A Vivisecting Dramatist: The Anatomy of Theater in Joanna Baillie’s “Introductory Discourse” andDe Monfort

Abstract

This article examines the aims, methods, and vocabularies of Joanna Baillie's “Introductory Discourse” and De Monfort alongside Matthew Baillie's anatomical tome, Morbid Anatomy, and a lecture that has escaped scholarly notice: Matthew Baillie's “Introductory Lecture to the Course of Anatomy given in Great Windmill Street. In two parts. First Delivered in the Year 1785.” In A Series of Plays, Joanna Baillie depicts passion as disease and, to unveil the pathology of these hidden passions, I assert she employs soliloquy as a metaphorical vivisection. In doing so, she adapts and improves upon methods of inquiry used in the study of anatomy in unprecedented ways to investigate mental illness.

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