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The Smoke of the Soul

Medicine, Physiology and Religion in Early Modern England

  • Book
  • © 2013

Overview

Authors:
  1. Richard Sugg

    1. Department of English Studies, Durham University, UK

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Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Introduction

    • Richard Sugg
    Pages 1-10

  3. The Physiology of the Soul

    • Richard Sugg
    Pages 11-50

  4. The Soul in Three Dimensions: Pietro Pomponazzi and Andreas Vesalius

    • Richard Sugg
    Pages 51-80

  5. Aspiring Souls (I): Tamburlaine the Great

    • Richard Sugg
    Pages 81-102

  6. Aspiring Souls (II): Dr Faustus

    • Richard Sugg
    Pages 103-132

  7. Painful Inquisition: Body-Soul Problems in Early Modern Christianity

    • Richard Sugg
    Pages 133-163

  8. The Differential Soul: Women, Fools and Personal Identity

    • Richard Sugg
    Pages 164-205

  9. The Dying Soul (I): Christian Mortalism as Religious Heresy

    • Richard Sugg
    Pages 206-233

  10. The Dying Soul (II): Mortalism as Literary Fantasy

    • Richard Sugg
    Pages 234-281

  11. Anatomy and the Rise of the Brain

    • Richard Sugg
    Pages 282-314

  12. Conclusion: The True Location of the Soul

    • Richard Sugg
    Pages 315-333

  13. Back Matter

    Pages 334-389
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Keywords

About this book

What was the soul? Christians agreed that it was the immortal core of each human being. Yet there was no agreement on where the soul was, what it was, or how it could be joined to the body. The Smoke of the Soul explores the anxieties and excitement generated by the mysterious zone where matter met spirit, and where human life met eternity.

Reviews

"An important contribution to the increasingly vibrant study of early modern anatomical practice... excellent, exhaustive and pioneering" James McNamara, TLS

"This engaging book examines the identity of the soul between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries and the author does so by referring to a wide range of texts in a dexterous and skilful way" Guido Giglioni, Social History of Medicine

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of English Studies, Durham University, UK

    Richard Sugg

About the author

Richard Sugg is Lecturer in Renaissance Literature at the University of Durham, UK. He is the author of John Donne (2007), Murder After Death (2007), Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires (2011), and The Secret History of the Soul (2013). He has published and presented his work via national and international newspapers, radio and television. He is currently writing a two volume history of vampirism, Faces of the Vampire.

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