Addiction and Devotion in Early Modern England / / Rebecca Lemon.

Rebecca Lemon illuminates a previously-buried conception of addiction, as a form of devotion at once laudable, difficult, and extraordinary, that has been concealed by the persistent modern link of addiction to pathology. Surveying sixteenth-century invocations, she reveals how early moderns might c...

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Superior document:Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2018 English
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Place / Publishing House:Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2018]
©2018
Year of Publication:2018
Language:English
Series:Haney Foundation Series
Online Access:
Physical Description:1 online resource :; 4 illus.
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Description
Other title:Frontmatter --
Contents --
Preface --
Introduction. Addiction in (Early) Modernity --
Chapter 1. Scholarly Addiction in Doctor Faustus --
Chapter 2. Addicted Love in Twelfth Night --
Chapter 3. Addicted Fellowship in Henry IV --
Chapter 4. Addiction and Possession in Othello --
Chapter 5. Addictive Pledging from Shakespeare and Jonson to Cavalier Verse --
Epilogue. Why Addiction? --
Notes --
Works Cited --
Index --
Acknowledgments
Summary:Rebecca Lemon illuminates a previously-buried conception of addiction, as a form of devotion at once laudable, difficult, and extraordinary, that has been concealed by the persistent modern link of addiction to pathology. Surveying sixteenth-century invocations, she reveals how early moderns might consider themselves addicted to study, friendship, love, or God. However, she also uncovers their understanding of addiction as a form of compulsion that resonates with modern scientific definitions. Specifically, early modern medical tracts, legal rulings, and religious polemic stressed the dangers of addiction to alcohol in terms of disease, compulsion, and enslavement. Yet the relationship between these two understandings of addiction was not simply oppositional, for what unites these discourses is a shared emphasis on addiction as the overthrow of the will.Etymologically, "addiction" is a verbal contract or a pledge, and even as sixteenth-century audiences actively embraced addiction to God and love, writers warned against commitment to improper forms of addiction, and the term became increasingly associated with disease and tyranny. Examining canonical texts including Doctor Faustus, Twelfth Night, Henry IV, and Othello alongside theological, medical, imaginative, and legal writings, Lemon traces the variety of early modern addictive attachments. Although contemporary notions of addiction seem to bear little resemblance to its initial meanings, Lemon argues that the early modern period's understanding of addiction is relevant to our modern conceptions of, and debates about, the phenomenon.
Format:Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
ISBN:9780812294811
9783110604252
9783110603255
9783110604184
9783110603187
9783110659894
9783110662603
9783110657470
9783110606638
DOI:10.9783/9780812294811
Hierarchical level:Monograph
Statement of Responsibility: Rebecca Lemon.