Virtue of Sympathy: Magic, Philosophy, and Literature in Seventeenth-Century England
ISBN: 9780300210415
Platform/Publisher: Oxford Academic / Yale University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Literary Theory and Cultural Studies;

Beginning with an analysis of Shakespeare's The Tempest and building to a new reading of Milton's Paradise Lost , author Seth Lobis charts a profound change in the cultural meaning of sympathy during the seventeenth century. Having long referred to magical affinities in the universe, sympathy was increasingly understood to be a force of connection between people. By examining sympathy in literary and philosophical writing of the period, Lobis illuminates an extraordinary shift in human understanding.

Seth Lobis teaches in the Literature Department at Claremont McKenna College, focusing on British literature from 1500 to 1800.

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