In brave embroid'ry fair arrayed: the soul-body dynamic and motherhood in early modern literature

Leemann, Elizabeth (2026) In brave embroid'ry fair arrayed: the soul-body dynamic and motherhood in early modern literature. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis explores the soul-body dynamic and motherhood in seventeenth-century literature. The topics examined in each chapter demonstrate the spiritual importance of the womb in particular across a range of literary texts from the period. I analyse both male-authored and female-authored texts that discuss women’s bodies, and I support each argument by referencing theological and medical texts from the period.
I argue for the centrality of the womb and, more generally, women’s bodies when exploring early modern women’s spirituality. Literary and theological representations of women labelled them as witches, mothers, or virgins, suggesting a good/evil duality in their nature. Yet, by analysing selected texts from the seventeenth century, I demonstrate that their spirituality was more complex. The soul-body connection in literary texts reflects the womb’s transformational power and women’s relationship to spirituality through their bodies.
I begin this thesis by examining the initiatory process of this dynamic: ensoulment during gestation. I detail early modern medical, theological, and philosophical beliefs about ensoulment before analysing both male- and female-authored texts on this topic, including The Duchess of Malfi (1613-14), Hester Pulter’s (1640-1650), and Mary Carey’s (1657) poetry. I posit that during gestation, a spiritual bond is created between a mother and her child, and this bond is represented in seventeenth-century texts that deal with pregnancy. I argue that the womb is central to women’s spirituality because of the common belief that it is where the soul enters the body. Equally, the womb creates both life and death through pregnancy and miscarriages, which further emphasises this organ’s spiritual nature.
In the second chapter, I continue this thematic-based approach by analysing several texts that foreground the mother-child bond and its effect on sleep and dreams. I examine Mary Sidney Herbert’s Psalm translations and adaptations (c.1599), focusing specifically on Psalms 51 and 139, which present an unconscious foetus ‘asleep’ in the womb. I also explore Rachel Speght’s ‘The Dreame’ (1621) and her demonstration of the mother-child bond in a daughter’s dream about her mother. I then use this analysis of unconscious sleep states to reevaluate Hermione’s dead sleep in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (1611), which occurs as a result of losing both her children.
In chapter three, I examine the texts of four women prophets from the seventeenth century: Eleanor Davies, Anna Trapnel, Ann Bathurst, and Jane Lead. I posit that the womb is central to their ability to achieve altered states of consciousness and consequently imbues it with spiritual importance. In chapters four and five, I analyse two texts that use metamorphosis to highlight the centrality of the soul-body dynamic in women’s ability to gain power: Heywood and Brome’s The Late Lancashire Witches (1634) and Margaret Cavendish’s The New Blazing World (1666). Finally, in chapter six, I step away from the womb by examining its fluids in women’s alchemical poetry. I analyse menstrual blood in Elizabeth Jane Weston’s and An Collins’s poetry before focusing on the representation of breastmilk in Lucy Hutchinson’s Order and Disorder (1679). These texts demonstrate that the womb not only produces duality through its corrupting and purging agents, but also functions on a deeper level of spiritual transformation.
The selection of texts used in this thesis highlights the womb’s role in the soul-body dynamic in the seventeenth century. Male authors considered this organ both mysterious and dangerous in the period. Yet, I argue that by examining female writers in tandem with male writers, the womb is essential to understanding early modern women’s experience of spirituality.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Supported in part by the College of Arts Graduate School.
• Subjects: P Language and Literature > PR English literature
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Literature
• Funder's Name: College of Arts Graduate School
• Supervisor's Name: Streete, Professor Adrian, Porter, Professor Dahlia and Park, Dr. Jennifer
• Date of Award: 2026
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2026-86040
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 19 Jun 2026 15:34
• Last Modified: 19 Jun 2026 15:44
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.86040
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/86040