Abstract
This dissertation examines the language of reproduction in early modern literary and non-literary texts by centering a shared vocabulary of liquidity and fluidity. This fluid language is found in Classical texts such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses which were formative in the early modern classroom and consistently appears in genres including the sonnet sequence, lyric poetry, medical texts, agricultural manuals, and recipe books. Chapter 2 examines reproductive language in William Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella sequence, finding that the fluid vocabulary destabilizes the poetry’s portrayal of literary production. Chapter 3 applies a similar fluid reading to the language of patronage verse letters by John Donne to his female patron, the Countess of Bedford. The chapter argues that the language employed in this genre hinges on the understanding of the female body as fluid. Chapter 4 reads misogynist manuscript lyric together with woman authored receipt books to examine the portrayal of the reproductive female body as both corrupt and erotic. Bodily fluids are central to interpreting the status of the body and exerting control over it. Chapter 5 reads the dairy as a site of reproductive female labor, centered around milk and its physical and interpretive possibilities, rooted in cheesemaking as a common metaphor for pregnancy. Ending with a reading of Hester Pulter’s childbirth poetics, this dissertation centers women’s bodies in creative narratives that often elide their lived experiences in metaphorical representations.