The Renaissance of Feeling explores Erasmus's complex and diverse conception of emotion, tracing how he writes about it from different perspectives and genres. It argues that Erasmus's Christian humanist emotional style was distinctive and influenced by his engagement with multiple intellectual traditions. The book highlights the rediscovery and proliferation of ancient texts during the Renaissance, which led to shifting perspectives on emotions and their significance for Christian thought and practice. Essary examines Erasmus's writings across his corpus, including literary and rhetorical works, theological treatises, textual commentaries, religious disputations, and letters, to demonstrate his intellectual inheritance in understanding emotions.

Format: Hardback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 08 February 2024
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

The Renaissance of Feeling: Erasmus and the Complexity of Emotion

This book offers a re-reading of Erasmus's works, revealing that emotion and affectivity were central to his writings. It argues that Erasmus's conception of emotion was highly complex and richly diverse by tracing how the Dutch humanist writes about emotion from different perspectives—theological, philosophical, literary, rhetorical, and medical—and in different genres. In doing so, this book suggests that Erasmus provided a distinctive, if not unique, Christian humanist emotional style.

Essary demonstrates that Erasmus consulted multiple intellectual traditions and previous works in his thoughts on affectivity. The Renaissance of Feeling sheds light on how understanding emotions in late medieval and early modern Europe was a multi-disciplinary affair for humanist scholars. It argues that the rediscovery and proliferation of ancient texts during the so-called renaissance resulted in shifting perspectives on how emotions were described and understood, and on their significance for Christian thought and practice. The book shows how the very availability of source material, coupled with humanists' eagerness to engage with multiple intellectual traditions, gave rise to new understandings of feeling in the 16th century.

Essary examines Erasmus's writings about emotion across much of his vast corpus, including literary and rhetorical works, theological treatises, textual commentaries, religious disputations, and letters. Considering the rich and diverse ways that Erasmus wrote about emotions and affectivity, this book provides a new lens to study his works and sheds light on how emotions were understood in early modern Europe.

Weight: 506g
Dimension: 163 x 241 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350269798