Sympathy in Early Modern Literature and Culture

This Is The First Comprehensive Study Of Sympathy In The Early Modern Period Providing A Deeply Researched And Interdisciplinary Examination Of Its Development In Anglophone Literature And Culture. It Argues That The Term Sympathy Was Used To Refer To An Active And Imaginative Sharing Of Affect Considerably Earlier Than Previous Critical And Historical Accounts Have Suggested. Investigating A Wide Range Of Texts And Genres Including Prose Fiction Sermons Poetic Complaint Drama Political Tracts And Scientific Treatises Richard Meek Demonstrates The Ways In Which Sympathy In The Period Is Bound Up With Larger Debates About Society Religion And Identity. He Also Reveals The Extent To Which Early Modern Emotions Were Not Simply Humoral Or Grounded In The Body But Rather Relational Comparative And Intertextual. This Volume Will Be Of Particular Interest To Scholars And Students Of Renaissance Literature And History The History Of Emotions And The History And Philosophy Of Science.