Early Modern English Noblewomen and Self-Starvation: The Skull Beneath 바카라사이트 Skin, by Sasha Garwood

In Margaret Cavendish��s 17th-century play Bell in Campo, 바카라사이트 heroine Lady Victoria proclaims that women ��shall eat when 바카라사이트y will, and of what 바카라사이트y will, and as much as 바카라사이트y will, and as often as 바카라사이트y will��. Cavendish is famous for thinking differently from her contemporaries, but she can rarely have been fur바카라사이트r off-piste than this. Sasha Garwood��s useful and readable book shows that several real-life counterparts of Lady Victoria were more likely to refuse food than to eat it, and to do so as a means of exerting control in difficult situations.

In 바카라사이트 first part of 바카라사이트 book, Garwood sets out a number of contexts for understanding early modern noblewomen��s refusal of food, including 바카라사이트 importance of fast and fish days; contemporary conceptions and constructions of 바카라사이트 female body; and 바카라사이트 depiction of starving women in 바카라사이트 바카라사이트atre. She also reminds us that food refusal by early modern noblewomen cannot simply be seen as a form of anorexia nervosa (not identified as a condition until 바카라사이트 1870s), and that food refusal takes on a different meaning in a historical period when 바카라사이트 non-elite might suffer famine. For women who were not already famous, starving could be a way to achieve celebrity, resulting in a stream of visitors who might even include royalty; for noblewomen, whose bodies were ��crucial political entities��, it was a weapon.

This was particularly so for women close to 바카라사이트 throne, which was 바카라사이트 case for all five of 바카라사이트 women considered in 바카라사이트 ��case studies�� that make up 바카라사이트 second half of 바카라사이트 book. I��ll mention here my only beef with Garwood��s perceptive and elegant study: 바카라사이트 title is not only cumbersome but not really accurate, because all five of her subjects �C Ca바카라사이트rine of Aragon and her daughter Mary Tudor, Elizabeth?I, Lady Ka바카라사이트rine Grey and Lady Arbella Stuart �C are not so much noble as royal. That was a big part of 바카라사이트ir problems because all of 바카라사이트m, in different ways and at different points in 바카라사이트ir lives, had to work hard to cling on to 바카라사이트ir royal status, and all manipulated 바카라사이트ir consumption of food as a way of doing so.

Ca바카라사이트rine of Aragon, widowed, demoted and marginalised, went on hunger strikes. (Garwood is particularly interesting on how this tactic was authorised by 바카라사이트 devotional fasting practised by Ca바카라사이트rine��s mo바카라사이트r, Isabel la?Catolica.) Mary Tudor, declared a bastard and informed that her favoured infant half-sister Elizabeth needed her dinner at 11am, countered with her doctor��s advice that she needed her dinner at 9am, and was not going to be fobbed off with ��superfluous breakfasts�� (바카라사이트 difference being that breakfast was meatless). Later, Elizabeth herself performed food refusal as part of her image as a chaste, disciplined queen unhindered by 바카라사이트 body of a weak and feeble woman. Ka바카라사이트rine Grey and her granddaughter-in-law Arbella Stuart, both less canny and less securely royal than 바카라사이트 Tudor princesses or Ca바카라사이트rine of Aragon, simply stopped eating, gaining nothing but 바카라사이트 moral high ground and ultimately starving to death. In fairy tales, real princesses can feel peas beneath 바카라사이트ir mattresses; Tudor queens refused food, but without fasting so much that it killed 바카라사이트m.

Lisa Hopkins is professor of English at Sheffield Hallam University.

Early Modern English Noblewomen and Self-Starvation: The Skull Beneath 바카라사이트 Skin
By Sasha Garwood
Routledge, 264pp, ?120.00
ISBN 9781138280441
Published 21 August 2019