The Neo-Stoic Revival in English Literature of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth...

The Neo-Stoic Revival in English Literature of the

Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: An Approach

Jesús LÓPEZ-PELÁEZ CASELLAS

Universidad de Jaén

ABSTRACT
This paper stems from the belief on the importance of a historically-conscious
literary criticism. From this perspective, the approach to literary texts of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England cannot proceed by ignoring
one of the most powerful, influential and complex philosophical constructs
re-taken by Humanism from the classical period. Neo-Stoicism is a humanist
version of classical Stoicism, and, together with other influential
philosophical and ethical corpora such as Christianism, Neo-Platonism or
Aristotelianism, constituted the backbone of Renaissance ethics. Yet (as a
cursory look at most of the publications in the last decades will prove) much
of the criticism on the literature of this period not only ignores the important
role played by (Neo-)Stoicism, but fails to acknowledge its mere existence
(with significative exceptions such as Profs. Schneider, Chew, and a few
others). Consequently, in the following lines I will try to prove that Neo-
Stoicism actually functioned as an extremely influential moving force in
many representative works of the period, not only in prose writing (as we
may suspect) but also in drama or poetry. Also, I will suggest that many of
these works, far from smoothly incorporating Neo-Stoic doctrine, establish
with it a complex and frequently conflicting dialogue that eventually engages
in the main epistemological discussions of the period.

As most complex ideas, Stoicism has adapted to changing circumstances

along history. If it is true that its ethical dimension basically embraces a
highly theorized form of private morality, it also involves some reflections
on politics and law, or, to put it differently, on the conceptualization and
regulation of public behaviour; and this implies that it is relatively easy to
find it underlying different ‘structures of feeling’, most notably during the

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Renaissance and the Baroque.1 Dealing with Stoic morals (as I will also do
here), Professor Ben Schneider, to my knowledge one of the scholars that
has best understood the relations between Stoicism and English Literature,
maintains that Renaissance ethics were regulated by Stoicism (1993:113-
14; 1995a:130-34). Other authors have also seen this, perhaps not as clearly
and with such a penetrating insight as that of Prof. Schneider, but nevertheless
leaving no doubt as to the actual importance of Stoicism, or Neo-Stoicism,
in the English (and European) Renaissance.2 However, today it seems that
no direct connection is made between Stoicism and Renaissance literature,
and consequently much of the moral, philosophical and political content of
many Renaissance works is inevitably missed. The same can be said about
later periods: I am persuaded that Stoicism can be rightfully claimed to
have informed, under different guises, much of eighteenth century
philosophy, basically the American and French Revolutions; nineteenth
century Romanticism;3 and twentieth century Existentialism, to mention
just a few major movements.4 In general terms, and before we proceed to
more specific and detailed analysis, Stoicism, in its ethical dimension, can
be characterized as a philosophy that believes that: (a) the ‘soul’ of the
Universe is rational and benevolent; (b) absolute moral truth exists; (c) truth
is available through common sense; and (d) life is fully realized through
obedience to the (unwritten) moral law. But although this array of beliefs
may seem not difficult to identify and Stoicism, consequently, would be
easily traceable in both literary or non-literary works, the truth is that it is
seldom found in isolation or in plenitude (that is, taking into account all
four main beliefs) but, quite on the contrary, overlapped with some other
equally influential codes of moral behaviour, namely, Christianism,
Aristotelianism, Epicureanism and/or Neo-Platonism. It is precisely to this
mixture of Stoic ideas with Christian, Neo-Platonic, Aristotelian and
Epicurean notions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that we
commonly refer as Neo-Stoicism.5 But we also find that Stoic thought rarely
1
I borrow this term, now familiar, from the British sociologist Raymond Williams (1980: 22-7).
2
See Sonnenscheim (1923), Bolgar (1954), Eckhoff (1957), Henderson (1961), Waith (1962),
Allen (1964), Kelso (1964), Miner (1970), Bement (1972), Kristeller (1979), Ide (1980),
Montsarrat (1984), Chew (1988), Ferrater (1994), and Alvis (1990).
3
In fact, Stoicism is clearly behind Matthew Arnold’s central Kantian concept of ‘Hebraism’,
which he opposes to ‘Hellenism’ as one of the two dimensions of Western aesthetic thought in
his influential Culture and Anarchy (Arnold 1960-74:163-75).
4
Audrey Chew has provided an account of some of these and other influences; see Chew (1988:1-7).
5
Neo-Stoicism is the term employed to refer to the renewed Stoic ideas appearing during the
European Renaissance (ie, fifteenth to seventeenth centuries), initially in Spain and Italy, and

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was able to establish itself as the grand recit it aspired to, as many of the
textual evidences we will show prove; this does not mean, however, that its
importance or influence was not paramount in this period, but simply that
Stoicism did not succeed in its attempt to suppress all other systems of
thought, which modified it in different degrees. In this sense (and for basically
the same reasons) it is equally difficult to establish a neat chronological
classification of Stoicism, although it seems to be necessary in order to be
able to cope with the different connotations of this philosophy, as well as to
understand how these contents negotiate diverse meanings to eventually
produce specific versions of Neo-Stoic thought. Thus we traditionally
distinguish between primitive and historical Stoicism, or, using other terms,
between early and older Stoicism on the one hand, and middle, late and
younger Stoicism on the other. To put it bluntly, and before we go any
further, primitive Stoicism has to do with the typical and easily-recognizable
Stoic moral self-sufficiency whereas historical Stoicism deals with the notion
of self-discipline as a social duty. Stoicism then has, we must not forget,
both a private and a public dimension, and this will prove of the greatest
importance in our later discussion.
Primitive Stoicism, or Stoicism as a whole, starts with Zeno of Citium
(4th-3rd c. BC), who in his lessons in the Stoa (‘porch’) of his Academy in
Athens was able to mix elements from Socrates, Heraclitus and the Cynics
mainly to produce a new formulation which could cope with a changing
world; in fact, the most coherent explanation of the origins of Stoicism and,
most specifically, of the individualistic nature of these first theories explains
that it appeared as “a response to the disruptions of familiar values that
accompanied the breakdown of the Greek city state” (Chew 1988:2). In a
very general overview, Stoicism is based on a physical theory of existence
as an ever-repeating cycle in which everything is composed of the four
elements (fire, water, earth, and air) which, after turning into one another,
at the end of the so called ‘Platonic year’ are consumed by the primary
element, namely, intellectual fire or ether. This recurring cyclic structure
implies, most significantly, that progress is not possible: the accumulation
of wealth or fame loses then all its importance. Besides, Stoics conceptualize

later in England, France or Germany. Neo-Stoicism then acquires new contents, mainly from
humanism (Erasmus, Vives, Juan and Alfonso de Valdés, More, Montaigne, Valla, Ficino etc…),
and constitutes the backbone of Renaissance ethics. However, we must distinguish between
Stoic doctrines and Stoic attitudes, and, besides, we must note that some authors (notably
Schneider) deny the existence of something that we can distinctly define as Neo-Stoicism and
which is different from classical Stoicism.

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a principle that holds everything together, and this principle will dominate
every version of Stoicism in the next two thousand years, although it will
receive different denominations: “intellectual fire, pneuma, reason, the will
of god, god, fate, destiny, providence, universal law, nature, reason of the
world, soul of the world, Jupiter, Zeus, ether, atmospheric current” (Chew
1988:4; Monsarrat 1984:9-21).
For Stoics, God and the Law cannot part, so acquiescence to the way
things are is enforced by means of acceptance of the eternal law, the Stoic
law of nature, and contemplation of the pre-ordained plan and the one virtue,
reason. The Universe is governed by a set of rules rooted in nature which
can only be known if man lives ‘naturally’, that is, if he lives in cooperation
with the whole cosmological system. Other Stoic characteristics, such as
unconventionality, simplicity of life and the setting up of heroes,
characteristics which came to be immediately associated with the standard
Stoic of the popular lore, were inherited from the Cynics.
The second brand of Stoicism, historical Stoicism, is especially
relevant for our discussion since it is this Roman version of the philosophical
school the one most commonly integrated within sixteenth and seventeenth
century texts, and it is distinctly different from primitive Stoicism. In fact,
Stoicism went through a deep transformation that produced a new awareness
of the role of the individual within the cosmic plan, and this was the
consequence of a new reading of Aristotle which produced Cicero’s
reflections on civility, especially his Officiis, better known in the English
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as On Duty (Chew 1988:6-8). This came
hand in hand with a general softening of Stoic exigencies, which could be
clearly perceived in the new emphasis on brotherly love:

Whereas the Old Stoa considered wisdom, moderation, and courage to be virtues
in respect to the individual himself and summed up his duties to others as justice,
the younger Stoics emphasized the virtue of philantropy, or humanitas, as the
truly altruistic virtue. (Edelstein 1966:90).

This change in focus, from the individual to the community, made it difficult
for ordinary readers of the Renaissance to identify with some degree of
certainty Stoic arguments when they found them, and hence the varying
and ambiguous Renaissance representations of pseudo-Stoic commonplaces,
including virtue, villains, and heroes. As I have just pointed out, most relevant
were Cicero’s De Officiis and De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, which spread
the notion of the good man as a public servant, or, in other words, turned

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self-sufficiency into self-sacrifice, a transformation of the utmost relevance

(Cicero 1928:I.22; 1914:III.28). Stoic ideas about the individual’s part in
the cosmic plan joined Aristotelian concepts (manifested in his Eudemian
and, especially, his Nichomachean Ethics) about man as a social and political
entity (Aristotle 1940:IX,1097b,11, and 1162a,17) and about the whole being
superior to the part, which eventually brought about the modification of the
notion of ‘Stoic virtue’ to mean now in the Roman period “civilized patriotic
cooperation”, something that was later to become common in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries (Chew 1988:8); consequently, ‘being natural’ now
is a synonym for ‘being civilized’. The relevance of this intellectual shift
cannot pass unnoticed, since its immediate consequences were enormous
not just for literary production but for the whole structure of feeling of
those and subsequent centuries. If, as I have just pointed out, ‘living
according to nature’ is equated with ‘living according to society’s dictum’,
we also find that one’s own ‘conscience’ is related to one’s country, and
consequently ‘duty’ means now playing out our role in the system, ‘fate’
participates in the maintaining of the status quo, and the question of ‘truth’
is associated with the consensum gentium: in other words, and as I have just
suggested, self-sufficiency turns into self-sacrifice. An alternative solution
is left for those cases in which this ‘agreement of the people’ goes against a
certain author’s opinion: it is then taken into consideration that it may have
been corrupted, and this means that it is time for a Stoic hero, a saviour of
the community, to appear and act. In any case, the Aristotelian rule of the
‘golden mean’ is included in order to soften Stoic absolutist (or extremist)
temptations (Arnold 1958:108-10; Chew 1988:1-11).
From all these additions, the resulting Stoic picture would be one
which contemplates three recurring Stoic themes, and these in turn will
become key concepts in many sixteenth and seventeenth century literary
and non-literary works. The three predominant themes are those of peace
of mind, the law of nature and the wise (or happy) man, or, in other words,
the happy life on Earth, the life of social duty, and the ideal man, all
considered, obviously, from a Neo-Stoic perspective (Chew 1988:44-53;
72). Peace of mind implies adapting to adverse circumstances, making virtue
of necessity, and this by means of a technique of passive resignation. This
includes internalizing the belief that all fortune is good fortune, and that
only virtue (that is, accepting what may come with glee) can eventually
make you free; restraint is preached especially with relation to the passions,
which have to be necessarily controlled although there is some doubt in
relation to the necessary degree of restraint to be practised: then, passions

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have to be either eliminated (as the early Stoics advocated) or simply

regulated to adapt to the ‘golden mean’ rule (Aristotle and Seneca). All
these practices eventually lead man to the acquisition of peace of mind, an
attitude more than an activity, as Lucretius, Seneca, and, most clearly,
Boethius, exemplified (Boethius 1973). The law of nature demands that we
do our duty (and we have seen what duty means in this context), and that all
our direct actions be in accordance with the hierarchical system (that is, the
status quo) and reason. The law of nature, then, embodies the same attitude
as our previous topic (it could not be otherwise) although with a technique,
now, of active cooperation. This implies a life of social activity, and this is
promoted by Aristotle and, above all, Cicero.6 Finally, the wise man is the
one who lives according to the law of nature and acquires, thus, peace of
mind on Earth. To do this, he has to be virtuous (in the Stoic sense of
resignation and integration within the system) and plain (or ‘stoic’, in the
modern sense of the word).
With all these elements in mind, it seems easier to have a clear idea
of the complexity and also ambiguity of the concept that, under the heading
‘Stoicism’, influenced so many texts as a major moral concern. This
complexity can also be perceived in the diversity of sources of Stoic thought
in England until the late seventeenth century: undoubtedly, the most
important are Boethius’ Consolation (in Queen Elizabeth’s translation); Stoic
ideas Christianized by Paul, Augustine, and Aquinas; Stoic authors, mainly
Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and Marcus Aurelius, either directly
or through Boethius’ translation and/or reference; the repository of quotations
filtered by Dante, Petrarch, Bocaccio, Erasmus, Guevara and Montaigne;
and finally Justus Lipsius on constancy in John Stradling’s sixteenth century
translation.7

6
Cicero is in fact instrumental in adapting early Stoicism by means of a blend of Panaetian and
Aristotelian elements which produced the so-called Christian Stoicism; this is the source of
Renaissance conduct books, as we will see, most notably Elyot’s Gouernour and Erasmus’
Education. In a nutshell, what Cicero introduces with great success is the concept of social duty,
which is (for obvious reasons) well received in certain circles of power (Atkins 1943: 60 et ff.).
7
Surprisingly enough, Guevara was a more influential Spanish source of Stoic (and Humanist)
thought in the English Renaissance than Vives or the brothers Juan and Alfonso de Valdés. In
fact, Ramón Díaz-Solís has strongly claimed that Guevara’s Familiar Letters (which appeared in
English translated directly from Spanish as early as 1546) could be the book Prince Hamlet
enigmatically reads in act two scene two, and about which he exchanges some ideas with Polonius
on old age. Both Guevara and Shakespeare would be following some ideas previously exposed
by Juvenal (Díaz-Solís 1990).

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All these different sources, some more faithful than others to the
original concepts, contributed, at the same time as they disseminated several
valuable Stoic ideas, to produce and popularize certain misconceptions that
explain many of the prejudices of the age about Stoicism. The truth is that
although central Stoic notions were smoothly assimilated and became part
of the current structure of feeling, certain prejudices against the actual terms
‘Stoicism’ and ‘Stoics’ can be easily perceived, especially among those
authors who explicitly rejected Stoicism at the same time as they incorporated
Stoic ideas in their works. It is the case, for example, of Joseph Hall’s
injunction: “I will not be a Stoic, to have no passions, (...) but a Christian, to
order those I have” (Chew 1988:75), where the ‘English Seneca’ is clearly
ignoring that Roman Stoics (or Neo-Stoics, for that matter) do not stand
against passions but against excessive passion, and that the Christian ordering
of his passions that Hall precisely claims he has is, paradoxically, very close
to the Neo-Stoic Aristotelian ‘golden mean’ rule. The playwright George
Chapman, for his part, carefully distinguishes between true Stoic retirement,
what Richard Ide qualifies as “a heroic enterprise in its own way”, and
another —easier— kind of retirement which is presented as a “final haven”
or a “place of solace” (Ide 1980:79). In general terms, during our period of
study a Stoic was, for the cultivated gentleman, just an atheist afflicted with
pride in his own moral self-sufficiency and his emotional imperturbability.
Literary representations of the Stoic were equally influenced by this
perverted and misinformed stereotyping: s/he was either a dangerous villain
or a ridiculous hypocrite. In the first case, this villain’s pretensions of
imperturbability, equanimity, and virtuosity were but the masks s/he was
wearing in order to deceive her/his opponents; the second was more of a
mock figure: the supposed Stoic was proved a fool as soon as problems
arose, and thus s/he will appear as afflicted by childish fears, doubts, partiality
and selfishness. If this second figure was inoffensive and full of pathos, the
first one proved dangerous to the system, a social climber, and hence the
generalized mistrust towards Stoics.8
All in all, Stoic figures and themes abound in English literature of the
period, and precisely these misconceptions and falsifications of the real

8
These misconceptions were, themselves, productive indeed, as the following two dramatic
figures prove: the Stoic Machiavel and the Stoic Malcontent; the former, much more dangerous
and destructive than the latter, is characterized by his godlike self-sufficiency and his lack of
emotions; the Malcontent is but an idealist, embittered and frustrated by the discrepancy between
what things are and what they, in his opinion, should be.

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message of Stoicism, by showing a serious concern with this moral

philosophy, witness to its real importance. Thus, and very generally, we can
find miscellaneous Stoic moralizing (high places are dangerous, misfortune
is but a state of mind); references to the Stoic peace of mind (lost by those
who are slaves to passion); fate (generally optimistic and apparently
capricious); or the heroic figure (goodness brings freedom, death is better
than loss of integrity). But of all the topics developed throughout the history
of Stoicism there are three key concepts which appear in sixteenth and
seventeenth century literary and non-literary works to such an extent that
they constitute the moral backbone of these texts: peace of mind, the law of
nature, and the wise (or happy) man; in other words, the happy life on Earth,
the life of social duty, and the ideal man (Chew 1988:44-53; 72).
Peace of mind is the goal of all Stoic thought, and it occupies an
important place in literary texts of some Stoic orientation. Its importance
lies on the fact that it is the only way to achieve happiness, again a concept
that acquires a special meaning within the realm of Stoicism. Happiness (or
‘private happiness’) is not related to ‘good fortune’ at all; it rather points
towards the most easily recognizable notions of Christian patience or Stoic
resignation and, in short, it stems from virtue, although it would probably
be better to say that virtue, the sole good, is the only source of happiness
(Monsarrat 1984:7-8; 11-12). Happiness is ‘wanting what we get’, being
indifferent to everything except virtue and vice, and believing, with Hamlet,
that “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” (II,ii,244-
45)9 (Chew 1988:107). In general, prose writing of this period tends to
elaborate a recipe fit to obtain, as Joseph Hall would put it, ‘heaven upon
Earth’, stressing with Robert Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy that
“what can’t be cured must be endured” (Burton 1948:527).
The first step in the acquisition of peace of mind is to avoid anger.
Considered as a passion, we must remember that the Neo-Stoic attitude
was to reject it in excess, but it could be accepted if the ‘golden mean’ was
respected, and thus Hall, in his Heaven Upon Earth and Characters of
Vertues and Vices even critiziced “want of anger” in certain circumstances
(Hall 1948:437). However, it is easier to find strong injunctions against
anger together with apocalyptic descriptions of its consequences, as in the
following excerpt from Robert Burton:

9
All references to Shakespeare are taken from The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen
Greenblatt.

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They [the angry] are void of reason, inexorable, blind, like beasts & monsters
for the time, say and do not know what, curse, swear, rail, fight, and what not?
How can a mad man do more? (Burton 1948:234).

Burton’s final equation of the angry and the mad takes us smoothly to
Shakespeare’s Lear’s sudden fury at Cordelia and his anger, which is equated
to the wrath of a dragon, so close to madness (I,i,108-88; esp.122); and also
to Thomas Heywood’s Charles Mountford, who pleads temporary insanity
caused by excessive anger in order to excuse his murder in A Woman Killed
with Kindness (I,iii,50-51).
To avoid grief is the second purpose of the Stoic in order to achieve
peace of mind. Seneca’s plays, so influential in the English Renaissance,
were about members of the aristocracy who ruined their lives for excessive
grief, and this motive can be followed in several works of the period. Burton
also had much to say in his Anatomy of Melancholy about this: “comfort
thyself with other men’s misfortunes” (1948:495). But it is Shakespeare
who clearly retakes this Senecan idea. Gonzalo claims in The Tempest that
they were lucky they only shipwrecked and not drowned (II,i,1-9); Romeo
and Timon are heroes condemned because they are always either too high
or too low; Hamlet’s obstinate grief is criticized by everybody —especially
King Claudius— (I,ii,87-107) on the basis that it (excessive grief) is against
Heaven, Nature, common sense and manliness (“unmanly grief” -I,ii,94);
and Othello’s Brabantio claims that excessive grief cannibalizes the one in
pain. But it is the Duke of Venice in Othello the one that makes the Neo-
Stoic case against grief clearest, advising, as a perfect Stoic, in a Senecan
manner:

When remedies are past, the griefs are ended

By seeing the worst which late on hopes depended.
To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
What cannot be preserved when fortune takes,
Patience her injury a mockery makes.
The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief;
He robs himself that spends a bootless grief. (I,iii,201-08)

It must be noted that these clearly Stoic speeches in Hamlet and Othello are
uttered by characters (King Claudius, and the Duke of Venice) with spurious
hidden intentions: to make Hamlet forget about the death (actually,
assassination) of his father, and to avoid a punitive action against Othello,

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at the moment the sole man on whom the security of Venice rested. This
seems to point at the ambiguous consideration of Stoic wisdom: reputed as
philosophically sound, but somehow connected with evildoing.
The control of desire is probably the most underdeveloped of all Stoic
warnings connected with peace of mind, and probably the reason was that
it had to fight the long established tradition of medieval romantic love. Yet,
we can easily find references to the disastrous consequences of this most
un-Stoic of passions, and thus Shakespeare’s Romeo or John Ford’s
incestuous Giovanni in the dark ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore are driven to
destruction.
Since the objective was to achieve peace of mind, and grief, anger
and desire were to be avoided, it is no surprise that continuous references to
simple life are followed by allusions to retirement. In this sense we must
remember some of the notes previously presented: the social dimension of
Neo-Stoicism explicitly rejects retirement as an acceptable attitude for the
good Stoic, since it implies abandoning responsibilities. Shakespeare’s
Caliban, Lear and, as we saw above, Marston’s initially alienated Bussy,
clearly failed when they decided to retire from public life, and all three
plays clearly tell us so; the reason for this failure was, as I suggested, that
the retirement advocated by Neo-Stoicism entails a disciplined attitude
clearly distant from the accommodated alienation of Bussy and Lear, or the
excessively scholarly passion of Caliban. In effect, the “uneasy lies the head
that wears a crown” theme (2Henry IV, III,i,31) offers a display of kings
who, more or less rhetorically, make it clear that their peace of mind will
have to consider a different concept of simple life from that of retirement
(3Henry VI -II,v; Henry V -IV,i,212-66). The superiority of the peasant’s
life must not be taken at face value, although it has a powerful precedent in
the Spanish moralist Fray Antonio de Guevara and his Menosprecio de corte
y alabanza de aldea (translated into English by Henry Vaughan as The Praise
and Happinesse of the Countrie-Life).10 Surprisingly, John Webster’s Vittoria
in The White Devil (“Oh, happy they that never saw the court”, V,vi,262-63)
and the Duchess of Malfi (III,v,112-13) utter a similar reflection, although
neither of them was obviously interested in Neo-Stoic retirement or peace
of mind.11

10
However, Gilles Monsarrat denies that Guevara or Burton have anything to do with Stoicism;
it must be said that his concept of Stoicism is very narrow, and it is self-consciously so, probably
as a reaction against the frequent loose uses of the term (Monsarrat, 1984: 40-41).
11
Accepting that John Webster’s “sentences” cannot be chosen “to illustrate the positions of the
Porch” (Monsarrat, 1984: 149), I am convinced that only a wrong pre-conception of what we are

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If Stoic simple life was seldom dramatized, it probably was because

it constituted a somewhat undramatic topic (see Heywood’s Frankford in A
Woman Killed with Kindness); however it seemed to function much better
in poetry, where it produced several works of clear Stoic flavour and obvious
relation with this concept. Thomas Wyatt wrote “If thou wilt mighty be”
from a translation from Boethius on the advisability of conquering our
passions, and the opposition city/country appears in “My mothers maydes
when they did sowe and spynne”, whereas both preoccupations are given
literary form in “Myne owne John Poyntz, sins ye delight to know” (Sylvester
1983:174-78; 170-74). John Skelton’s “The Bowge of Courte” addresses a
similar preoccupation with conquering passions (Sylvester 1983:1-23). Ben
Jonson, on his part, was undoubtedly influenced by Stoic thought, if only in
an unsystematic way; Volpone, and especially Mosca among many other
characters in most of his plays (see, for example, Epicoene) exemplify how
people can destroy their peace of mind by running after false values.
However, Jonson’s verse epistles are clear examples of his interest in Stoic
remedies to achieve peace of mind, particularly in cases of absolute grief
(Pérez 1996:337-47); two striking examples of this are “Inviting a Friend to
Supper” and “On my First Son” (Abrams 1986:1212; 1210). But Andrew
Marvell’s “The Garden” is probably the most influential example of a lyrical
Renaissance treatment of the Stoic theme of peace of mind, from the opening
stanza on the emptiness of fame and the praise of repose to the complaints
about the presence of other people as an obstacle to acquire peace of mind
(Abrams 1986:1395-397):

(…)
Such was that happy garden state,
While man there walked without a mate:
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!

to find in a Stoic dramatist can make us ignore Webster’s two most relevant plays in a discussion
on Stoicism in English Renaissance literature. Admittedly, there is not a generalized agreement
as to what we mean when we associate Webster and Stoicism, and besides it seems difficult to
characterize Vittoria’s and Flamineo’s deaths as Stoic, especially from a narrow conceptualization
of what Stoicism is and how are we to find it in these texts. Yet, the analysis of the ways in which
both The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi explore the tragic consequences of breaking
certain rules seems to me to be a reasonable aim for a Neo-Stoic agenda; once we realize that
these rules can be best described as natural law, and that the consequences are inevitable from
the point of view of many Senecan and Ciceronian notions, Stoicism seems to look like the
appropriate intellectual basis of much of the plays’ content.

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But ‘twas beyond a mortal’s share

To wander solitary there;
Two paradises ‘twere in one
To live in paradise alone (57-64) (Abrams 1986:1396)

Thomas More’s “A Rueful Lamentation” and “Pageant Verses” contain

similar, although less original, Neo-Stoic attitudes towards peace of mind
in connection with a number of recurrent topics such as life, death, fame,
love, the divinity, eternity, or poetry (Sylvester 1983:119-29). An interesting
and extreme example of the quest for moral tranquillity is George
Gascoigne’s “Councel given to master Bartholmew Withipoll a little before
his latter journey to Geane. 1572”; a paranoid example of anti-Catholic
propaganda, it shows a radical concern with a set of items he identifies as
threats to Neo-Stoic peace of mind, which are identified as the three “Ps”
(“poison”, “pryde” and “piles and pockes” or “Papistry”), and the three
“double Us” (”Wine”, “Women” and “Wilfulnesse”) (Sylvester 1983:262-
68).12 Love sonnets do not frequently endorse Neo-Stoic injunctions to
acquire peace of mind. However, among the diverse qualities of the beloved
lady there sometimes is a positive reference to her power to contain the
lover’s excess: thus, sonnet viii of Spenser’s Amoretti: “You calme the
storme that passion did begin”; or sonnet 87 of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella:
“Stella whose eyes make all my tempests cleere” (Sylvester 1983:347; 480).
Yet the relation of love sonnets with Neo-Stoicism is complex, since whereas
we can find typically Stoic features such as renunciation and sacrifice, self-
control and sobriety, they are subordinated to the lady, not to the law of
nature, and even then, as in sonnet 71 of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella “desire
still cries, give me some food” (457). A similar case we find in the first ayr
of Thomas Campion’s A Book of Ayres, where an apparently Stoic acceptance
of death must be qualified for its dependence on the presence of the poet’s
beloved Lesbia (527). But a clearer case of Neo-Stoic mistrust of the world’s
joys and of its resolution to face death and decay with an imperturbable
mind can be found in Campion’s An Howres Recreation in Musicke, where
the poet denounces the gross materiality (and hence mortality) of “Fortune,
honor, beauty, youth” (549)

12
Gascoigne’s important ‘The Steele Glas’ also deals with peace of mind and some of its opposites:
pride, flattery, lust, excessive appetite etc… Gascoigne even makes some critical references to
Epicures and self-indulgence.

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Peace of mind, as we have already seen, was obtained from

cooperating with the laws of nature, whereas at the same time it was
perceived (in a dialectical relationship) as a pre-requisite to act in accordance
with those laws. These are unwritten moral prescriptions which are supposed
to be obvious to all right-thinking people. This implies, as seems evident,
an ideological stance of particular importance, for, as Audrey Chew has
penetratingly observed:

when right-thinking people are the ones who identify ideal moral law (the way
things ought to be) with custom (the way things are), Stoic morality supports
the status quo; but when right-thinking persons are rebels who decide that custom
has deviated from the true moral law, Stoic morality may be used to oppose the
system. (Chew 1988:149)

However, in my opinion Chew (1988) is exceedingly optimistic when she

balances the position supporting the status quo with the anti-system
opposition, since it is much easier to find co-optation models than subversive
ones, and even these are linked to individualistic attitudes of essentialist
disbelief rather than to actual rejection of the system as a whole.13
The Stoic law of nature is clearly present in Thomas Elyot’s The Boke
Called the Governour. Probably because of Elyot’s medieval conservatism
and his adherence to the hierarchical system, this work has been seen by
some scholars as a dubious Renaissance Stoic source (Monsarrat 1984:29;
81),14 although there is a general agreement about his Neo-Stoic content.
From my own reading of this work, in his Governour Elyot constructs a
simple structure that consists of a re-reading of Ciceronian Stoicism and
the exposition of the benefits and characteristics of a hierarchical organization
of society. The social Stoicism of Elyot makes it clear that cooperation is
the law of nature, and virtue means living in accordance with this. There is
no discussion about those at the top, but Elyot admits that the virtues need
to be taught even to them. His conservatism can be easily detected in his
belief that there is no conflict between the laws of nature, the wisdom of the

13
This can be seen very clearly, in my opinion, in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and Chapman’s
Bussy plays.
14
Monsarrat’s narrow concept of Stoicism makes it difficult for Elyot’s Governour to fit into an
orthodox Stoic pattern, and this for basically two reasons: (a) it was more a guide to practical
ethics; (b) Stoicism was a minor element for Elyot within his solid construction of Christian
belief. However, it must be said that the problem is of a deep epistemological nature, since
Monsarrat’s rejection of Cicero’s De Officiis as a Stoic work leaves no room for further discussion;
see Chew (1988:76-77), Schneider (1995a:126-27).

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ancients and the contemporary system (or custom). This idealistic scenario
rejects any kind of contestation promoting acquiescence and consent, and
distances Elyot from other Christian Neo-Stoic authors such as More (Elyot
1907:47-48; 62; 145; 183-84).
With relation to drama it is good to remember that, as Una Ellis-
Fermor stated already in the nineteen thirties, “Stoic repudiation of wealth,
power & high place”, whereas supported by characters in theory, was rarely
practised “as portrayed dramatically” (1936:24). However, it seems to me
that it is easier to find plays which endorse the law of nature than it was to
find characters actually behaving in order to achieve peace of mind. The
Stoic stress on the important role played by rationality was dramatically
exploited by means of the very productive conflict of will and reason, best
exemplified in the figures of kings forgetting their duties. Thomas Sackville
and Thomas Norton’s Gorboduc is the dramatization of the tragedy that
results when kings forget the laws of nature. Sackville and Norton’s king
commits two mistakes (strikingly similar to those committed by
Shakespeare’s Lear): he abdicates too soon (his sons are too young), and he
gives the younger more than corresponds. This violation of the law of nature
underlines one significant characteristic of Neo-Stoicism: there are laws
that impose certain duties on the king, or, in other words, the individual is
ultimately always subjected to the community, and to ignore this rule, in
the case of monarchs, brings about chaos in the form of civil war and parricide
(I,ii,218-22; 156-60). The play offers two different sets of laws, each with
different qualities; on the one hand, physical law appears as self-evident
and unchangeable: men are mortal; on the other, moral law is subject to
upheaval. Consequently, tampering with the system (the hierarchical system)
is possible, and punishment, then, may be either obvious (evil is punished
in the play: poetic justice) or inscrutable (the good are destroyed with the
bad). The reason is that the destruction of this ideal moral system is so
terrible a crime that once disturbed it —the disarranged system— may injure
anyone. Again, the ideological message seems to be an all-too clear defence
of the status quo.
The Neo-Stoic concern with social roles, their importance, and the
necessity of respecting them, is also typical of Shakespeare’s drama. It must
be quickly added that the commonest form of Stoicism in Shakespeare’s
plays is social Ciceronian (like the one we find in Elyot), which means that
Shakespeare will allow for both the existence of Providence and social and
individual responsibility. Thus, Edmund in King Lear, Iago in Othello or
Cassius in Julius Caesar will be considered individually guilty for their

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crimes and consequently punished for their actions. The reason is, of course,
that moral evil is a personal choice, and so the individual is demanded the
effort of following the right path. Richard II or Henry VI are examples of
what happens when a king does not behave like one, and whereas 1Henry
IV is about the same thing, 2Henry IV and Henry V give the view of the
regenerated monarch: the beneficial effects of following Thomas Elyot’s
advices.
Whether the focus is on the disrupter (Macbeth, Richard III, Julius
Caesar, Coriolanus), on the victims (Romeo and Juliet), or on both (Othello),
in Shakespeare (like in so many other authors) we can say that the pattern is
one of order violated followed by resulting chaos and the subsequent
restoring of order. In all these plays the hierarchical system is the natural
one, virtue means willingly playing one’s assigned part, those in power
have a superior moral insight, and Nature, in the long run, does not tolerate
questioning the status quo. Rebellion is then not justified a priori, even if
the king apparently goes against the law of nature, although if a particular
revolt is successful it will be ideologically incorporated within the law of
nature as part of Nature’s master plan. The most relevant feature of
Shakespeare’s drama in this context is that it plays out in full the conflict
between self-sufficiency and self-sacrifice, which lies at the core of Neo-
Stoicism. To be precise, this is, as I already stated, what separates primitive
from historical Stoicism: the individual as centre of the action, or the
individual as part of a superior entity, be it named community, society or
country. As I will try to explain, much of the period’s theatre dramatizes
both the evolution from one model to the other and the (often tragic)
consequences of this transition (in this sense, see for example the destruction
of the once so ‘useful’ heroes Coriolanus or Othello).
George Chapman is undoubtedly one of the most Stoic of all Jacobean
playwrights. It can be said that historical Stoicism, which subordinated
personal self-interest to social duty, is the dominant brand of Stoicism in
his plays, and this can be well appreciated in The Revenge of Bussy
D’Ambois. On the other hand, Stoic self-sufficiency, more typical of primitive
Stoicism (although in a clearly modified fashion) appears in his most popular
Bussy D’Ambois (Monsarrat 1984:190-95). Bussy is much more easily
characterized as a Marlovian hero villain, one of those who do not
subordinate individualism to social conformity. In fact, although much has
been said in relation to Bussy’s virtue and Stoic attitude, his ‘justification’
speech states clearly the limits of this pseudo-Stoicism:

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then be you my king,

And do a right, exceeding law and nature:
Who to himself is law, no law doth need,
Offends no law, and is a king indeed. (II,i,201-04)

On the other hand, there are evident references to Stoicism when Bussy
dies, especially by the ghost of the Friar and by means of a comparison
with Hercules (V,iv,147-53); to claim, as Monsarrat does, that not all of
Hercules’ deeds were truly Stoic, and that some were difficult to allegorize
(1984:193), seems to impose on text, author and audience a philosophical
exactness difficult to reconcile with the purposes of such a play. Furthermore,
I tend to think that Chapman departed from more conservative writers in
providing this hero with some kind of justification for relying entirely on
his own interpretation of the law of nature, and this agrees with the two
possibilities that we considered in relation to Stoicism and this law. I am
inclined to interpret this lack of philosophical consistency as a dramatic
incidence, which functions —like Chapman’s dramatic concept of fate,
which seems to be a personalized providence or wyrd— as a plot device in
order to increase the interest of his plays. In any case, it has to be admitted
that Bussy is a controversial figure when analyzed from a Stoic perspective;
then, we may question whether he is a servant of destiny (a good Stoic); an
ambitious climber (a sham Stoic) or whether we are expected to condemn
or admire him.
Much easier to analyze is The Revenge with Stoic preoccupations in
mind. Clermont D’Ambois shares Bussy’s most significant Stoic features
(self-sufficiency, valour, dignity), and also some of the characteristics that
Bussy lacked: virtue, some respect for the orthodox natural law and learning
(II,i,84-88). But Clermont’s self-sufficiency is certainly Stoic, and thus he
firmly believes that the part must submit to the whole, that is, to the perfection
of the Universe (IV,i,137-57). He is also able to differentiate, unlike Bussy,
between outward and inward qualities: what is external to us and what is
ours, or greatness and goodness. Clermont is explicitly presented as a disciple
of Epictetus (I,i,335), and borrowings from this author’s Stoicism have been
detected by different authors (Monsarrat 1984:211-19). Besides, Clermont’s
position in relation to private revenge is much more Stoic than Bussy’s was
since the former rejects this line of action. In this sense, Chapman’s
achievement lies precisely in his ability to, on the one hand, oblige Clermont
to revenge (because he promised to do so to the apparition), and on the
other to show how, by rejecting that action which he has to (and actually

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does) perform, Clermont leaves no doubt as to his Stoic integrity. As

Monsarrat has rightfully perceived, the debate is “not on vengeance itself
but on the manner in which a virtuous man must accomplish it” (1984:214).
In short, Clermont is a credible Stoic adapted for dramatic purposes and,
mostly important, harmless; he is the tamed and conservative version of the
dangerously self-sufficient and agressively heterodox pseudo-Stoic Bussy.
John Marston is also one of the playwrights of this period most clearly
influenced by Stoicism: he explicitly followed Epictetus and actually
included Stoic characters within his plays, although these characters were
either true Stoics, satirists, or would-be Stoics.15 In general terms, Marston’s
plays show a strong dislike for personal ambition, and support selfless-
duty, or, in other words, the Ciceronian ground plan that we saw in Elyot’s
intellectual construction. Then we can see a combination of Machiavellian
opportunists set against Ciceronian idealists; the former stand for reason of
state or the principle that kings are above the law (as we saw with Chapman’s
Bussy), whereas the latter present obedience to the unwritten moral law.
Antonio and Mellida is especially relevant to this discussion because of the
figure of Andrugio, a moderately just king who oscillates between Stoic
descriptions of the wise man and strict respect for the law of nature, and an
un-Stoic inability to be patient and avoid thoughts of revenge. Indeed, if
Andrugio’s speech on royalty is actually Stoic and Senecan (IV,i,46-66),
the first three acts are full of grief, impatience, light speech and despair.
The conclusion must be then that the most interesting lesson by Andrugio is
then not on Stoicism but on the all too frequent mismatch between
philosophical discourse and human conduct.
Antonio’s Revenge is, to my mind, a much more interesting play from
the point of view of Stoicism. If it is true that Pandulpho is not in the end a
perfect Stoic, he is probably all the more relevant for that; Pandulpho
functions, for the first half of the play, as a mouthpiece for Stoic doctrine,
preaching Ciceronian social duty to the tyrant Piero. Not even his son’s
terrible death will move him initially (he even laughs at it to the indignation
of Alberto) (I,ii,297-99; 335-37), and he claims to be unaffected by fears or
wrongs of any kind (II,i,81-82), seriously considers suicide as a coherent

15
Incidentally, it must be pointed out that Marston’s admiration for Stoic ideas was not
homogeneous. Thus, he disliked precisely Stoic self-sufficiency (Senecan or not), although this
is only relatively relevant since it is not the kind of Stoicism I mention him here for; in fact,
Marston’s attacks to certain Stoic ideas come from Calvin and Plutarch, although apparently not
directly but through commentary by La Primaudaye in his French Academie (Monsarrat, 1984:
161-65).

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decision (II,i,149-52), and declares that fortune does not affect him (II,i,170-
72). But this moral perfection seems so inhuman that it is difficult to know
if we are to take the play as a tragicomedy or a tragedy, a parody or a satire;
when Pandulpho’s morals eventually collapse (IV,ii,67-76), the audience
(or readers) already expected it. What we have then is a criticism of Stoic
pretensions of imperturbability, which are presented as inhuman and not
desirable when taken (as in Pandulpho’s case) to the extreme. When
Pandulpho realizes that he cannot be a Stoic, he then becomes what Antonio
is: an anti-Stoic, a revenger. But the play does clearly reject this second
option with even more strength than it did the first one: if Stoicism is
condemned, it is because of its too high demands. Stoicism in its purest
form is not compatible with human existence, and so it has to be adapted to
human possibilities: “man cannot be a true Stoic but he should manage to
be Stoical” (Monsarrat 1984:176).
The Stoic sage, also known as the wise man, was defined above as
the ‘ideal man’. A strict definition of this figure leaves us with “God’s equal”
(Monsarrat 1984:13), a happy creature indifferent to all external things
(including wealth, love, fame or health) and absolutely self-sufficient.
Obviously, this wise man is an abstraction, and the fact that it is almost
impossible to find him in Renaissance literary representations should not
be noticeable. In general terms, the wise man is the man who knows his
place within the community and, following Elyot, succeeds in controlling
his passions. In poetry, Surrey’s “Epitaph on Sir Thomas Wyatt” constitutes
a valuable approach to this figure:

(…)
An eye whose judgement no affect could blind,
Friends to allure and foes to reconcile,
Whose piercing look did represent a mind
With virtue fraught, reposèd, void of guile.

A heart where dread yet never so impressed

To hide the thought that might the truth advance;
In neither fortune lift nor yet repressed
To swell in wealth or yield unto mischance.

A valiant corpse where force and beauty met,

Happy -alas, too happy, but for foes,
Lived and ran the race that Nature set,
O manhood’s shape, where she the mold did lose. (21-32) (Abrams 1986:478)

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As we can perceive in this detailed account of the wise man, Surrey does
two things; firstly, he enumerates the basic features of a Neo-Stoic wise
man: alien to excessive anger and passion, to fear, exhilaration and
depression, and who obeys the law of nature (”lived and ran the race that
Nature set”). Secondly, he asserts that such a man is a prodigy, an exceptional
figure and, as such, not a model who can be followed strictly. Probably this
is the reason why, in the first place, we find this description in an epitaph,
and, secondly, most —if not all— representations of the Neo-Stoic wise
man only portray failed examples of the Stoic sage, never a completely
successful one.
We can find in Shakespearean drama several isolated elements
arguably relating to the wise man but, as I have just suggested, which never
fully qualify someone as a truly authentic Stoic sage in all respects: Henry
V’s Ciceronian qualities as a ruler; Julius Caesar’s Brutus, who devotes his
life to common welfare; Horatio’s restrained behaviour in Hamlet; Hotspur’s
Stoical nature in 1 and 2 Henry IV etc... In this sense, Ben Schneider has
pointed out how Cordelia is a clear example of the wise man or “plain
dealer”: she rejects flattery, connects words and deeds, and treasures a certain
concept of love based on trust, fidelity and sincerity (1995b:1-4). Schneider
equally argues that Kent is a touchstone of the virtues of the wise man:
constant (he keeps the same today and tomorrow) and integral (he remains
the same on the inside and on the outside) (1995b:8-10).16 Marston equally
offers a choice of different types and qualities of the Stoic hero, who appears,
under different guises and partially portrayed, in some of his plays, as I
suggested above: Feliche the contented man and Andrugio the good
Ciceronian public servant —confused and confusing Stoic— in Antonio
and Mellida; or the proud pseudo-Stoic Pandulpho in Antonio’s Revenge.
It should be clear by now that Neo-Stoicism occupies a central position
in sixteenth and seventeenth century writing, and consequently to remain
ignorant of this fact blinds us to many of the intellectual and aesthetic
properties of the works of this period. I am persuaded that a detailed analysis
of the functions that Neo-Stoicism fulfils in these texts, functions which I
have only glimpsed at here, will indicate that this philosophical school stands

16
The categorization established by Schneider seems especially useful: thus, the Stoic hero must
have: constancy (including integrity, responsibility, and loyalty); generosity (including
graciousness, empathy, sense of justice and reciprocity); plainness (honesty, frankness, modesty
and unpretentiousness); and courage (patience, endurance, fortitude, despising suffering and
death) (1995a:130-34; 1995b:1-10).

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as one of the systems that tries to keep together traditional society by means
of constant ideological reinforcing of the old ideals (Thomas Wyatt in
Surrey’s epitaph), although this frequently backfires; in other words, only
through a Stoic lense may we perceive the dialectical relations and
confrontation of social harmony versus individualistic discord (of an un-
Stoic kind). The explanation may well be that Neo-Stoicism offers something
that we could call, for want of a better term, social alienation; by this I
mean a representation of the individual integrated within society through
assimilation and full acceptance of social norms but who is, at the same
time, trying to defend himself from hostile circumstances by disengaging
from these norms and attempting at his own definition, either successfully
—by Stoic standards— or not: Chapman’s Bussy; Shakespeare’s Othello,
Hamlet, Coriolanus, Cordelia or Kent; Marston’s Antonio). Some of the
texts would show how this is eventually done by means of a return to
primitive asocial Stoicism; in other words, through a paradoxical re-
engagement with society enacted by revenge, precisely the kind of
subversively individualistic action Neo-Stoicism is trying to avoid. The fierce
repression of these acts testifies to the importance of Neo-Stoicism as a
useful code of behaviour: based on simple reciprocity, it was useful since it
involved the suppression of private wishes, and consequently sixteenth and
seventeenth century texts abound with the destruction of un-Stoic disrupters,
in order to create an environment somehow similar to Marvell’s garden.17
This evidently has to do with the social and psychological conflicts
that the texts of these centuries reproduce, and which have been analyzed
from a diversity of interesting but partial (and hence incomplete) approaches
(be they formalist, new-historicist, feminist, etc.). What the presence of
Neo-Stoicism eventually tells us about the texts and about their contexts is
that there seems to be an epistemological transition, of which Neo-Stoicism

17
Ben Schneider has provided us with the most far-reaching interpretation of the role of Stoicism
in English literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. According to Schneider, Stoicism
functioned as a representative of the old episteme, and as one line of thought that stresses a
common narrative of the correct behaviour; thus, it is possible to account for the revival of
Stoicism during these centuries by appealing to the transition from feudal to bourgeoise relations,
or, in other words, to the passing from the symbolic interaction model based on the ancient
economic ethics of neighbourliness (right action is that which coincides with mutually understood
social norms) to the exchange value model (right action is whatever makes sense given the goal),
in Karl Marx’s formulation (1993:111-13; 1995a:127-30). Schneider’s theory also relies on
Weber and Habermas, who have investigated a transition which they identify as one of substitution:
of the old reciprocity nexus for the emergent cash nexus or egotistical calculation. See also
Schneider’s webpage <http://www.stoics.com>.

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(as Humanism, Protestantism or capitalism) is a part, and which is visible

through the faultlines of these works. An analysis that goes beyond this
introductory study of Neo-Stoicism in sixteenth and seventeenth century
literature would probably contribute to an understanding of this change, a
transition which trascends the literary to account for the creation of a new
structure of feeling.

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Author’s address:
Universidad de Jaén
Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación
Departamento de Filología Inglesa
Campus Las Lagunillas, s/n. Edificio D2
23071 Jaén, Spain
[email protected]

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