“I had once the chance to see when I was performing my office of "Midwifry" Paesaggi anatomici nel "Midwives Book (1671) di Jane Sharp

Abstract

In a cultural context dominated by men, Jane Sharp was the first English woman to have authored a midwifery treatise. The present essay highlights the originality of her Midwives Book (1671) in comparison with the previous male treatises, showing how she consciously exploited her male counterparts’ works, often taking position against them. In pursuing this purpose, the article analyzes the functions attributed to the use of a metaphorical language, identifying some specific rhetorical strategies: in particular way, Sharp’s insistence on her own visual experience as a certification of truth, and her use of metaphors taken from the natural world. Thus, the Midwives Book seems to take the shape of an “experiential journey” in the woman’s body which, in Sharp’s words, is no more the territory of mere speculation, but a real landscape, seen, contemplated, explored and described.