Emulsifying Greasy Desire in Shakespeare and John Taylor the Water Poet

A table, a bed, or a body enclosed in clean linen is sheltered from the world. Smocks, shirts, stockings, table cloths, and bed sheets demarcate the discrete boundaries that separate clean objects from unclean environments. The smell of freshly laundered linen is an announcement: “This area has been decontaminated. It has been puri-fied of promiscuous pollutions.” But grease has a way of seeping through these borders. Fats and oils indiscriminately and wantonly dribble from the body’s pores. They ooze forth from cookware and flatware, sticking to and staining skin, hair, and cloth. In his ribald poem, “The Praise of Cleane Linnen,” John Taylor the Water Poet (1578–1653) gives an example of how grease debases a white handkerchief