Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the spontaneously generative and expansive meteorophysiological forces that fuel some of the most memorable monsters and heroes of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene. It argues that the act of cursing in William Shakespeare's first tetralogy becomes a political weapon against tyranny. The book provides the Meteorology and Physiology full circle with a return to a focus on prose and on the more personal nonfiction narrative. It provides description of the conceptual and experiential underpinnings of early modern meteorology. This includes examination of the terminology and of the theories early moderns employed as they felt, knew, and shared information regarding the physical realities of their universe. The book examines some of most essential indicators of the experience of human being, made manifest in the textual representation of the relationship between meteorology and physiology.