Passion and Pain, Love and Lust: The World of the Senses in Early Modern France

In this course we will examine early modern theories of emotion—“passion,” “affect,” and “sentiment”—as they are discussed in philosophy and represented in fiction. Seventeenth and 18th-century philosophers and other thinkers confronted questions that continue to haunt contemporary thinking: What is “feeling”? Does language promote or frustrate the expression of emotion? How do the senses relate to other experiences like cognition, memory, and imagination? We will look at texts that transformed how we talk, think, and feel about “feeling.” Readings include short works by Gournay, Lafayette, Descartes, Élisabeth of Bohemia, Du Plaisir, Bernard, Leibniz, Condillac, Rousseau, Condorcet, and Diderot. (FREN 0221 or equivalent) 3 hrs. sem.