Refusing to Behave in Early Modern Literature
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Refusing to Behave in Early Modern Literature explores texts shaped by collisions between the idiosyncrasies of individual bodyminds and the values of small communities such as religion, sect, social milieu, congregation and family. The book encompasses the period from the late sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century, examining early modern shrew and devil plays, picaresque and rogue literature, and Quaker life-writing. Refusing to Behave examines the ways in which Thomas Dekker, Thomas Ellwood, Mateo Aleman and his translator James Mabbe, and the anonymous author of Grim the Collier of Croydon use textual tricks to provoke bodily responses in readers, and also draw on readers' bodily experiences to enrich their textual descriptions. This study broadens the scope of current understandings of early modern literature by identifying and analysing the significance of genre to representations of resistance to behavioural norms.
Laura Seymour is Lecturer in English at The Queen’s College, Oxford. She researches neurodiversity, Shakespeare, and early modern literature. She is the author of Refusing to Behave in Early Modern Literature (EUP, 2022) and Shakespeare and Neurodiversity (2024). Her work on neurodivergence, cognition, and early modern literature have appeared most recently in journals like Shakespeare, Renaissance Studies, Bunyan Studies, Marvell Studies, and Studies in English Literature as well as in edited volumes. With Professor Siân Grønlie, she founded and co-leads the project Neurodiversity at Oxford which aims to connect, celebrate, and empower Oxford University’s neurodiverse community of staff and students https://neurodiversityoxford.web.ox.ac.uk . Her current project, “New Understandings of Hamlet”, centers lived experience of neurodivergence, suicidal ideation, and mental illness in reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and is funded by the British Academy.