Plague Writing in Early Modern England

by Gilman, Ernest B.

• ISBN13: 9780226294094
• ISBN10: 0226294099
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780226294117
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-06-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr
• More Book Details

Summary

During the seventeenth century, England was beset by three epidemics of the bubonic plague, each outbreak claiming between a quarter and a third of the population of London and other urban centers. Surveying a wide range of responses to these epidemicssermons, medical tracts, pious exhortations, satirical pamphlets, and political commentaryPlague Writing in Early Modern Englandbrings to life the many and complex ways Londoners made sense of such unspeakable devastation. Ernest B. Gilman argues that the plague writing of the period attempted unsuccessfully to rationalize the catastrophic and that its failure to account for the plague as an instrument of divine justice fundamentally threatened the core of Christian belief. Gilman also trains his critical eye on the works of Jonson, Donne, Pepys, and Defoe, which, he posits, can be more fully understood when put into the context of this century-long project to "write out" the plague. Ultimately,Plague Writing in Early Modern Englandis more than a compendium of artifacts of a bygone era; it holds up a distant mirror to reflect our own condition in the age of AIDS, super viruses, multidrug resistant tuberculosis, and the hovering threat of a global flu pandemic.

Author Biography

Ernest B. Gilman is professor of English at New York University. He is the author of three books, including Iconoclasm and Poetry in the English Reformation, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction The View from the Mountain	p. 1
Diagnosing Plague Narratives	p. 27
The Plague and the Word	p. 71
Jonson, Regime Change, and the Plague of 1603	p. 127
Here Lies Ben Jonson	p. 163
John Donne: Translating the Plague	p. 189
Writing the "Great Plague": Pepys and Defoe	p. 215
Conclusion The View from Here	p. 245
Works Cited	p. 257
Index	p. 269
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