Bowels, emotion, and metaphor in early modern English sermons. Issue 4 (3rd July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Clement, Jennifer
• Is Part Of: Seventeenth century. Volume 35:Issue 4(2020)
• Page Start: 435
• Page End: 451
• Publication Date: 2020-07-03
• Subjects: Early modern sermons -- emotions -- metaphor -- Richard Sibbes -- John Donne -- new humoralism; Seventeenth century -- Periodicals; History, Modern -- 17th century -- Periodicals; 909.605
• DOI: 10.1080/0268117X.2019.1605305
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0268-117X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article argues that a rhetorical approach to the history of the emotions helps balance the emphasis on humours that characterises recent scholarship in what has been called the "new humoralism." By examining sermons by a range of figures, including John Donne, but with a focus on Richard Sibbes's 1639 volume Bowels Opened, the article reveals the extent to which emotions could be understood in the early seventeenth century as God-given, rather than stemming from bodily humours. In this religious context, emotions are less about the body than they are about the spirit – a point that shows how sermon studies can contribute to a more accurate understanding of how emotions were thought to work in the early seventeenth century. In particular, Bowels Opened helps us see how early seventeenth-century sermons express emotions through metaphor, and how these sermons represent emotions as the metonymic effects of God's movements within the soul.