Forged by Fire: Margery Kempe’s Account of Postnatal Psychosis
@article{Jefferies2014ForgedBF, title={Forged by Fire: Margery Kempe’s Account of Postnatal Psychosis}, author={D. Jefferies and D. Horsfall}, journal={Literature and Medicine}, year={2014}, volume={32}, pages={348 - 364} }
The opening sequence of the autobiography, The Book of Margery Kempe, written in approximately 1439, describes an episode of illness after the birth of a first child, which medical historians have identified as postnatal psychosis. Margery however, interpreted her experience of postnatal psychosis in terms of her own worldview, using a Christian paradigm. She was convinced that her recovery was an example of Grace emanating from her special relationship with God which gave her divine knowledge… CONTINUE READING
Topics from this paper
4 Citations
Blurring reality with fiction: Exploring the stories of women, madness, and infanticide.
- Sociology, Medicine
- Women and birth : journal of the Australian College of Midwives
- 2017
- 2
Understanding the experience of women admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Sydney with psychosis or mania following childbirth after World War II (1945–1955)
- Medicine
- International journal of mental health nursing
- 2018
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 32 REFERENCES
Margery Kempe, a new theory: the inadequacy of hysteria and postpartum psychosis as diagnostic categories
- Psychology
- 1990
- 14
Manipulating Mary: Maternal, Sexual, and Textual Authority in The Book of Margery Kempe
- History
- Modern Philology
- 2010
- 5
Mystic and Pilgrim: The Book and the World of Margery Kempe by Clarissa W. Atkinson (review)
- History
- 1987
- 11
The Trope of the Scribe and the Question of Literary Authority in the Works of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
- History
- Speculum
- 1991
- 41
Autobiography as genre for qualitative data: a reservoir of experience for nursing research.
- Psychology, Medicine
- Collegian
- 2012
- 16
Perinatal psychiatric disorders: a leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality.
- Medicine
- British medical bulletin
- 2003
- 245