Emotion in Cervantes and Shakespeare

Abstract

Early modern thought found in emotion a key to explaining human behaviour, highlighting the powerful way in which it can influence and disturb human life. Shakespeare’s and Cervantes’s treatment of emotion includes a full acknowledgement of its mental and bodily aspects and functions. But emotion rarely comes in a pure state. Character and emotion interact and their responses are often contradictory. Since emotions are sentiments that we feel and actions that we perform, it is worth inquiring into how, in Cervantes and Shakespeare, emotion affects their characters in different ways.