“A THING LIKE DEATH”: MEDICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF FEMALE BODIES IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

While the hysterical ailments of women in Shakespeare’s works have often been read from psychoanalytical standpoints, early modern medicine may provide new insights into the ‘frozen’, seemingly dead bodies of some of his heroines, such as Desdemona, Thaisa, and Hermione. In the wake of recent critical work (Peterson, Slights, Pettigrew), this paper will shed fresh light on the ‘excess’ of female physiology and on Shakespeare’s creative redeployment of some medical concepts and narratives.