Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2440/108674
Type: Book chapter
Title: 'Sociable' tears in The Tempest
Author: Kerr, H.
Citation: Shakespeare and Emotions: Inheritances, Enactments, Legacies, 2015 / White, R., Houlahan, M., O'Loughlin, K. (ed./s), Ch.16, pp.164-172
Publisher: Palgrave Macmiillan
Publisher Place: Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire
Issue Date: 2015
Series/Report no.: Palgrave Shakespeare Studies
ISBN: 1137464747
9781137464743
Editor: White, R.
Houlahan, M.
O'Loughlin, K.
Statement of
Responsibility: 
Heather Kerr
Abstract: What ideas of the Early Modern passions may be enlisted to explore Prospero’s tearful exchange with Gonzalo in act 5 scene 1: “Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,/ Mine eyes, ev’n sociable to the show of thine,/ Fall fellowly drops” (62-64)? This scene is different from the theatrical representations of highly expressive masculine “weeping and wailing,” or cognitively complicated instances of “crying and laughing,” that have attracted most recent attention. It is tempting to read this scene as a precursor to models of sympathy that would not become fully available until the eighteenth century. While the scene may be read as an example of Shakespearean innovation, my paper looks first to discursive traditions (in rhetoric and theology) that regard shared tears as evidence of common humanity. In particular, I explore the meanings of Prospero and Gonzalo’s “fellowly drops” in the context of the transition from revenge to reconciliation in The Tempest.
Rights: © Palgrave Macmiillan, a division of Macmiillan Publishers Limited 2015
Published version: http://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137464743
Appears in Collections:Aurora harvest 3
English publications

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