The Medievalism of Emotions in King Lear

Anna Czarnowus

doi:10.18778/2083-8530.23.11

Authors

Anna Czarnowus University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2832-1351

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.23.11

Keywords:

medievalism, emotions in Shakespeare, King Lear, Reformation in England, humoral theory

Abstract

King Lear exemplifies two cultures of feeling, the medieval and the early modern one. Even though the humoral theory lay at the heart of the medieval and the early modern understanding of emotions, there was a sudden change in the understanding of specific medieval emotions in Renaissance England, such as honour as an emotional disposition. Emotional expression also changed, since the late Middle Ages favoured vehement emotional expression, while in early modern England curtailment of any affective responses was advocated. Early modern England cut itself off from its medieval past in this manner and saw itself as “civilized” due to this restraint. Also some medieval courtly rituals were rejected. Expression of anger was no longer seen as natural and socially necessary. Shame started to be perceived as a private emotion and was not related to public shaming. The meaning of pride was discussed and love was separated from the medieval concept of charity. In contrast, in King Lear the question of embodiment of emotions is seen from a perspective similar to the medieval one. The article analyzes medievalism in terms of affections and studies the shift from the medieval ideas about them to the early modern ones.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Anna Czarnowus, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland

Anna Czarnowus is an adjunct professor at the Department of Literary Studies at the University of Silesia, Katowice. She has been publishing on Middle English literature and medievalism. She is the co-editor (with M.J. Toswell) of Medievalism in English Canadian Literature: From Richardson to Atwood (D.S. Brewer, 2020) and is currently co-editing (with Carolyne Larrington) Memory and Medievalism in George R.R. Martin and Game of Thrones: The Keeper of All Our Memories (Bloomsbury, forthcoming). Her next monograph is going to focus on the history of emotions in the context of medieval literature. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2832-1351

References

Althoff, Gerd. “Ira regis: Prolegomena to a History of Royal Anger.” In Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion. Ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998: 59-74.
Google Scholar

Bagchi, David. “The Scripture moveth us in sundry places”: Framing Biblical Emotions in the Book of Common Prayer and the Homilies.” In The Renaissance of Emotions: Understanding Affect in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. Ed. Richard Meek and Erin Sullivan. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015: 45-64.
Google Scholar

Bain, Frederika. “The Affective Scripts of Early Modern Execution and Murder.” In The Renaissance of Emotion: Understanding Affect in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. Ed. Richard Meek and Erin Sullivan. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015: 221-240.
Google Scholar

Bevington, David. “King Lear.” In The Necessary Shakespeare. Ed. David Bevington. New York: Longman, 2002: 634-638.
Google Scholar

Boddice, Rob. The History of Emotions. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018.
Google Scholar

Boquet, Damien and Piroska Nagy. Medieval Sensibilities: A History of Emotions in the Middle Ages. Trans. Robert Shaw. Cambridge: polity, 2018.
Google Scholar

Brookes-Davies, Douglas, ed. The Faerie Queene. Books I to III. London and Vermont: Everyman, 1993.
Google Scholar

Duthie, George Ian and John Dover Wilson, eds. William Shakespeare. King Lear. The New Shakespeare. Cambridge: At the University Press, 1960.
Google Scholar

Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2000.
Google Scholar

Enterline, Lynn. Shakespeare’s Schoolroom: Rhetoric, Discipline, Emotions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812207132

Eustace, Nicole, Eugenia Lean, Julie Livingston, Jan Plamper, William E. Reddy, and Barbara H. Rosenwein. “‘AHR’ Conversation: The Historical Study of Emotions”. The American Historical Review 117/5 (2012): 1486-1531.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/117.5.1487

Frevert, Ute. Emotions in History – Lost and Found. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2011.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7829/9786155053344Frevert

Frevert, Ute. “Definining Emotions: Concepts and Debates over Three Centuries.” In Emotional Lexicons: Continuity and Change in the Vocabulary of Feeling 1700-2000. Ed. Ute Frevert et al. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014: 1-31.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199655731.003.0001

Holbrook, Peter. “Afterword.” In The Renaissance of Emotion: Understanding Affect in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. Ed. Richard Meek and Erin Sullivan. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015: 264-272.
Google Scholar

Huizinga, Johan. The Autumn of the Middle Ages. Trans. Rodney J. Payton and Ulrich Mammitzsch. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226767680.001.0001

Irish, Bradley J. Emotion in the Tudor Court: Literature, History, and Early Modern Feeling. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2018.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv3znz47

Jones, Mike Rodman. “Early Modern Medievalism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism. Ed. Louise D’Arcens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016: 89-102.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781316091708.007

Karant-Nunn, Susan C. The Reformation of Feeling: Shaping the Religious Emotions in Early Modern Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195399738.001.0001

Karant-Nunn, Susan C. “Martin Luther’s Heart.” In Performing Emotions in Early Europe. Ed. Philippa Maddern, Joanne McEwan, and Anne M. Scott. Turnhout: Brepols, 2018: 243-263.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1484/M.EER-EB.5.115234

Lynch, Andrew. “Swords in Stones/Ladies in Lakes.” In International Medievalism and Popular Culture. Ed. Louise D’Arcens and Andrew Lynch. Amherst and New York: Cambria Press, 2014: 227-244.
Google Scholar

Maddern, Philippa. “Honour among the Pastons: Gender and Integrity in the Fifteenth-Century English Provincial Society”. Journal of Medieval History 14 (1988): 357-371.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-4181(88)90033-4

Matthews, David. Medievalism: A Critical History. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2015.
Google Scholar

MacKinnon, Dolly. “‘[D]id ringe at oure parish churche … for joye that the queene of Skotts … was beheaded’: Public Performances of Early Modern English Emotions”. Performing Emotions in Early Europe. Ed. Philippa Maddern, Joanne McEwan, and Anne M. Scott. Turnhout: Brepols, 2018: 169-181.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1484/M.EER-EB.5.115230

McDaniel, Rhonda L. “Pride Goes Before a Fall: Adhelm’s Practical Application of Gregorian and Cassianic Conceptions of Superbia and the Eight Principal Vices”. The Seven Deadly Sins: From Communities to Individuals. Ed. Richard Newhauser. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007: 95-110.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004157859.i-312.24

Meek, Richard and Erin Sullivan. “Introduction.” In The Renaissance of Emotion: Understanding Affect in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9780719090783.001.0001

Monmouth, Geoffrey of. The History of the Kings of Britain. Trans. Lewis Thorpe. London: Penguin Books, 1966.
Google Scholar

Mullaney, Steven. The Reformation of Emotions in the Age of Shakespeare. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2015.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226117096.001.0001

Nash, Penelope. “Reality and Ritual in the Medieval King’s Emotions of Ira and Clementia.” In Understanding Emotions in Early Europe. Ed. Michael Champion and Andrew Lynch. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015: 251-271.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1484/M.EER-EB.5.105231

Park, Katharine. “The Organic Soul.” In The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Ed. Charles B. Schmitt et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988: 469.
Google Scholar

Paster, Gail Kern. Humoring the Body: Emotions and the Shakespearean Stage. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2014.
Google Scholar

Prendergast, Thomas A. and Stephanie Trigg. Affective Medievalism: Love, Abjection and Discontent. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9781526126863.001.0001

Rosenwein, Barbara H. and Riccardo Cristiani. What is the History of Emotions? Cambridge: polity, 2017.
Google Scholar

Ryrie, Alec. Being Protestant in Reformation England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199565726.001.0001

Shakespeare, William. King Lear. The New Shakespeare. Ed. George Ian Duthie and John Dover Wilson. Cambridge: At the University Press, 1960.
Google Scholar

Stearns, Peter and Carol Z. Stearns. “Emotionology: Clarifying the History of Emotions and Emotional Standards”. The American Historical Review 90/4 (1985): 813-836.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1858841

Strier, Richard. The Unrepentant Renaissance: From Petrarch to Shakespeare to Milton. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226777535.001.0001

Tillyard, E.M.W. The Elizabethan World Picture: A Study of the Idea of Order in the Age of Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton. New York: Vintage, 1959.
Google Scholar

Trigg, Stephanie. “Introduction: Emotional Histories—Beyond the Personalization of the Past and the Abstraction of Affect Theory”. Exemplaria 26/2 (2014): 3-15.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1179/1041257313Z.00000000043

Wetmore, Alex. Man of Feeling in Eighteenth-Century Literature: Touching Fiction. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137346346

White, R.S. “False Friends: Affective Semantics in Shakespeare”. Shakespeare 8 (2012): 286-299.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2012.696277

Wilson, J. Dover, ed. William Shakespeare. The Sonnets. The New Shakespeare. Cambridge: At The University Press, 1966.
Google Scholar

Witalisz, Władysław. The Trojan Mirror: Middle English Narratives of Troy as Books of Princely Advice. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2011.
Google Scholar