1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910255235903321

Autore

Thorley David

Titolo

Writing Illness and Identity in Seventeenth-Century Britain [[electronic resource] /] / by David Thorley

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Palgrave Macmillan UK : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2016

ISBN

1-137-59312-1

Edizione

[1st ed. 2016.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (IX, 231 p.)

Collana

Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, , 2634-6435

Disciplina

809.033

Soggetti

Literature, Modern—18th century

British literature

Fiction

Literature—History and criticism

Eighteenth-Century Literature

British and Irish Literature

Literary History

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History

Great Britain

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1. Diaries -- 2. Autobiography -- 3. Letters -- 4. Poetry -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.-.

Sommario/riassunto

This book is a survey of personal illness as described in various forms of early modern manuscript life-writing. How did people in the seventeenth century rationalise and record illness? Observing that medical explanations for illness were fewer than may be imagined, the author explores the social and religious frameworks by which illness was more commonly recorded and understood. The story that emerges is of illness written into personal manuscripts in prescriptive rather than original terms. This study uncovers the ways in which illness, so described, contributed to the self-patterning these texts were set up to perform.