Food in Shakespeare

A study of common and exotic food in Shakespeare's plays, this book is the first to explore early modern English dietary literature to understand better the uses, as well as the social and moral implications, of food in Shakespearean drama. Food in Shakespeare provides an historically accurate account of the range of, and conflicts between, contemporary ideas that informed the representations of foodstuff in the plays.

Joan Fitzpatrick is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Loughborough, UK. She has published books and articles on Shakespeare and Spenser. She also writes the 'Spenser and Sidney' section of The Year's Work in English Studies.

Introduction; Chapter 1 Familiar Extremes: The Case of Sir John Oldcastle; Chapter 2 Celtic Acquaintance and Alterity; Chapter 3 Strange Diets: Vegetarianism and the Melancholic; Chapter 4 Famine and Abstinence, Class War, and Foreign Foodstuff; Chapter 5 Beyond the Pale: Profane Consumption; conclusion Conclusion;