary in both plays. Shakespeare continuously exonerates the womb as a fertile, generative space equipped with a positively connotated influence, which in turn, critiques characters who act as a mouthpiece for contemporary medical views on the dangerous impact of the womb during pregnancy.
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Notes
- 1.
James Guillimeau, Child-birth, or The Happy Delivery of Women (London: Anne Griffin for Joyce Norton and Richard Whitaker, [1612] 1635), 32.
- 2.
Gail Kern Paster, The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1993), 184.
- 3.
Gail Kern Paster, The Body Embarrassed, 165.
- 4.
Janet Adelman, Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare’s Plays (New York and London: Routledge, 1992), 4.
- 5.
Mary E. Fissell, Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 60.
- 6.
Karen Bamford, “Introduction: Maternal Devices and Desires in Romance,” in Maternity and Romance Narratives in Early Modern England, edited by Karen Bamford and Naomi J. Miller, 1–12 (London and New York: Ashgate, 2015), 1.
- 7.
John Pechey, The compleat midwife’s practice (London: H. Rhodes, 1698), 96. Thomas Raynalde, The Birth of Mankind, otherwise called The Women’s Book (London: F. L., Henry Hood, Abel Roper and Richard Tomlins, 1545), 40. Anonymous, Aristotle’s Masterpiece, or The Secrets of Generation displayed in all the parts thereof (London: J. How, 1684), 6. Nicolas Culpeper, Culpeper’s Directory for Midwives (London: Peter Cole, 1662), 141. See also Mary E. Fissell, 35.
- 8.
Richard Sherry, A treatise of schemes [and] tropes very profytable for the better understanding of good authors, gathered out of the best grammarians [and] oratours (London: John Day, 1558), 73. See also Aristotle’s’ Masterpiece, 25; Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500–1800 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977), 312–3; David Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 46; and Ralph A. Houlbrooke, The English Family 1450–1700 (London and New York: Longman, 1984), 103.
- 9.
Anonymous, Aristotle’s Masterpiece, or The Secrets of Generation displayed in all the parts thereof (London: J. How, 1684), 11 and 13. This text went through hundreds of editions between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, with updated images and corrections appearing across the various publications. Unless otherwise stated, quotations are from the first edition published in London in 1684. While the text is published well after Shakespeare’s career, it is useful for my purposes since it was compiled from several earlier works, offering a glimpse of a medical context for “monstrous” births in the early seventeenth century.
- 10.
Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 47.
- 11.
Jacob Rüff, The Expert Midwife, or An Excellent and Most Necessary Treatise of the Generation and Birth of Man (London: E. Griffin for S. Burton, [1554] 1637), 184. See also Aristotle’s’ Masterpiece, 27; William Harvey, Anatomical Exercitations (London: James Young, for Octavian Pulleyn, 1653), 543. A Glass for Householders (London: Richard Graftoni, 1542), page before d.
- 12.
Aristotle’s Masterpiece, 6.
- 13.
Aristotle’s’ Masterpiece, 27.
- 14.
Janet Adelman, “Masculine Authority and the Maternal Body in The Winter’s Tale,” in Shakespeare’s Romances, ed. Alison Thorne (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan 2003), 152.
- 15.
Nicolas Culpeper, Culpeper’s Directory for Midwives, or A Guide for Women, The Second Part (London: Peter Cole, 1662), 141; Thomas Vicary, The English-Mans Treasure (London 1587), 50; and John Sadler, The sick woman’s private looking glass (London: Anne Griffin, 1636), 118. These are some examples of the ongoing discussion about male and female seed contributing to reproduction. See also Mary E. Fissell, Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 35.
- 16.
Thomas Raynalde, The Birth of Mankind, otherwise called The Women’s Book (London: F. L., Henry Hood, Abel Roper and Richard Tomlins, 1654), 17. Richard Roussat, The most excellent, profitable, and pleasant booke of the famous doctour and expert astrologien Arcandain or Aleandrin to fynd the fatal desteny, constellation; complexion, and naturall inclination of euery man and childe by his byrth (London: James Rowbothum, 1562), 6.
- 17.
William Harvey, Anatomical Exercitations (London: James Young, for Octavian Pulleyn, 1653), 546. See also Thomas Chamberlayne, The Compleat Midwife’s Practice, 2nd edn (London: Nathaniel Brook, 1659), 75. Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, vol. 2, trans Margaret Tallmedge May (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1968), 637.
- 18.
William Harvey, Anatomical Exercitations, 540.
- 19.
Eucharius Rösslin, The byrth of mankynde, newly translated out of Laten into Englysshe, trans. Richard Jonas (London: T[homas] R[aynald], 1540), LVI–LVII. Wendy Wall, Staging Domesticity: Household Work and English Identity in Early Modern Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 136–7.
- 20.
Jane Sharp, The Midwives Book: Or the Whole Art of Midwifery Discovered (London: Simon Miller, 1671), 353.
- 21.
Nicholas Culpeper, 223.
- 22.
Nicholas Culpeper, Culpeper’s Directory for Midwives, 108.
- 23.
Jacob Rüff, The Expert Midwife, 96.
- 24.
Nicholas Culpeper, Culpeper’s Directory for Midwives, 190.
- 25.
Nicholas Culpeper, Culpeper’s Directory for Midwives, 186.
- 26.
Jane Sharp, The Midwives Book, 252.
- 27.
Gail Kern Paster, The Body Embarrassed, 266–280. A similar scene takes place in Pericles, when Pericles decides to throw his wife’s body overboard to ward off the sailors’ superstitions. The description of her body in the casket suggests she does not require a bodily evacuation, but instead looks fresh and emits a pleasant odor. While the lying-in period was considered necessary for the mother to rebalance her humors, Thaisa’s revived body suggests a counternarrative which recuperates the postpartum body outside of this purification process, instead suggesting the lack of contamination of the womb.
- 28.
Mary Floyd-Wilson, “English Mettle,” Reading the Early Modern Passions, ed. Gail Kern Paster, Katherine Rowe, and Mary Floyd-Wilson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 134.
- 29.
Thomas Wright, Passions of the Mind in General (London: Valentine Simmes for Walter Barre, 1604), 61–4.
- 30.
Edward Reynolds, A Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man (London: R. H. for Robert Bostock, 1640).
- 31.
Janet Adelman, Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare’s Plays (New York and London: Routledge, 1992), 10.
- 32.
Janet Adelman, Suffocating Mothers, 10.
- 33.
Nina S. Levine, “Refiguring the Nation: Mothers and Sons in King John,” in Women’s Matters: Politics, Gender, and Nation in Shakespeare’s Early History Plays (University of Delaware Press, 1998), 97.
- 34.
Gail Kern Paster, Humoring the Body (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), 231.
- 35.
Gina Bloom, Voice in Motion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 70.
- 36.
Aristotle’s Masterpiece (London: J. How, 1684), 48 and 162.
- 37.
Aristotle’s Masterpiece, 47.
- 38.
Levinus Lemnius, The secret miracles of nature (London: Joseph Streater, 1658), 11. Aristotle’s Masterpiece, 20. See also Philip Barrough, The Method of Phisick, Containing Cases, Signs, and Cures of Inward Diseases in Man’s Body (London: Richard Field, 1596), 196–7. (mislabeled p. 166).
- 39.
Nicholas Culpeper, Culpeper’s Directory for Midwives, 152.
- 40.
Nicholas Culpeper, The compleat midwife’s practice enlarged (London: for H. Rhodes, J. Philips, J. Taylor, and K. Bentley, 1698), 17. Thomas Watson, “Holsome and catholyke doctryne concerninge the seuen Sacramentes of Chrystes Church expedient to be knowen of all men” (London: Robert Caly, 1558), 171.
- 41.
Guillemeau, Child-birth, 26.
- 42.
Daniel Sennertus, Nicholas Culpeper, and Abdiah Cole, The Sixth Book of Practical Physik of Occult or Hidden Diseases (London: Peter Cole, 1662), 152. Nicholas Culpeper, Culpeper’s Directory for Midwives (London: Peter Cole, 1662), 141. See also Mary E. Fissell, Vernacular Bodies, 35.
- 43.
“True Copies of Certaine Loose Papers left by the Right honorable Elizabeth, Countess of Bridgewater, collected and transcribed together here since her death, anno din 1663, Examined by John Bridgewater,” pp. 77–8 manuscript at Huntington Egerton Family papers, ca 1150–1803 (bulk 1580–1803): MS EL 8377–8391 box 210.
- 44.
Aristotle’s Masterpiece, 200. For more, see the numerous monster pamphlets published at this time, including Anonymous, A wonder worth the reading (London: William Jones, 1617), William Elderton, The true form and shape of a monstrous child (London: John Evanfelist by Thomas Colwell, 1565); William Barley, Strange news out of Kent of a monstrous and misshapen child (London: T. C[reede] for W. Barley, 1609); William Leigh, Strange News of a Prodigious Monster (London]: Printed by I. P[indley] for S. M[an], 1613); The true description of two monstrous children born at Herne in Kent (1565); and Desiderius Erasmus, Here followith a scorneful image or monstrous shape of a marvelous strange figure called, Sileni alchibiadis presenting ye state and condition of this present world (London: N. Hill for me John Goughe, 1543).
- 45.
Aristotle’s Masterpiece, 200.
- 46.
Ambroise Paré, Les oeuures d’ Ambroise Paré (Paris: Gabriel Buon, 1585), 1037.
- 47.
Aristotle’s Masterpiece, 193–194.
- 48.
Joanna Moody, ed., The Private Life of an Elizabethan Lady: The Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1599–1605 (Thrupp, Stroud, and Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1998), August 26, 1601 p. 161.
- 49.
Joanna Moody, 161.
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Kenny, A. (2019). The Monstrous Womb. In: Humoral Wombs on the Shakespearean Stage. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05201-0_5
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