Food and the Literary Imagination

Jayne Elisabeth Archer was a Lecturer in the Department of English and Creative Writing, Aberystwyth University, between 2005 and 2014. Her research interests are alchemy, science and the pseudo-sciences in early modern literature - especially literature by and for women.

Richard Marggraf Turley is Professor of English Literature in the Department of English and Creative Writing, Aberystwyth University. He is the author of several monographs on Romanticism, including Bright Stars: John Keats, Barry Cornwall and Romantic Literary Culture (2009). He is also the author of a novel set in the Romantic period, The Cunning House (2015).

Howard Thomas is Emeritus Professor of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences at Aberystwyth University. His research interests include the genetics, evolution and uses of food plants. He also has a special interest in the cultural significance of scientific research and promotion of links between science and the arts. He is co-author of The Molecular Life of Plants (2013).

Food and the Literary Imagination explores ways in which the food chain and anxieties about its corruption and disruption are represented in poetry, theatre and the novel. The book relates its findings to contemporary concerns about food security.

Identifies for the first time, the real-life watermill that provided a model for Eliot's depiction of Dorlcote Mill in The Mill on the Floss, together with the family who inspired her portrayal of the Tullivers.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on the Authors List of abbreviations Notes on Literary Texts and Note on Usage Prologue. Food Security and the Literary Imagination 1. Food Matters 2. The Field in Time 3. Chaucer's Pilgrims and a Medieval Game of Food 4. Remembering the Land in Shakespeare's Plays 5. Keats's Ode 'To Autumn': Touching the Stubble Plains 6. The Mill in Time: George Eliot and the New Agronomy Epilogue. The Literary Imagination and the Future of Food Notes and References Select Bibliography Index