Culinary Shakespeare: Staging Food and Drink in Early Modern England (Medieval & Renaissance Literary Studies)

Eating and drinking--vital to all human beings--were of central importance to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Culinary Shakespeare , the first collection devoted solely to the study of food and drink in Shakespeare's plays, reframes questions about cuisine, eating, and meals in early modern drama. As a result, Shakespearean scenes that have long been identified as important and influential by scholars can now be considered in terms of another revealing cultural marker--that of culinary dynamics. Renaissance scholars, as David Goldstein and Amy Tigner point out, have only begun to grapple with the importance of cuisine in literature. An earlier generation of criticism concerned itself principally with cataloguing the foodstuffs in the plays. Recent analyses have operated largely within debates about humoralism and dietary literature, consumption, and interiority, working to historicize food in relation to the early modern body. The essays in Culinary Shakespeare build upon that prior focus on individual bodily experience but also transcend it, emphasizing the aesthetic, communal, and philosophical aspects of food, while also presenting valuable theoretical background. As various essays demonstrate, many of the central issues in Shakespeare studies can be elucidated by turning our attention to the study of food and drink. The societal and religious associations of drink, for example, or the economic implications of ingredients gathered from other lands, have meaningful implications for our understanding of both early modern and contemporary periods--including aspects of community, politics, local and global food production, biopower and the state, addiction, performativity, posthumanism, and the relationship between art and food. Culinary Shakespeare seeks to open new interpretive possibilities and will be of interest not only to scholars and students of Shakespeare and the early modern period, but also to those in food studies, food history, ecology, gender and domesticity, and critical theory. Eating and drinking—vital to all human beings—were of central importance to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. __Culinary Shakespeare__, the first collection devoted solely to the study of food and drink in Shakespeare’s plays, reframes questions about cuisine, eating, and meals in early modern drama. As a result, Shakespearean scenes that have long been identified as important and influential by scholars can now be considered in terms of another revealing cultural marker—that of culinary dynamics. Renaissance scholars, as David Goldstein and Amy Tigner point out, have only begun to grapple with the importance of cuisine in literature. An earlier generation of criticism concerned itself principally with cataloguing the foodstuffs in the plays. Recent analyses have operated largely within debates about humoralism and dietary literature, consumption, and interiority, working to historicize food in relation to the early modern body. The essays in __Culinary Shakespeare__ build upon that prior focus on individual bodily experience but also transcend it, emphasizing the aesthetic, communal, and philosophical aspects of food, while also presenting valuable theoretical background. As various essays demonstrate, many of the central issues in Shakespeare studies can be elucidated by turning our attention to the study of food and drink. The societal and religious associations of drink, for example, or the economic implications of ingredients gathered from other lands, have meaningful implications for our understanding of both early modern and contemporary periods—including aspects of community, politics, local and global food production, biopower and the state, addiction, performativity, posthumanism, and the relationship between art and food. __Culinary Shakespeare__ seeks to open new interpretive possibilities and will be of interest to scholars and students of Shakespeare and the early modern period as well as to those in food studies, food history, ecology, gender and domesticity, and critical theory. Essays Discuss Food And Drink In Shakespeare's Plays, Reframing Questions About Cuisine, Eating, And Meals In Early Modern Drama And Emphasizing The Aesthetic, Communal, And Philosophical Aspects Of Food; Many Issues In Shakespeare Studies Are Thus Considered In Terms Of The Cultural Marker Of Culinary Dynamics-- Introduction / David B. Goldstein, Amy L. Tigner, And Wendy Wall -- Part 1. Local And Global. Chapter 1. The Poor Creature Small Beer : Princely Autonomy And Subjection In 2 Henry Iv / Peter Parolin -- Chapter 2. Wine And Sugar Of The Best And The Fairest : Canary, The Canaries, And The Global In Windsor / Barbara Sebek -- Chapter 3. So Many Strange Dishes : Food, Love, And Politics In Much Ado About Nothing / Peter Kanelos -- Part 2. Body And State. Chapter 4. Fluid Mechanics : Shakespeare's Subversive Liquors / Karen Raber -- Chapter 5. Feeding On The Body Politic : Consumption, Hunger, And Taste In Coriolanus / Ernst Gerhardt -- Chapter 6. Sacking Falstaff / Rebecca Lemon -- Part 3. Theater And Community. Chapter 7. Cynical Dining In Timon Of Athens / Douglas M. Lanier -- Chapter 8. Feasting And Forgetting : Sir Toby's Pickle Herring And The Lure Of Lethe / Tobias Döring -- Chapter 9. Shakespeare's Messmates / Julian Yates -- Chapter 10. Room For Dessert : Sugared Shakespeare And The Dramaturgy Of Dwelling / Julia Reinhard Lupton. Edited By David B. Goldstein And Amy L. Tigner. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.