Research Catalog

Title

The fury of men's gullets : Ben Jonson and the digestive canal / Bruce Thomas Boehrer.

Author

Boehrer, Bruce Thomas.

Publication

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 238 pages; 25 cm

Summary

Throughout his work, Ben Jonson referred to writing in terms of ingestion, digestion, and excretion, mimicking the functions of the digestive tract. In The Fury of Men's Gullets, Bruce Boehrer explores the poet's fascination with alimentary matters and the way in which such references describe Jonson's personal and cultural transformation. Drawing on the theoretical work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, the author studies the alimentary and convivial language in Jonson's work. He suggests that these pervasive metaphors provided the poet with a vocabulary for addressing issues of patronage and friendship, literary production and consumption, and social inclusion and exclusion. In his wide-ranging examination of Jonson's plays, prose, and nondramatic verse, Boehrer discusses the sociohistorical significance of food, the politics of conspicuous consumption, the infrastructure of Jacobean London, and pertinent aspects of Renaissance medical practice and physiological theory. The Fury of Men's Gullets uniquely interprets Jonson's construction of early modern English literary sensibility.

Alternative Title

Ben Jonson and the digestive canal

Subject

• Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637 > Knowledge and learning
• Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637
• Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637 > Knowledge > Anatomy
• Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637 > Knowledge > Manners and customs
• Jonson, Ben
• 1600-1699
• Human body in literature
• Literature and society > England > History > 17th century
• Literature and science > England > History > 17th century
• Dinners and dining in literature
• Alimentary canal in literature
• Food habits in literature
• Gastronomy in literature
• Digestion in literature
• Food in literature
• Manners and customs > 17th century
• Digestive System > in literature
• Eating > history
• Feces > in literature
• Feeding Behavior > history
• Anatomy
• Literature and science
• Literature and society
• Manners and customs
• Verdauung
• Literature and society > Great Britain > History > 17th century
• Literature and science > Great Britain > History > 17th century
• England

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [223]-233 and index.

Contents

The genealogy of manners -- Renaissance overeating -- A well-digested work -- The ordure of things -- Jonson's crudities.

ISBN

• 0812234081
• 9780812234084

LCCN

97011661

OCLC

• ocm36696148
• 36696148
• SCSB-14679975

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library