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Chapter 3 - The Food Gift

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2021

Matt Williamson
Affiliation:
Universitetet i Oslo
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Summary

Chapter 3 considers the representation of the food gift in Shakespeare’s Pericles and Timon of Athens, and Massinger’s The Unnatural Combat. It argues that attention to hunger enables recognition of the role played by use value in gift exchange and places this in the context of the declining significance of traditions of hospitality in the period. It considers the recurrence of figures such as the discharged soldier and suggests that the soldier’s hunger constitutes a key means by which contemporary texts commented on the policies of pacifism carried out by monarchs such as James I. It emphasises the nostalgic dimension to representations of hospitality, but argues that this nostalgia frequently marks the system itself as untenable. It demonstrates that these plays manifest anxiety not simply at the scarcity and want which was produced by the nascent capitalist mode of production, but also at the problems of plenty and excess.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • The Food Gift
  • Matt Williamson, Universitetet i Oslo
  • Book: Hunger, Appetite and the Politics of the Renaissance Stage
  • Online publication: 28 May 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108937672.004
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  • The Food Gift
  • Matt Williamson, Universitetet i Oslo
  • Book: Hunger, Appetite and the Politics of the Renaissance Stage
  • Online publication: 28 May 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108937672.004
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Food Gift
  • Matt Williamson, Universitetet i Oslo
  • Book: Hunger, Appetite and the Politics of the Renaissance Stage
  • Online publication: 28 May 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108937672.004
Available formats
×