Lunchtime Seminar: Witnessing Illness in Early Modern England, 9 November

Sarah Chaney Discussion

The next Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions Lunchtime Work in Progress Seminar will take place on Wednesday 9 November.

‘Doleful Groans & Sad Lookes’: Witnessing Illness in Early Modern England’

Hannah Newton (University of Reading)

9th November, 1pm, Room 2.17, Arts Two.

In early modern England, the sick were usually looked after at home, by relatives and friends. While valuable work has been undertaken on the practical roles of family members in the care and treatment of patients, the emotional and sensory experiences of these individuals have been largely overlooked. My paper seeks to fill this gap by asking what it was like to witness the illness of a loved one. Drawing on sources such as diaries and letters, I show that relatives and close friends shared the suffering of the patient, a phenomenon known as ‘fellow-feeling’ in this period. So acute was their emotional distress upon observing their loved one’s pains, family members claimed to feel something akin to the physical suffering itself. This finding supports the thesis of the scholars Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen and Joanna Bourke, who have challenged Elaine Scarry’s famous assertion that pain is an ‘unsharable experience’. Taking a new, sensory approach, I aver that it was chiefly through the ears and eyes that relatives and friends came to share the patient’s sufferings: hearing patients’ ‘doleful groans’ or seeing their ‘sad lookes’ occasioned extreme anguish. These discussions shed fresh light on the meaning of the emotion of love: the ‘signe…of true Love’, wrote the French philosopher and theologian Nicholas Coeffeteau (1574-1623), was that ‘friends rejoyce & grieve for the same things’.

All talks are free, booking not needed. Lunch will be provided. For the full programme, visit: https://projects.history.qmul.ac.uk/emotions/news/autumn-term-events/

The talk takes place in the Arts Two building (room 2.17), Mile End Campus, London E1 4NS. For directions to Mile End and a campus map, see bit.ly/QMcampusmap.

Kind regards,

Sarah

 

Dr Sarah Chaney

Research Project Manager: Public Engagement

Part-time (Monday & Tuesday)

Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy and Experience

Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions

http://projects.history.qmul.ac.uk/emotions/