Symptomatic Subjects
ALEMBICS: PENN STUDIES IN LITERATURE AND SCIENCE
Mary Thomas Crane and Henry S. Turner, Series Editors
Symptomatic Subjects
Bodies, Medicine, and Causation in the Literature of Late Medieval England
Julie Orlemanski
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2019 University of Pennsylvania Press
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Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Orlemanski, Julie, author.
Title: Symptomatic subjects : bodies, medicine, and causation in the literature of late medieval England / Julie Orlemanski.
Other titles: Alembics.
Description: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2019] | Series: Alembics : Penn studies in literature and science | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018045209| ISBN 9780812250909 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 0812250907 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Literature and medicine—England—History—To 1500. | Diseases—England—Causes and theories of causation—History—To 1500. | English literature—Middle English, 1100–1500—History and criticism. | Human body in literature. | Causation in literature.
Classification: LCC R702 .O75 2019 | DDC 610.942—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018045209
For my family
Contents
Chapter 2. Cause, Authority, Sign, and Book
Chapter 3. Satire and Medical Materialism
Chapter 4. Embodying Causation in Exempla
Chapter 5. The Metaphysics of Phisik in the “Knight’s Tale”
Chapter 6. Desire and Defacement in the Testament of Cresseid
Chapter 7. Symptoms and the Signifying Condition in Hoccleve’s Series
Chapter 8. From Noise to Narration in the Book of Margery Kempe
Abbreviations
| DMLBS | Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources. 3 vols. Ed. Richard Ashdowne, David Howlett, and Ronald Latham. Oxford: British Academy, 2018. Online edition: http://www.brepolis.net. |
| DOST | A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Online edition, 2004: http://www.dsl.ac.uk/. |
| Du Cange | Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis. 10 vols. Ed. Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange. Niort : L. Favre, 1883–1887. Online edition: http://ducange.enc.sorbonne.fr/. |
| EETS | Early English Text Society (o.s., Original Series, e.s., Extra Series, s.s., Supplementary Series). |
| Godefroy | Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle. 10 vols. Ed. Frédéric Godefroy. Paris: F. Vieweg, 1881–1902. Online edition: http://micmap.org/dicfro/search/dictionnaire-godefroy/. |
| MED | Middle English Dictionary. Ed. Hans Kurath, Sherman M. Kuth, and Robert E. Lewis. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1954–2001. Online edition: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/. |
| ODNB | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Online edition: http://www.oxforddnb.com/. |
| OED | Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Online edition: http://www.oed.com/. |
Introduction
Early in Geoffrey Chaucer’s romance Troilus and Criseyde, the officious matchmaker Pandarus advises Troilus on how to write a love letter. He warns against jumbling “discordant thyng yfeere [together], / As thus, to usen termes of phisik / In loves termes [for example, to use terms of medicine among love’s terms].”1 Mixing medicine’s lexicon with lovespeak, he admonishes, would make Troilus