Contagion and the Shakespearean Stage

291 Pages·2019·2.961 MB·English

by  Darryl Chalk, Mary Floyd-Wilson

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN LITERATURE,
SCIENCE AND MEDICINE
Contagion and the
Shakespearean Stage
Edited by
Darryl Chalk
Mary Floyd-Wilson
Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine
Series Editors
Sharon Ruston
Department of English and Creative Writing
Lancaster University
Lancaster, UK
Alice Jenkins
School of Critical Studies
University of Glasgow
Glasgow, UK
Catherine Belling
Feinberg School of Medicine
Northwestern University
Chicago, IL, USA
Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine is an exciting new
series that focuses on one of the most vibrant and interdisciplinary areas
in literary studies: the intersection of literature, science and medicine.
Comprised of academic monographs, essay collections, and Palgrave
Pivot books, the series will emphasize a historical approach to its sub-
jects, in conjunction with a range of other theoretical approaches. The
series will cover all aspects of this rich and varied field and is open to new
and emerging topics as well as established ones.
Editorial Board
Steven Connor, Professor of English, University of Cambridge, UK
Lisa Diedrich, Associate Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies,
Stony Brook University, USA
Kate Hayles, Professor of English, Duke University, USA
Peter Middleton, Professor of English, University of Southampton, UK
Sally Shuttleworth, Professorial Fellow in English, St Anne’s College,
University of Oxford, UK
Susan Squier, Professor of Women’s Studies and English, Pennsylvania
State University, USA
Martin Willis, Professor of English, University of Westminster, UK
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14613
Darryl Chalk · Mary Floyd-Wilson
Editors
Contagion and the
Shakespearean Stage
Editors
Darryl Chalk Mary Floyd-Wilson
University of Southern Queensland University of North Carolina
Toowoomba, QLD, Australia at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine
ISBN 978-3-030-14427-2 ISBN 978-3-030-14428-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14428-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935507
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A
cknowledgements
This book started as a seminar, “Shakespeare and Contagion,” at the
2015 Shakespeare Association of America meeting in Vancouver. We
owe a sincere debt of gratitude to all of the participants in that session,
many of whom are represented in this volume, for helping to make it
such a lively, searching, and fun conversation. We were very fortunate
that Rebecca Totaro joined us as an auditor: Her fine work on the
plague has been a constant source of inspiration. We would also like to
thank our editorial team at Palgrave, especially Ben Doyle and Camille
(Milly) Davies, for their belief in this project and continuous support and
patience throughout the process.
And, personally, from Mary: My thinking on contagion has been
inspired by several key events and conversations. I am grateful first to
my co-editor Darryl Chalk who initiated our collaboration on this pro-
ject. Despite our busy schedules and the long distance between us, we
have worked together seamlessly. Darryl’s extensive knowledge and good
humor ensured that this project has been both fun and productive. I owe
thanks to my graduate students in the UNC seminar “English 829,”
“Contagion and Early Modern Drama” who happily shared my enthu-
siasm for slimy pools and festering buboes. Some of the research for this
volume took place while I held a fellowship at the National Humanities
Center, where I benefitted from their unmatched support in library
resources and the magical collegiality of the place. Thanks as always to
my family, Lanis, Claude, and Maddie, who bless me daily with compan-
ionship, understanding, and infectious laughter.
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vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
From Darryl: I would firstly like to thank my co-editor Mary for
agreeing to go on this journey with me. To work with Mary has been, in
so many ways, such an honor. Mary’s generosity, calmness, and wisdom
throughout the process have made this collaboration a genuine pleasure.
I am very grateful to Mark Harvey and the staff of USQ’s Research and
Innovation office for the funding and support over the last few years,
especially in making the long and expensive trip to the SAA each year,
which helped facilitate work on this volume. Particular thanks also to my
USQ colleague Laurie Johnson for his friendship, exemplary collegiality,
and for setting the benchmark on how to take Shakespeare scholarship to
the next level at a small, regional university in Australia. Finally, my eter-
nal love and thanks to my wife, Tonia, and our little boy, Oscar. Their
unconditional love, infectious joy, and unending patience have kept me
going even at the most arduous moments in the making of this volume.
c
ontents
1 Introduction: Beyond the Plague 1
Darryl Chalk and Mary Floyd-Wilson
Part I Contagious Sensations
2 Comedy, the Senses, and Social Contagion in Plays
Confuted in Five Actions and The Comedy of Errors 25
Jennie Votava
3 “A Deal of Stinking Breath”: The Smell of Contagion
in the Early Modern Playhouse 47
Amy Kenny
4 “Go Touch His Life”: Contagious Malice and the
Power of Touch in The Witch of Edmonton 63
Bronwyn Johnston
5 Kisses and Contagion in Troilus and Cressida 83
Jennifer Forsyth
vii
viii CONTENTS
Part II Spreading Abjection
6 “Search This Ulcer Soundly”: Sex as Contagion
in The Changeling and Othello 105
Emily Weissbourd
7 “Amend Thy Face”: Contagion and Disgust
in the Henriad 127
Ariane M. Balizet
8 Bad Dancing and Contagious Embarrassment
in More Dissemblers Besides Women 147
Jennifer Panek
9 Contagious Pity: Cultural Difference and the
Language of Contagion in Titus Andronicus 169
Jennifer Feather
Part III Viral Ideas
10 The Hungry Meme and Political Contagion
in Coriolanus 191
Clifford Werier
11 Hamlet’s Story/Stories of Hamlet: Shakespeare’s
Theater, the Plague, and Contagious Storytelling 213
J. F. Bernard
12 “Nature Naturized”: Plague, Contagious Atheism,
and The Alchemist 233
John Charles Estabillo
13 Embedded in Shakespeare’s “Fair Verona” 255
Rebecca Totaro
Afterword 277
Index 285
e c
ditors And ontributors
About the Editors
Darryl Chalk is Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of
Southern Queensland and has served as Treasurer on the executive com-
mittee of the Australian and New Zealand Shakespeare Association since
2004. He is co-editor of Rapt in Secret Studies: Emerging Shakespeares
(2010) with Laurie Johnson. He has published a series of articles and
book chapters on contagion, emotion, and theatricality in Shakespearean
drama. He is currently writing a book with the working title,
Pathological Shakespeare: Contagion, Embodiment, and the Early Modern
Scientific Imaginary.
Mary Floyd-Wilson is the Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished
Term Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She
is the author of English Ethnicity and Race in Early Modern Drama
(2003) and Occult Knowledge, Science, and Gender on the Shakespearean
Stage (2013). She has co-edited Environment and Embodiment in Early
Modern England (2007) with Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr., and Reading the
Early Modern Passions: A Cultural History of Emotion (2004) with Gail
Kern Paster and Katherine Rowe. She is currently writing a book about
the devil titled The Tempter or the Tempted: Demonic Causality on the
Shakespearean Stage.
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