Rhetoric, Persuasion, and Teaching the Emotions in the Early Modern English Sermon, 1600-1642

The early seventeenth-century English sermon was the bestselling print genre of its time, and church preaching was more widely attended than any play. Jennifer Clement argues here that a major aim of these sermons was to teach people how to feel the right emotions - or, as preachers would have said at the time, the passions or affections - to lead a good Christian life. In the process, preachers took a primarily rhetorical approach to the emotions; that is, they used their sermons to define emotions and to encourage their listeners and readers actively to cultivate and shape their emotions in line with Scripture. This study offers an overview of five key emotions - love, fear, anger, grief, and joy - in the sermons of key preachers such as John Donne, Richard Sibbes, Joseph Hall, Launcelot Andrewes, and others. It shows how these preachers engaged with contemporary treatises on the emotions...

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