English Language and Literature Commons^™

"Baleful Weeds And Precious-Juiced Flowers": Romeo And Juliet And Renaissance Medical Discourse, Erica Nicole Daigle

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis claims that Shakespeare exaggerated the characterization of two figures in Romeo and Juliet, Friar Laurence and the apothecary, to make a statement about the conditions of medical treatment in sixteenth century London. These two figures represent two very different approaches to healing, one that is informed with ancient holistic medical theory and one that is driven by economics, and this work attempts to explain the cultural conditions that warranted such a discrepancy in the play. I address these two medical figures in the contexts of the events of the text, of the contemporary medical profession, and of materialism …