{"id":{"repo_id":"alabama","oai_identifier":"oai:ir.ua.edu:123456789/9901"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/alabama/oai:ir.ua.edu:123456789/9901","repository":{"repo_id":"alabama","name":"University of Alabama","base_url":"https://ir-api.ua.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Ben Jonson and the Four Emotions","abstract":"This dissertation offers a revisionary reading of Ben Jonson's corpus and a challenge to current approaches to the study of the history of emotions. Focusing on the traditional four fundamental emotions–desire, fear, grief, and happiness–,I show that Jonson's corpus presents a wider range of emotional expression and evaluation than scholars have recognized. In place of the familiar portrait of Jonson as a neo-Stoic skeptical of emotional experience, I argue that Jonson's corpus frequently embraces emotional experience–and even finds room for positive evaluations of such typically negative emotions as fear and grief.I further observe that Jonson's stylistic principles call into question typical methodological procedures in the study of the history of emotions. Consonant with his belief in the expressive adequacy of words, Jonson writes of the various emotions without elaboration: the word \"happiness,\" say, is intended to convey the full force of the notion of happiness, without Jonson describing or defining this happiness. Without these elaborations, it becomes difficult to scholars to identify which of the various seventeenth-century discourses on the emotions–medical, philosophical, rhetorical, or theological–are relevant to Jonson's understanding of the emotions. Jonson's mention of the various fundamental emotions thereby forces readers to rely on their own experience of these emotions to make sense of Jonson's works. Instead of immediately historizing Jonson's work by appealing to contemporary medical, philosophical, rhetorical, and theological contexts, I suggest that Jonson's works require us to recognize the similarity between the emotions as Jonson presents them and our own understanding of thoseemotions. This recognition in turn implies the periodization which separates seventeenth-century emotional experience from our own is faulty.","abstract_html":"This dissertation offers a revisionary reading of Ben Jonson's corpus and a challenge to current approaches to the study of the history of emotions. Focusing on the traditional four fundamental emotions–desire, fear, grief, and happiness–,I show that Jonson's corpus presents a wider range of emotional expression and evaluation than scholars have recognized. In place of the familiar portrait of Jonson as a neo-Stoic skeptical of emotional experience, I argue that Jonson's corpus frequently embraces emotional experience–and even finds room for positive evaluations of such typically negative emotions as fear and grief.I further observe that Jonson's stylistic principles call into question typical methodological procedures in the study of the history of emotions. Consonant with his belief in the expressive adequacy of words, Jonson writes of the various emotions without elaboration: the word "happiness," say, is intended to convey the full force of the notion of happiness, without Jonson describing or defining this happiness. Without these elaborations, it becomes difficult to scholars to identify which of the various seventeenth-century discourses on the emotions–medical, philosophical, rhetorical, or theological–are relevant to Jonson's understanding of the emotions. Jonson's mention of the various fundamental emotions thereby forces readers to rely on their own experience of these emotions to make sense of Jonson's works. Instead of immediately historizing Jonson's work by appealing to contemporary medical, philosophical, rhetorical, and theological contexts, I suggest that Jonson's works require us to recognize the similarity between the emotions as Jonson presents them and our own understanding of thoseemotions. This recognition in turn implies the periodization which separates seventeenth-century emotional experience from our own is faulty.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Ramsay, Will"],"institution":"University of Alabama Libraries","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Ainsworth, David","Goethals, Jessica","McElroy, Tricia","Riches, Daniel"],"advisors":["Dowd, Michelle M."],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022","date_published":"2022","updated_at":"2026-07-27T18:44:22Z","subjects":[],"languages":["en_US","English"],"rights":["All rights reserved by the author unless otherwise indicated."],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["http://purl.lib.ua.edu/186789","u0015_0000001_0004613","Ramsay_alatus_0004D_15037"],"render_values":[{"text":"http://purl.lib.ua.edu/186789","href":"http://purl.lib.ua.edu/186789","code":true},{"text":"u0015_0000001_0004613","href":null,"code":true},{"text":"Ramsay_alatus_0004D_15037","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/9901","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Ainsworth, David","Goethals, Jessica","McElroy, Tricia","Riches, Daniel"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Dowd, Michelle M."]},{"key":"dc:contributor.other","label":"Dc Contributor Other","values":["University of Alabama Tuscaloosa"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Ramsay, Will"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2023-01-27"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2028-01-01"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2022"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["University of Alabama Libraries"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["thesis","text"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["English"]},{"key":"dc:language.iso","label":"Language (ISO)","values":["en_US"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["All rights reserved by the author unless otherwise indicated."]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["http://purl.lib.ua.edu/186789","u0015_0000001_0004613","Ramsay_alatus_0004D_15037"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/9901"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Electronic Thesis or Dissertation"]},{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This dissertation offers a revisionary reading of Ben Jonson's corpus and a challenge to current approaches to the study of the history of emotions. Focusing on the traditional four fundamental emotions–desire, fear, grief, and happiness–,I show that Jonson's corpus presents a wider range of emotional expression and evaluation than scholars have recognized. In place of the familiar portrait of Jonson as a neo-Stoic skeptical of emotional experience, I argue that Jonson's corpus frequently embraces emotional experience–and even finds room for positive evaluations of such typically negative emotions as fear and grief.I further observe that Jonson's stylistic principles call into question typical methodological procedures in the study of the history of emotions. Consonant with his belief in the expressive adequacy of words, Jonson writes of the various emotions without elaboration: the word \"happiness,\" say, is intended to convey the full force of the notion of happiness, without Jonson describing or defining this happiness. Without these elaborations, it becomes difficult to scholars to identify which of the various seventeenth-century discourses on the emotions–medical, philosophical, rhetorical, or theological–are relevant to Jonson's understanding of the emotions. Jonson's mention of the various fundamental emotions thereby forces readers to rely on their own experience of these emotions to make sense of Jonson's works. Instead of immediately historizing Jonson's work by appealing to contemporary medical, philosophical, rhetorical, and theological contexts, I suggest that Jonson's works require us to recognize the similarity between the emotions as Jonson presents them and our own understanding of thoseemotions. This recognition in turn implies the periodization which separates seventeenth-century emotional experience from our own is faulty."]},{"key":"dc:format.medium","label":"Dc Format Medium","values":["electronic"]},{"key":"dc:format.mimetype","label":"Dc Format Mimetype","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Ben Jonson and the Four Emotions"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Ainsworth, David","Goethals, Jessica","McElroy, Tricia","Riches, Daniel"],"dc:contributor.advisor":["Dowd, Michelle M."],"dc:contributor.other":["University of Alabama Tuscaloosa"],"dc:creator":["Ramsay, Will"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2023-01-27"],"dc:date.available":["2028-01-01"],"dc:date.issued":["2022"],"dc:description":["Electronic Thesis or Dissertation"],"dc:description.abstract":["This dissertation offers a revisionary reading of Ben Jonson's corpus and a challenge to current approaches to the study of the history of emotions. Focusing on the traditional four fundamental emotions–desire, fear, grief, and happiness–,I show that Jonson's corpus presents a wider range of emotional expression and evaluation than scholars have recognized. In place of the familiar portrait of Jonson as a neo-Stoic skeptical of emotional experience, I argue that Jonson's corpus frequently embraces emotional experience–and even finds room for positive evaluations of such typically negative emotions as fear and grief.I further observe that Jonson's stylistic principles call into question typical methodological procedures in the study of the history of emotions. Consonant with his belief in the expressive adequacy of words, Jonson writes of the various emotions without elaboration: the word \"happiness,\" say, is intended to convey the full force of the notion of happiness, without Jonson describing or defining this happiness. Without these elaborations, it becomes difficult to scholars to identify which of the various seventeenth-century discourses on the emotions–medical, philosophical, rhetorical, or theological–are relevant to Jonson's understanding of the emotions. Jonson's mention of the various fundamental emotions thereby forces readers to rely on their own experience of these emotions to make sense of Jonson's works. Instead of immediately historizing Jonson's work by appealing to contemporary medical, philosophical, rhetorical, and theological contexts, I suggest that Jonson's works require us to recognize the similarity between the emotions as Jonson presents them and our own understanding of thoseemotions. This recognition in turn implies the periodization which separates seventeenth-century emotional experience from our own is faulty."],"dc:format.medium":["electronic"],"dc:format.mimetype":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier.other":["http://purl.lib.ua.edu/186789","u0015_0000001_0004613","Ramsay_alatus_0004D_15037"],"dc:identifier.uri":["https://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/9901"],"dc:language":["English"],"dc:language.iso":["en_US"],"dc:publisher":["University of Alabama Libraries"],"dc:rights":["All rights reserved by the author unless otherwise indicated."],"dc:title":["Ben Jonson and the Four Emotions"],"dc:type":["thesis","text"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T18:44:22Z"}