The Virtue of Sympathy

Download or read book The Virtue of Sympathy written by Seth Lobis and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.