Grief and Emotional Suffering in the Elegiac Poems by Jeremias de Decker and Michiel de Swaen, c. 1650-1700

Both Protestantism and Catholicism of the seventeenth century experienced the influence of theology that stressed the importance of inner devotion, which went hand in hand with a strong emphasis on the emotional experience of faith. In dealing with death, however, the discourse of comfort was still dominant, designed to suppress the pain of loss rather than bringing that feeling to the fore. This ‘emotional regime’ also affected funeral elegiac poems in which feelings of joy and delight about the deceased’s heavenly destination dominate the initial period of grief. This article aims to understand whether these emotional regimes induced a form of emotional suffering and, if so, to what extent this was visible in contemporary funerary poetry: did, for example, it stick to grief and the inner pain of loss instead of suppressing it?  The essay focuses on the elegiac poems by Jeremias de Decker (1609-1660) in the Dutch Republic and by Michiel de Swaen (1654-1707) in French Flanders. It examines the striking differences between the elegies written after the passing away of a public person, such as befriended priests and preachers, and the poems about a death in the private sphere in which poetry functioned more as a means of emotional refuge

Same-Sex Intimacy in Eighteenth-Century Occasional Poetry 151 Elizabeth Wolff-Bekker, ‘To Miss Agatha Deken’ (1777)

Lyric Address in Dutch Literature, 1250-1800 provides accessible and comprehensive readings of ten Dutch lyrical poems, discussing each poem's historical context, revealing its political or ideological framing, religious elements, or the self-representational interests of the poet. The book focuses on how the use of the speaker's "I" creates distance or proximity to the social context of the time. Close, detailed analysis of rhetorical techniques, such as the use of the apostrophe, illuminates the ways in which poetry reveals tensions in society

Introduction

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Introduction: Passions of War: Gender, Sexuality and Conflict in the Long Eighteenth Century

This article provides an introduction to the Journal for Eighteenth‐Century Studies special issue ‘Passions of War: Gender, Sexuality and Conflict in the Long Eighteenth Century’. Following an overview of the rationale for the AHRC Research Network ‘Passions of War: Cross‐Disciplinary Perspectives on Gender, Sexuality and Conflict, 1550‐1945’, the introduction goes on to discuss the literary, artistic, historical and intellectual contexts that inform the issue. Particular attention is paid to the representation of military masculinities, sexual violence, cross‐dressing, same‐sex intimacies and to alternative interpretations of gendered patterns of behaviour. The introduction then offers summary accounts of the individual articles

The hurt(ful) body :performing and beholding pain, 1600-1800

This book offers a cross-disciplinary approach to pain and suffering in the early modern period, based on research in the fields of literary studies, art history, theatre studies, cultural history and the study of emotions. The volume's two-fold approach to the hurt body, defining 'hurt' from the perspectives of both victim and beholder - as well as their combined creation of a gaze - is unique. It establishes a double perspective about the riddle of 'cruel' viewing by tracking the shifting cultural meanings of victims' bodies, and confronting them to the values of audiences, religious and popular institutional settings and practices of punishment. It encompasses both the victim's presence as an image or performed event of pain and the conundrum of the look - the transmitted 'pain' experienced by the watching audience.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Imagineering Violence: Affective Economies in the Dutch Republic

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Performances of Peace: Utrecht 1713

The Peace of Utrecht (1713), which brought an end to the War of the Spanish Succession, was a milestone in global history. Performances of Peace aims to rethink the significance of the Peace of Utrecht by exploring the nexus between culture and politics. For too long, cultural and political historians have studied early modern international relations in isolation. By studying the political as well as the cultural aspects of this peace (and its concomitant paradoxes) from a broader perspective, this volume aims to shed new light on the relation between diplomacy and performative culture in the public sphere