Reformation of Emotions in the Age of Shakespeare

Mullaney Steven

The crises of faith that fractured Reformation Europe also caused crises of individual and collective identity. Structures of feeling as well as structures of belief were transformed; there was a reformation of social emotions as well as a Reformation of faith.

As Steven Mullaney shows in "The Reformation of Emotions in the Age of Shakespeare", Elizabethan popular drama played a significant role in confronting the uncertainties and unresolved traumas of Elizabethan Protestant England. Shakespeare and his contemporaries – audiences as well as playwrights – reshaped popular drama into a new form of embodied social, critical, and affective thought. Examining a variety of works, from revenge plays to Shakespeare's first history tetralogy and beyond, Mullaney explores how post-Reformation drama not only exposed these faultlines of society on stage but also provoked playgoers in the audience to acknowledge their shared differences. He demonstrates that our most lasting works of culture remain powerful largely because of their deep roots in the emotional landscape of their times.

Reviews

"'The Reformation of Emotions in the Age of Shakespeare' is an important book by an important critic. Mullaney gives historical depth to the affective turn in early modern studies, linking Reformation texts to the emotions they generated. What he has to say is always subtle, revelatory, and rhetorically brilliant" – Jean E. Howard, Columbia University

"A powerful and provocative meditation on the innovative cultural forms and emotional processes that emerged from the violent affective dislocations of memory, identity, and community of the English Reformation. Mullaney addresses issues of wide interest among scholars of early modern literature and culture through evocative readings of both familiar and unfamiliar plays that are consistently surprising, insightful, and original" – William N. West, Northwestern University

"This is a radiantly intelligent study. 'The Reformation of Emotions in the Age of Shakespeare' will enlighten those interested in Shakespeare and will also reward the efforts of anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the social dimensions of the theatrical art in any age" – Paul Yachnin, McGill University

"Armed with an impassioned insight into the importance and meanings of our shared experience, and an inspired vision of the unique role of theatre as an art form, Mullaney has once more made a ground-breaking contribution to the field of English Renaissance studies. 'The Reformation of Emotions in the Age of Shakespeare' demonstrates how much the dramatic and cultural performances of the period mattered, and illustrates how much they can, in the right hands, advance our understanding of the impact of the Reformation on English life" – Sir Michael Boyd, artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, 2002-2012

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