Abstract

The article argues that fresh insight into Renaissance infant feeding practices can be gained by situating maternal milk within the context of the mother's material contributions to children in the generative narrative as a whole. The humoral milk of the mother (itself redirected uterine blood) is shown to have consolidated the influence of the mother's generative blood that influenced offspring during gestation. The milk of the wet-nurse, however, disrupted the influence of the mother over her child. Through the examination of Renaissance midwifery tracts and the representation of Shakespeare's Volumnia in Coriolanus, this article reveals the humoral potency attributed to the breastfeeding Renaissance mother and challenges modern psychoanalytic readings that isolate Renaissance selves in a manner that overlooks the blurred boundaries that existed between humoral bodies.

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