Chapter 6 - ‘As God loves Sympathy, God loves Symphony’

Summary

This chapter demonstrates that the affective meanings of sympathy and sympathize persisted during the Caroline period, despite a renewed interest in the quasi-scientific conception of sympathy. The chapter opens with a wide-ranging discussion of Francis Bacon’s Sylva sylvarum (1626), along with other works that debated the magical properties of the weapon-salve – which could allegedly cure wounds without touching them – including William Foster’s Hoplocrisma-spongus (1631) and Robert Fludd’s Doctor Fludds answer unto M. Foster (1631). The chapter argues that several plays from this period offer a highly sceptical response to the weapon-salve, in particular Henry Glapthorne’s The Hollander (1635–6). It then considers the increasing sophistication of conceptions of sympathy in religious discourse, and focuses on Charles Fitzgeffry’s Compassion towards captives (1637), which describes the ‘Sympathy or Compassion’ we should feel for those in bondage in terms that anticipate modern conceptions of empathy. In this way, the Caroline fascination with natural sympathy does not diminish or displace the affective model but rather increases its complexity.