Compassion in Early Modern Literature and Culture
Compassion in Early Modern Literature and Culture
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This collection is an enquiry into compassion as an early modern emotional phenomenon, situating it within the complexity of European economic, social, cultural and religious tensions. Drawing on recent work in the history of emotions, leading scholars consider the particularities of early modern compassion, demonstrating its entanglements with diverse genres and geographies. Chapters on canonical and less familiar works explore tragedy, comedy, sermons, philosophy, treatises on consolation, medical writing, and dramatic theory, showing how early modern compassion shaped attitudes and social structures that remain central to the way we imagine our response to suffering today, and how such investigations can ultimately provoke new ways of thinking about community in contemporary Europe.
- Provides examples of early modern compassion in theory and practice
- Explores the place of literary texts and of reading in the history of emotions
- Contextualises the literature of compassion in a variety of European traditions
Reviews & endorsements
‘… a convincing alternative to rigorous compassion scepticism …' James Waddell, Modern Language Review
‘Its commendable coherence is determined by both the central theme and the well-thought-through structure, which supports the topic’s conceptualization … the volume is a valuable contribution on a timely topic …’ Mirosława Hanusiewicz-Lavallee, Journal of Jesuit Studies
Product details
April 2021Hardback
9781108495394
290 pages
235 × 160 × 25 mm
0.6kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction Kristine Steenbergh and Katherine Ibbett
- Part I. Theorizing:
- 1. The ethics of compassion in early modern England Bruce R. Smith
- 2. The compassionate self of the Catholic Reformation Katherine Ibbett
- Part II. Consoling:
- 3. 'Hee left them not comfortlesse by the way': grief and compassion in early modern English consolatory culture Paula Barros
- 4. Friendship, counsel, and compassion in early modern medical thought Stephen Pender
- Part III. Exhorting:
- 5. 'Compassion and mercie draw teares from the godlyfull often': the rhetoric of sympathy in the early modern sermon Richard Meek
- 6. Mollified hearts and enlarged bowels: practising compassion in reformation England Kristine Steenbergh
- Part IV. Performing:
- 7. Civic liberties and community compassion: the Jesuit drama of Poland-Lithuania Clarinda E. Calma and Jolanta Rzegocka
- 8. Compassion, contingency and conversion in James Shirley's The Sisters Alison Searle
- Part V. Responding:
- 9. Mountainish inhumanity in Illyria: compassion in Twelfth Night as social luxury and political duty Elisabetta Tarantino
- 10. Standing on a beach: Shakespeare and the sympathetic imagination Eric Langley
- Part VI. Giving:
- 11. 'To feel what wretches feel': Reformation and the re-naming of English compassion Toria Johnson
- 12. Alms petitions and compassion in sixteenth-century London Rebecca Tomlin
- Part VII. Racializing:
- 13. Pity and empire in the BrevÃsima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (1552) Matthew Goldmark
- 14. 'Our Black hero': compassion for friends and others in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko John Staines
- Part VIII. Contemporary Compassions:
- 15. Contemporary compassions: interrelating in the Anthropocene Kristine Steenbergh.
