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Introduction

‘Solemn Sympathy’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2023

Richard Meek
Affiliation:
University of Hull
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Summary

The Introduction interrogates the current critical view of early modern sympathy as a physical or occult process. It proposes that literary critics and historians have neglected the coexistence of the emotional and physical senses of the word sympathy in the early modern period. Exploring a broader range of intellectual frameworks – including religious culture, literary theories of imitation, and humanist pedagogy – complicates the idea that sympathy was primarily an automatic or a humoral phenomenon. The Introduction also argues that translations of European vernacular texts, including Du Bartas’s The Historie of Judith (1584) and Montaigne’s Essais (1603), played a significant role in introducing the affective meaning of sympathy to English readers. This expanding emotional vocabulary – along with other material and social changes in the period – led to an increased theorization of pity and compassion, whereby individuals came to be regarded as a connected network of distinct selves rather than a homogenous social group. In this way, the emergence of sympathy as a term and concept prompted a reconsideration of the nature and boundaries of early modern selfhood.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Introduction
  • Richard Meek, University of Hull
  • Book: Sympathy in Early Modern Literature and Culture
  • Online publication: 27 April 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009280259.001
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  • Introduction
  • Richard Meek, University of Hull
  • Book: Sympathy in Early Modern Literature and Culture
  • Online publication: 27 April 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009280259.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Richard Meek, University of Hull
  • Book: Sympathy in Early Modern Literature and Culture
  • Online publication: 27 April 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009280259.001
Available formats
×