My dissertation examines late medieval literature through the lens of medical history, especially humoral psychology. Although the humors are still of interest to the history of medicine, they are often overlooked in current literary criticism. My project examines how the humors influenced representations of bodies in medieval literary texts (St. Erkenwald, Chaucer's Franklin's Tale, Richard Coer de Lyon, and Marie de France's Yonec). In chapters exploring the connection between the humors and religious devotion, marriage, cannibalism, and shape-shifting, I show that humoral psychology was not just a medical theory known to medieval medical practitioners, but also a deeply influential cosmology for the literary representation of bodies and emotions.
I approach this project from two angles, using a methodology that relies on textual analysis and cultural contextualization. My work also aligns itself with scholars who have explored early modern works through the lens of historical phenomenology (Smith, Paster, Floyd-Wilson, Rowe). The project moreover encourages and contributes to the dialogue between the humanities and sciences in general and literature and medicine more specifically, as it makes connections to medical theories post-Descartes (Damasio) and to current scholarship regarding non-Western medical practices (Horden; Hsu) that discuss debates about balancing emotions and locating those emotions within the physical body. My project thus provides an analytical approach for interpreting medieval literature via medical models while also showing what the medieval period can contribute to the ongoing work of assessing the role of emotions in the past and its continued resonance in current medical debates.