عنوان

Reading the Lovesick Woman in Early Modern Literature

Number

TLpq2392656020

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Reading the Lovesick Woman in Early Modern Literature

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Collins, Allison Brigid

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Ciavolella, Massimo

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of California, Los Angeles

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2020

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

247

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

University of California, Los Angeles

Text preceding or following the note

2020

Text of Note

In early modern Europe, love was not a feeling, but a physiological change in the body. In its extreme, love was lovesickness, a deadly disease. Love makes the patient a desiring subject who seeks to author his own experience. The disease raises the stakes: if he cannot fulfill his desire, he will die. Yet lovesickness decreases the subject's agency because sickness makes the patient an object to be "read" and diagnosed by outside authorities. This paradox of increased agency and decreased control is particularly fraught when the patient is a woman. My dissertation analyzes the representation of lovesick women in early modern literature. While scholars have claimed lovesickness empowers women, I argue that the disease highlights the potential for female agency, but ultimately subjects women to external interpretation and control.

British & Irish literature

Comparative literature

Early Modern literature

Italian literature

Lovesick woman

Medical humanities

Ciavolella, Massimo

Collins, Allison Brigid

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y