Abstract
While early reviewers of Joanna Baillie's De Monfort complained of a lack of cause for De Monfort's hatred, modern readers have offered various interpretations of the source and nature of the drama's focal passion. The search for a proper motivation for hatred may be misguided, however, as Baillie's Introductory Discourse makes clear that strong passions stir the heart independent of external circumstance or offense. This essay argues that Baillie is concerned not with the origin of De Monfort's hatred, but rather with the origin of hatred itself, turning to a biblical understanding of hatred and its manifestation. Examining God's curse on Adam and Eve as the defining inheritance dictating the condition of fallen human nature, this paper follows Baillie's tracing of the history of opposition and struggle to God's establishment of enmity between man and the serpent. The Cain-Abel sibling rivalry serves as the primal precedent for De Monfort's hatred of Rezenvelt, while Eve's fated striving with Adam illuminates Jane's powerful struggle to contain and restrain her brother. Finally, the paper discusses the importance of the struggle between the passions and sympathetic curiosity for the successful working of Baillie's conception of theater.
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