MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 03437cam a2200397 i 4500
001 2013038129
003 DLC
005 20140308081438.0
008 130920s2013 enka b 001 0 eng
010 $a 2013038129
020 $a9781137355027 (hardback)
040 $aDLC$beng$cDLC$erda$dDLC
042 $apcc
043 $ae-uk-en
050 00 $aQP263$b.R43 2013
082 00 $a612.6/62$223
084 $aHIS015000$aHIS037090$aHIS054000$aMED039000$2bisacsh
100 1 $aRead, Sara,$d1969-
245 10 $aMenstruation and the female body in early-modern England /$cSara Read, Lecturer in English, Department of English and Drama, Loughborough University, UK.
264 1 $aHoundmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ;$a:$bPalgrave Macmillan,$c2013.
300 $axii, 248 pages :$billustrations ;$c23 cm
336 $atext$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$2rdamedia
338 $avolume$2rdacarrier
520 $a"In early modern English medicine, the balance of fluids in the body was seen as the key to health. Menstruation was widely believed to regulate the blood level in the female body and so was extensively discussed in medical texts. In this book, Sara Read examines all forms of literature, from plays and poems, to life-writing, and compares these texts with the medical theories. Many of these literary representations show how early modern English women related to their bleeding bodies, both in their menstrual cycles and at other times of transition, from menarche to menopause. For example, how would a literate woman read about her body in the books which claimed to be guides for female health? How was menstruation presented to society in staged and printed works? As part of its attempt to recover the ways in which a woman in this era might have understood this aspect of her physiology, this book examines the key moments when menstruation and related changes were at the forefront of her experience of living in a female body"--$cProvided by publisher.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (pages 228-242) and index.
505 8 $aMachine generated contents note: -- 1. Introduction: 'Those Sweet and Benign Humours that Nature Sends Monthly': Reading Menstruation and Vaginal Bleeding. -- 2. What a small Excess is called Flooding': The Language of Menstruation and Transitional Bleedings. -- 3. Having the Benefit of Nature': Menarche and Female Adolescence. -- 4. 'Full sixteen and never yet had those': Representations of Early or Delayed Menarche -- 5. 'Women's Monthly Sickness': Accounting for Menstruation -- 6. 'Wearing of the Double Clout': Dealing with Menstrual Flow in Practice and in Religious Doctrine. -- 7. 'The Flower of Virginity': Hymenal Bleeding and Becoming a Woman. -- 8. The 'Cleansing of the Flowers after the Birth': Managing Pregnancy and Post-Partum Bleeding. -- 9. 'Women Grieve to Thinke they Must be Old': Representations of Menopause. -- 10. Conclusion.
650 0 $aMenstruation$zEngland$yHistory.
650 0 $aMenstruation in literature.
650 0 $aBody image in women$zEngland$xHistory.
650 0 $aMedicine$zEngland$xHistory.
650 7 $aHISTORY / Europe / Great Britain.$2bisacsh
650 7 $aHISTORY / Modern / 16th Century.$2bisacsh
650 7 $aHISTORY / Social History.$2bisacsh
650 7 $aMEDICAL / History.$2bisacsh
856 42 $3Cover image$uhttp://www.netread.com/jcusers2/bk1388/027/9781137355027/image/lgcover.9781137355027.jpg