1. Introduction: Beyond the Plague - Darryl Chalk -- 2. Comedy, the Senses, and Social Contagion in Plays Confused in Five Actions and The Comedy of Errors - Jennie Votava -- 3. "A Deal of Stinking Breath": The Smell of Contagion in the Early Modern Playhouse - Amy Kenny -- 4. "Go Touch his Life": Contagious Malice and the Power of Touch in The Witch of Edmonton - Bronwyn Johnston -- 5. Kisses and Contagion in Troilus and Cressida - Jennifer Forsyth -- 6. "Search this Ulcer Soundly": Sex as Contagion in The Changeling and Othello - Emily Weissbourd -- 7. "Amend thy Face": Contagion and Disgust in the Henriad - Ariane M. Balizet -- 8. Bad Dancing and Contagious Embarrassment in More Dissemblers Besides Women - Jennifer Panek -- 9. Contagious Pity: Cultural Differences and the Language of Contagion in Titus Andronicus - Jennifer Feather -- 10. The Hungry Meme and Political Contagion in Coriolanus - Clifford Werier -- 11. Hamlet's Story/Stories of Hamlet: Shakespeare's Theatre, the Plague, and Contagious Storytelling - J. F. Bernard -- 12. "Nature Naturized": Plague, Contagious Atheism, and The Alchemist - John Estabillo -- 12. Embedded in Shakespeare's "Fair Verona" - Rebecca Totaro -- 13. Afterword - Mary Floyd-Wilson
This collection of essays considers what constituted contagion in the minds of early moderns in the absence of modern germ theory. In a wide range of essays focused on early modern drama and the culture of theater, contributors explore how ideas of contagion not only inform representations of the senses (such as smell and touch) and emotions (such as disgust, pity, and shame) but also shape how people understood belief, narrative, and political agency. Epidemic thinking was not limited to medical inquiry or the narrow study of a particular disease. Shakespeare, Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker and other early modern writers understood that someone might be infected or transformed by the presence of others, through various kinds of exchange, or if exposed to certain ideas, practices, or environmental conditions. The discourse and concept of contagion provides a lens for understanding early modern theatrical performance, dramatic plots, and theater-going itself
