The Culture of Obesity in Early and Late Modernity : Body Image in Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Skelton

The Culture of Obesity in Early and Late Modernity offers the first sustained examination of fatness in the early modern period. As Levy-Navarro notes, bodily perceptions have evolved that value the thin body as they mark and stigmatize the fat one. Using readings of such major figures as Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Skelton, this book considers alternative ways that fat was constructed before the introduction of the modern pathologized category of “obesity”. Levy-Navarro argues that Shakespeare, Jonson, and Skelton understood that a thin aesthetic consolidates the power of the elite and chose to align themselves with their fat, lowly, and revolting characters--an alliance that offers a model of defiance with continued relevance. The Culture of Obesity in Early and Late Modernity offers the first sustained examination of fatness in the early modern period. As Levy-Navarro notes, bodily perceptions have evolved that value the thin body as they mark and stigmatize the fat one. Using readings of such major figures as Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Skelton, this book considers alternative ways that fat was constructed before the introduction of the modern pathologized category of "obesity". Levy-Navarro argues that Shakespeare, Jonson, and Skelton understood that a thin aesthetic consolidates the power of the elite and chose to align themselves with their fat, lowly, and revolting characters--an alliance that offers a model of defiance with continued relevance--Résumé de l'éditeur "The Culture of Obesity in Early and Late Modernity offers rhe first sustained examination of fatness in rhe early modern period. As Levy-Navarro notes, bodily perceptions have evolved that value the thin body as they mark and stigmatize the fat one. Using readings of such major figures as Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Skelton, this book considers alternative ways that fat was constructed before the introduction of the modern pathologized category of "obesity". Levy-Navarro argues that Shakespeare, Jonson, and Skelton understood that a thin aesthetic consolidates the power of the elite and chose to align themselves with their fat, lowly, and revolting characters - an alliance that offers a model of defiance with continued relevance."--BOOK JACKET Front Matter....Pages i-xi Toward a Constructionist Fat History....Pages 1-33 A Time Before Fat? Gluttony in Piers Plowman....Pages 35-44 Emergence of Fatness Defiant: Skelton at Court....Pages 45-65 Lean and Mean: Shakespeare’s Criticism of Thin Privilege....Pages 67-109 Boundless Fat in Middleton’s a Game at Chess....Pages 111-146 Weigh Me as a Friend: Jonson’s Multiple Constructions of the Fat Body....Pages 147-191 Back Matter....Pages 193-238 This book offers the first sustained examination of fatness in the early modern period. Using readings of such major figures as Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and Skelton, this book considers alternative ways that fat was constructed before the introduction of the modern pathologized category of 'obesity'.