Emotional Publics & Their Emotional Outcomes: Manliness And The Treatise Of Emotion In Middle English Literature

Abstract

Some scholars now believe emotions are cultural creations essential to uniqueness and social dynamics. Most of these studies have overlooked the Middle Ages in favor of the Early contemporary Era, which is considered the beginning of civilization and contemporary principles like moderation and respect for authority. This dissertation shows that emotions shaped pre-modern social categories like gender before the Renaissance. I explain how emotional ethos affected clerics, knights, college students, and merchants in their everyday lives. Middle English poets knew these restrictions and challenged emotional standards in their poetry.

I focus on late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century literature since emotions were frequently addressed and written about. English society altered drastically following the Black Death due to demographic movements and economic instability. Peasant insurrection, labor shortages, ecclesiastical changes, and foreign merchants caused social instability in England. This changed English attitudes and beliefs. Poets, who needed to express themselves emotionally, helped Englishmen understand their past and identity throughout fast cultural change. The essay examines Middle English poetry that explore human emotions and male aspirations. I think these works rethought male emotion's four aspects: community, identity, and strength. These results show that Middle English poets knew how to harness emotion to have their audience think about crucial societal issues. The English poetry tradition was developing, and vocabulary and emotion studies advanced. Late medieval English poets defined masculinity emotionally to make sense of massive societal upheavals. Affective Communities shows how literature may predict and respond to social change by emphasizing emotions as gender and group indicators.