This study examines the various means of becoming empathetic and using this knowledge to explain the epistemic import of the characters' interaction in the works written by Chaucer, Shakespeare, and their contemporaries. By attuning oneself to another's expressive phenomena, the empathizer acquires an inter- and intrapersonal knowledge that exposes the limitations of hyperbole, custom, or unbridled passion to explain the profundity of their bond. Understanding the substantive meaning of the characters' discourse and narrative context discloses their motivations and how they view themselves. The aim is to explore the place of empathy in select late medieval and early modern portrayals of the body and mind and explicate the role they play in forging an intimate rapport.
Author(s): Strong, David
Series: Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 35. Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 84
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 180
City: Berlin
Introduction 1
Chapter 1. The Philosophical Underpinnings of Empathy 18
Sympathy’s Value 25
Empathy Today 30
Chapter 2. Empathy’s Volition in Preserving a Medieval Fraternal Bond 36
Amis and Amiloun: The Choice to Care 37
Scotus’s Dual Affections 42
The Self-Determining Properties of Amis and Amiloun’s Will 45
Putting into Praxis the Will’s Choice 49
The Sensory Power of Empathy in 'The Second Nun’s Tale' 56
Chapter 3. Empathy for an Aged Patriarch and a Young Lover: A Phenomenological Inquiry into Shakespeare’s Supporting Cast 78
The Wise Fool 87
Empathy’s Tempest 111
Chapter 4. Projecting an Empathy that Transgresses This World’s Bounds in Seventeenth-Century Metaphysical Poetry 126
Crashaw’s Religious Heroines and Their Life in Thought 146
Teresian Poetry 162
Epilogue 170
Index 172
