The Feeling Heart in Medieval and Early Modern Europe by Katie Barclay;Bronwyn Reddan;

Author:Katie Barclay;Bronwyn Reddan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: De Gruyter
Published: 2019-11-02T10:36:03.763000+00:00

Conclusion

Poetic registers that document Middle English emotion locate the heart as a site of exchange, between people but also within individuals, from exterior to interior and from feeling to cognition. Anchoring the similar and interrelated processes of feeling and cognition to the physiological certainty and movements of the heart naturalizes the related poetic depiction of the functions and behaviors of love.54 From Chaucer’s acclaimed poetry to small and disregarded anonymous lyrics, Middle English accounts of the heart depict human subjectivity to be inherently disposed towards reciprocated and consensual experiences of love and desire. These literary depictions of the heart show the cultural value that was placed on love as an embodied emotional experience, though this value was mediated by ethical concerns and social expectations. Physiological associations of the heart with apprehension and intentionality made it especially apt for explicating the impact of external and internal pressures on a character. Narrative tensions often follow the movement of hearts; the cognizant heart is mobile and qualified in relation to its proximity to other hearts because it works as a commodification of feelings that can be given, retracted, or shared. These capacities of the heart inform its function as a metonym for consciousness and a gauge by which to measure the instabilities of aesthetic pleasure, “for wele or woo,” that typify fifteenth-century literary depictions of love.55

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