Reading the Lovesick Woman in Early Modern Literature

منو

" Reading the Lovesick Woman in Early Modern Literature "
Collins, Allison Brigid Ciavolella, Massimo

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Language of Document	:	English
Record Number	:	1113845
Doc. No	:	TLpq2392656020
Main Entry	:	Ciavolella, Massimo
	:	Collins, Allison Brigid
Title & Author	:	Reading the Lovesick Woman in Early Modern Literature\ Collins, Allison BrigidCiavolella, Massimo
College	:	University of California, Los Angeles
Date	:	2020
student score	:	2020
Degree	:	Ph.D.
Page No	:	247
Abstract	:	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.
Subject	:	British Irish literature
	:	Comparative literature
	:	Early Modern literature
	:	Italian literature
	:	Lovesick woman
	:	Medical humanities