Abstracts
Abstract
Two models of compassion coexisted in early modern English thinking: one characterized fellow-feeling as a form of contagion that physically compelled the sharing of passions through the humoral body; the other saw compassion as a moral exercise that required deliberate encouragement and active practice. This paper argues that Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece demonstrates the dynamic interaction of these two models, situating Lucrece’s post-rape failures of productive compassionate interaction as the consequence of the changes produced in her body by the force of Tarquin’s passion, imparted to her through the event of the rape. By tracing Shakespeare’s poetic anatomy of the compassionate body through the rhetoric of opposition in the poem, this analysis elucidates how the construction of gender in humoral theory shapes the narration of the rape and exhibits the enduring influence of the humoral body on the period’s understanding of social life.
Keywords:
- William Shakespeare,
- The Rape of Lucrece,
- Compassion,
- Sympathy,
- Galenic Humoralism,
- History of Emotion
Résumé
Deux modèles de compassion coexistaient dans la pensée anglaise de la première modernité : l’un caractérisait le sentiment de camaraderie comme une forme de contagion imposant physiquement le partage des passions à travers le corps humoral ; l’autre considérait la compassion comme un exercice moral nécessitant un encouragement délibéré et une pratique active. Cet article soutient que Le viol de Lucrèce de Shakespeare illustre l’interaction dynamique de ces deux modèles, en positionnant les tentatives malheureuses de Lucrèce d’établir, après le viol, des interactions basées sur la compassion comme la conséquence des changements produits dans son corps par la force de la passion de Tarquin, transmise à travers l’acte du viol. En retraçant l’anatomie poétique du corps compatissant de Shakespeare à travers la rhétorique de l’opposition dans le poème, cette analyse cherche à comprendre comment la construction du genre dans la théorie humorale façonne le récit du viol et montre l’influence durable du corps humoral sur la compréhension de la société à l’époque.
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Appendices
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