Midwiving Subjects in Shakespeare’s England

Caroline Bicks is Assistant Professor of English at Boston College. She has published work on women, religious rituals, and childbirth in the early modern period, including an essay in Maternal Measures: Figuring Caregiving in the Early Modern Period

• Contents: Introduction: Midwiving subjects; Lurking in the gossip's bowl: men's tales and women's words; 'Sometimes the midwives break it': pressing maids and making women; 'As God makes, so the midwife shapes': crowning heads and reforming English bodies; Stealing the seal: baptizing women and the mark of kingship; '(Miraculous) matter': Lucina at Ephesus and the churching of women; Epilogue: Lucina in London; Bibliography; Index.

'Caroline Bicks deftly weaves together history, literature, medicine and theology to explore early modern anxieties about midwives' many roles. This book provides a rich new slant on early modern midwives, as keepers, shapers and critics of femininity and masculinity.' Dr. Helen King, Reader in the History of Classical Medicine, University of Reading 'Caroline Bicks's thorough and wide-ranging exploration of the cultural contexts of pregnancy and childbearing in Shakespeare's Britain makes for a fascinating, provocative read.' Professor Elaine Hobby, author of Virtue of Necessity: English Women's Writing 1649-1688 and Professor of Seventeenth-Century Studies, Loughborough University 'The book is broad in scope, treating an impressive array of English and Continental texts. Bicks is especially strong when tracing the cultural paradigms that defined and delimited early modern midwives, in their time and the present.' ChoiceReviews '...a compelling and thoughtful exploration...Bicks offers a well-researched and thoughtful exposition of the midwife's importance to cultural production. She clearly and at times brilliantly elucidates the midwife's participation in subject formation.' Shakespeare Quarterly '... wide-ranging and compelling... a fascinating and important study... a welcome addition to the field of early modern cultural studies, and it should be considered required reading for scholars interested in the history of early modern women.' Albion 'Caroline Bicks has crafted a generous synthesis of pre-modern writings and current scholarship treating of midwives and, more broadly, women members of the birthroom community... Her study will be useful to scholars coming from literary studies, cultural history, and history of the family... one of the gifts of this book is that its interlay of medical with Shakespearean passages allows us to read the latter for the most fleeting iridescent nuances and implications.' Clio '... illuminating analyses of midwifery manuals, pamphlet literature, sermons and a range of other less familiar literary material... The main strengths of this book are those that characterize good work... the account is highly readable and carefully nuanced, drawing on a wide range of textual research... the evidence it amasses for the troubling and troubled status of midwives and gossips in early modern England should be welcomed by those working on the history of birth and reproduction.' British Journal for the History of Science 'In Midwiving Subjects in Shakespeare's England, Caroline Bicks brings the early modern midwife to life, persuasively arguing for her authoritative role in the social and political milieu of early modern England. Weaving together a wide range of historical sources and literary texts, Bicks illustrates the midwife's work in fascinating, vivid details... This well-crafted study goes beyond existing critical work on the midwife's role as virginity tester and birth-room confidante... historical research is given interpretive nuance by way of Shakespeare... Midwiving Subjects will be essential reading for scholars working on childbirth, pregnancy, or midwifery in early modern England, but it also illuminates many of Shakespeare's allusive, mature women. Bicks's close readings of historical documents and literary texts offer a new, richly researched angle on early modern women and the stories they generate.' Modern Philology