MLR, ., further her enquiry into Middleton’s dramatic art, which, she underlines, ‘non è fatto per essere letto’ [‘is not created to be read’] (p. ). is point has oen been neglected by critics (most especially those dealing with Middleton’s comedies) who raise difficulties concerning verisimilitude and intrigue which evaporate (or never even present themselves) in the theatre itself. At every turn in this study, the reader’s attention is drawn helpfully towards key and/or recent contributions to Middleton scholarship as well as historical contextualization of the text being discussed. e second half of the volume is devoted to the dramatist’s tragic art, both to texts which were attributed to him in the seventeenth century and to those which have been attributed to him in more recent decades. Again, Guardamagna guides the reader expertly through the oen densely packed plots as well as signalling the dominant features (both linguistic and theatrical) of the dramatic universes created on stage. Shakespeare and, on occasion, Webster are ranged into view to offer more familiar lines of vision on how the Jacobean dramatists conceived of their art, and, equally interestingly, the reader is treated to notable critical insights into these plays down the generations. e discussion is enriched in this second half of the book particularly with the referencing of theatrical productions in recent years of the major tragedies, such as e Changeling (written with Rowley) and Women Beware Women. e study concludes with an account of ‘Middleton e Shakespeare’ (pp. –). Here, in a most thought-provoking manner, texts are made to rub shoulders (for instance, Middleton’s e Ghost of Lucrece with Shakespeare’s ‘e Rape of Lucrece’, or the former’s e Phoenix with Measure for Measure) and a whole of series of striking points of comparison emerges. In short, this critical publication will prove an invaluable introduction for the Italian reader into Middleton’s dramatic art and will remain a valuable resource for those who continue to conduct research in the field. B U /I. R. C. L., M 3 A H Rhetoric, Medicine, and the Woman Writer, –. By L B. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. . xiv+ pp. £. ISBN –– ––. Lyn Bennett’s short but detailed new book offers an original perspective on the development of the medical profession in the seventeenth century. Bennett contends that the professionalization of medicine and its growing pattern of exclusion, both from religious office and from women healers, owed more to rhetorical ability than to practical knowledge. By the author’s own admission, this point may not be entirely surprising (p. ), given the major part played by rhetorical training in early modern education, but it is nevertheless carefully and convincingly elaborated and justified. e first part of the book is devoted to the role played by rhetoric in the debates that informed the still emerging medical ‘profession’. Bennett demonstrates Reviews that physicians claimed for specific competence both in connection and in contradistinction with the clergy by confirming the early modern understanding of a complex union between body and soul. Rhetoric played a crucial part in the growing divide between the upholders of a ‘learned medicine’ based on Galenic humoral theory and the advocates of empirical knowledge; but it also contributed to downplaying that opposition. In her third chapter, Bennett examines the importance of rhetoric in the relationship between physicians and their patients, as social hierarchy made the latter ‘consumers’ (p. ) and prompted the former to use powers of persuasion in an attempt to impose their authority. In the second part of her study, Bennett turns to women’s participation in medicine, and more specifically to the interaction between the writing process, the construction of gender, and the professionalization of healing. In an important contribution to the study of early modern women, it confronts the works of female patients and healers, as well as some remedy books compiled by men but originally authored by women, such as Gervase Markham’s famous e English Housewife (). Despite its many strengths, the book suffers from a few weaknesses. Its division into two main parts, ‘Rhetoric and Medicine’ (pp. –) and ‘e Woman Writer’ (pp. –), renders the main title a little...
Read full abstract
Nov 20, 2023
Taochen Huang 
Open Access
