The significance of food in literature has commonly been overlooked, however, recently there has been a shift towards (re-)evaluating the role of food as a signifier of cultural and social concepts. The existing criticism predominantly focuses on food either in contemporary literature through a theoretical lens or pre-Victorian literature in a historical context. Images of consumption and nourishment in Medieval and Early Modern literature have seldom been analysed using critical theory despite being rich with possibilities. Therefore, in my thesis I intend to employ a variety of theoretical disciplines (new materialism, psychoanalysis, feminism) to provide a framework to analyse the significance of food in literary texts from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.
I completed my undergraduate degree in English Literature in 2018. After my BA, I proceeded to start my doctoral study which focuses on food in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, and employs critical theory as a framework to analyse these representations and the significance of food in the Medieval and Renaissance periods.