Understanding the Female Body in Early Modern England

• Název práce v češtině: Pojetí ženského těla v raně novověké Anglii
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Understanding the Female Body in Early Modern England
• Klíčová slova: feminita|tělo|raně novověká anglická literatura|raně novověká anglická kultura
• Klíčová slova anglicky: early modern English literature|early modern English culture|femininity|body
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2015/2016
• Typ práce: bakalářská práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Ústav anglofonních literatur a kultur (21-UALK)
• Vedoucí / školitel: PhDr. Soňa Nováková, CSc.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 16.06.2016
• Datum zadání: 16.06.2016
• Schválení administrátorem: zatím neschvalováno
• Datum potvrzení stud. oddělením: 23.06.2016
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 19.06.2018 00:00
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 20.05.2018
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 19.06.2018
• Odevzdaná/finalizovaná: odevzdaná pracovníkem v zastoupení a finalizovaná
• Oponenti: Mgr. Helena Znojemská, Ph.D.

Zásady pro vypracování

The BA thesis will concentrate on the comprehension of the female body in early modern England, dating from 1400 to 1700, with a focus on the woman’s reproductive system and which was clearly connected to an understanding of her as a feminine being in a socio-cultural context.
Firstly I will analyze the representation of women in English translations of the Bible, where woman is classified as an inferior being to man. The reason is that God first created Adam and from his side came Eve, which leads to an interesting analogy later discussed by Thomas Laqueur and defined by the theory of one sex model. Adopting this concept for my own analysis I shall argue that woman was biologically regarded as an “imperfect” man, therefore her organs were seen as the same as man’s but incomplete. Because Eve was the first sinner, the purpose of her reproductive system, meaning mainly menstruation and labour pains, was seen as a type of punishment. It had a great impact in the cultural sphere, meaning that female sexuality conjured fear and repulsion, yet had and undeniable allure.
The discussion will continue with the general concept of the human body and apply it to women. Human constitution was derived from the Greek physician Claudius Galenus, whose understanding of anatomy and medicine was principally influenced by the theory of humorism, which worked with the idea of four bodily humours. Men’s bodies were hotter and women’s colder. The cold disposition was not very advantageous to woman’s position in the world of men, because it functioned as an explanation to various reproductive issues. For example the birth of a girl was explained by insufficient heat in the womb. Heat was seen as a source of vigour, strength, courage and intellect, which thus again meant that men were naturally superior to women.
One of the most interesting parts of the female body was the womb. It was seen as a separate organ with a will, therefore woman was wholly at its mercy. Combined with predominantly cold humour it only further weakened her. Many physical and psychological problem were attributed to it, particularly such female problems as irrationality, uncotrollable passion, hysteria and womb disease, which will be paid attention to. Its periodical cleaning called menstruation was seen as something polluted and unclean. As a result woman was constantly at the mercy of her own body and any disbalance could severely change her life. She was perceived as someone who is not in control of herself and therefore must be governed by a man.
The analysis of the discourse of the body is essential in order to understand what it meant to be a woman. For example medical books seem to be much influenced with underlying socio-cultural assumptions about the differences between the sexes and thus they participated in the contruction of proper femininity. Female sexuality was seen as having a destructive power but in Shakespeare we find that hatred of the innate evil of the female body is the mark not of common sense of that time, but of derangement, of male insecurity and of tragic misjudgement of women.[1]Medical and literary works influenced each other, as when menstruation was referred to as “flowers”. Such metaphorical ways of description and their cultural implications will also be a part of my analysis.The combination of these discourses had a major impact on the ways in which the woman‘s body is talked about. Therefore I plan to incorporate various types of documents such as drama, poetry, medical books or midwife handbooks in my analysis.

[1]N.H.Keeble, The Cultural Identity of Seventeenth-Century Woman: A Reader, (Routledge,1994), 34.

Seznam odborné literatury

Aughterson, Kate. Renaissance Women: Constructions of Femininity in England. Routledge. 1995.
Burton, Robert. The Anatomy of Melancholy, Ex-classics Project, 2009.
Culpeper, Nicholas. Culpeper's Directory for Midwives. Or, a Guide for Women: the second part. Discovering…Diseases. London, 1662.
Delaney, Janice, Lupton, Mary Jane and Toth, Emily. The Curse: A cultural history of menstruation. University of Illinois Press, 1988.
Eccles, Audrey. Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Tudor and Stuart England, Kent State University Press, 1982.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers. The Feminist Press. 2010.
Evenden, Doreen. The Midwives of Seventeenth-Century London. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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Garin, Eugenio. Renesanční člověk a jeho svět. Praha: Vyšehrad.2003.
Jones, Vivien. Constructions of Femininity, Routledge. 1990.
Keeble, N.H. The Cultural Identiy of 17th Century Woman. Routledge. 1994.
Kinney, Arthur, ed. The Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1500-1600. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Knoppers, Laura L. The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women‘s Writing, Pennsylvania State University. 2009.
Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, Harvard University Press. 1992.
Le Goff, Jacques. Středověký člověk a jeho svět. Praha: Vyšehrad. 2003.
Lenderová, Milena. Tělo mezi medicínou a disciplínou. Praha: Nakladatelství Lidové Noviny. 2014.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. London: Penguin Books. 2000.
Read, Sara. Menstruation and the Female Body in Early Modern England, Palgrave Macmillan. 2013.
Shakespeare, William. The Taming of the Shrew, Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1988.
Holy Bible, King James Version. Zondervan. 2010.