pee meaning in english literature

pee meaning in english literature

The Significance of Urine in English Literature

1. Introduction to the Symbolism of Urine in Literature

The relationship between the spiritual and the physical in the death of important historical personages such as kings, emperors, and popes, or of religious leaders and ascetics, led to the commercial revaluation of this type of liquid. The reason for this spiritual valuation probably lies in the close relationship between the body, the sexual functions of each gender, and the expulsion and regulation of urine. This pious and spiritual side of excretion has been addressed in the texts of numerous eras, which is why the objective of the present work, which considers its presence in literary and emblematic samples from the sixteenth century to the early twentieth century, is to convey the points of view of the society of different times that have experienced the use of writings in connection with urine.

For years, urine has been spiritually significant in many religions and societies around the world due to its close physical association with the body and also its symbolic spiritual significance. The immediate purification of urine in different circumstances and the name given to this practice, ‘water of life,’ suggests that the expression and expulsion of urine are elements orchestrated with religious significance and spiritual contexts. A sacred or spiritual nature attributed to these natural acts is also reflected in the religious rules that regulate the expression of urine, such as lavation or washing, the type of water, and where it is performed.

2. Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Urine in English Literature

A wide range of causes has been advanced for the unusual presence of urine in English literature. These include microscopic contaminations of urine samples, historical medical practices arising from collective ignorance of human physiology, misguided interpretations of Hippocratic and Islamic medical doctrines, speculative associations between clay tablets dealing with urological practices and professional scribes living in the city of Nineveh, and theories advanced from the mistaken presumption that notable medical anomalies happened in the ancient past due to the presumed existence of recognized medical references that are no longer extant. In particular, the random or non-technical use of urine as a cure in English language literature does not exclude similar practices having been tried, at different times, in other parts of the world. Indeed, urine use has been observed elsewhere, and very likely its medical versatility might have responded to and adapted following a universal request of home therapies for common daily illnesses when nothing else was readily available. Such evidence would suggest that urine has been, without prejudice, one of the many so-called “alternatives,” rather than a so-called “anomaly,” in the long history of medical practices.

Since antiquity, the use of urine, particularly by the sick and infirm, has been part of the cultural landscape of ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Judeo-Christian, Byzantine, and Islamic medical traditions. The therapeutic remedies and virtues of urine have also found exposition in various literary and philosophical genres through the ages. The use of urine as a diagnostic tool – uroscopy – by medieval, Renaissance, and early modern European physicians was based on the works of ancient Greek authors, such as Hippocrates and Galen, and informed by the philosophical principles of humoral pathology and the astrological conception of the universe. The inspection of urine at the bedside of the patient, while not a difficult technical intervention to perform, enabled a trained genitourinary practitioner to make correlations between various patterns of urine discolorations, the individual or combined presence of bubbles, sediments, precipitates, and floating materials, as well as the urinary excretion volume and the sick person’s physical signs and symptoms, activity, family background, diet, general health, lifestyle, occupation, state of mind, treatments, travel, and habits.

3. Notable Literary Works Featuring Urine Imagery

Within the riming stanzas of the General Prologue, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is a masterly confluence of thoughtful poetry, fascinating tales, and vivid characters painting 14th-century England in every stroke. This story, heavily laced with earthy imageries and robust humor, ignites all of the traveler’s senses time after time. In many surviving texts, urine-related vocabulary such as ‘pisse’, ‘urinal’, ‘stinking’, and ‘lyk’ can be found. This crude humor reflects the common belief and traditional field of medieval ‘uroscopy’ or ‘piss prophet’, a process of diagnosing a person’s health by inspecting his or her urine. The efficient delivery of humor irreversibly alters contemporary language and literature. It turns common forms of professional diversification into caricatures and mockery. The ego and false affirmation solely held by physicians throughout medieval times is held up to scrutiny. The satirical and humorous misappropriation of the term “science” reveals both present and past paradigms.

English literature depicts many customarily bodily-related themes, one of which is its careful diction about urine. Works dating from ancient to modern times all contain many interesting interpretations of the excretion. Urine imagery is used for dramatic, symbolic, thematic, satirical, physiological, and other purposes in well-known pieces. This strange, yet unique, topic draws people’s attention and curiosity to investigate further. Works such as alliteration of urine-related vocabulary in The Canterbury Tales, anthropomorphic urinating beliefs in Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, misfortunes surrounding urine in Macbeth, and others reveal meaningful hints about individual characters’ inner feelings, unique superstitions or beliefs, impending calamities, emotional conflicts related to sex and marriage, and so on.

4. The Psychological and Societal Implications of Urine Symbolism

Another psychological aspect of micturition involving its link to the social function of urinary is the relatively common frigidity in women. Fear of micturition is a common feature of many psycho-neuroses in both sexes. Similarly, clysters were intended “to open the passage of urine whereby stopped excrements are dissolved and passing become more soluble.” Urinary constitutes a unique state for the excrementitious kidney. On urineness is based the definition of the urinary excretion, as a social function that becomes necessary only at a relatively advanced stage of renal failure. The interpersonal space becomes fecal. From excretion to eroticism to expulsion, six centuries of literary prestige for the excretory products have been formulated in the context of the prestige of the eliminatory conduits, the kidneys and the body. Wolcott traveled, and urination did indeed become a master. The close symbolic, social, and sanitary connection of kidneys and bladder to physical elimination are ingredients of the literary view of the urinary excretion as a facet of its evolution. Hence, the behavioral consternation at the renal vegeta and its vaginal ramifications.

What kind of emotion must have been behind the imagery, which could inspire such defilement, to say nothing of the excrementitious character of the whole imaginative creation? In a way, urine is to the kidney what faeces are to the colon: the former to the outer, particularly social order what the latter are to the inner, or psychological order. When urine is passed, it becomes a subject. It becomes public property and, in limitless use, is soon sullied. Urination, like defecation, fuses psychology and society, revealing through bodily means the fact that man as a social creature is political from and creates his politikos in agreeable activities. We do not say in such an instance that excrement is “passed” and obligingly disappears. But what we may say with conviction is that where there is no scatological, micturition is less than unique, the symbolic and literary prestige being accorded to the passage of the kidney cups being singular or great.

5. Conclusion and Future Directions in Analyzing Urine in English Literature

A number of promising areas of research may spawn from the current work. A full and rich examination of urine in English literature has been provided here, yet there are certainly many topics that have not been covered. The discussions included have been necessarily but exclusively and relied heavily on scientific analyses, which are a growing area of intellectual interest but very much in their infancy. This type of groundbreaking work is desperately needed for urine, exploring all possible discourses on as wide an array of different texts as possible. The current work contains discussion of thematic, word, and content analyses focusing on two major interpretive elements, fluid and skin, in The Miller’s Tale. This chapter analysis examines the urines found in Antonio and Mellida and Antonio’s Revenge. The topic of urine is, however, too rich and deserves far more attention.

Literary scholars seem to focus on urine when they know that a little effort can turn up fascinating interpretations and meanings. Many of the traditional interpretations covered in an earlier section are based on truth and also work from a symbolic perspective, providing evidence for their validity. At times, the information available has been by turns fascinating or disgusting, yet research on urine is still neglected. This area of urine scholarship and the questions that await further study would fill many books, and so we will only be able to hint at the potential in this conclusion. However, a subject which is well-developed, but exhaustively documented, has obviously been, by definition, worthy of attention and fruitful in analysis and discussion. How does urine maintain its status as a topic of scholarly significance in English literary studies?