In Suffering in Paradise, Totaro provides a unique and timely discussion of the bubonic plague as it shaped Literary Studies in England from 1500 through the first half of the eighteenth century. Within the experience and accounts of bubonic plague, men and women found their own understanding of the body, of the human relationship with nature, and of the degree to which they had faith in their nation and their God. An early modern writer's reading of the plague shows us in detail what he or she believes to be the parameters within which life is lived. Focusing on the broadest of these...