Performing Emotions in Early Europe ed. by Philippa Maddern, Joanne McEwan, and Anne M. Scott

Abstract

Reviewed by: Performing Emotions in Early Europe ed. by Philippa Maddern, Joanne McEwan, and Anne M. Scott Amy Brown Maddern, Philippa, Joanne McEwan, and Anne M. Scott, eds, Performing Emotions in Early Europe (Early European Research, 11), Turnhout, Brepols, 2018; hardback; pp. xxx, 296; 25 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. €85.00; ISBN 9782503572376. My first thought on reading Performing Emotions in Early Europe is that this book—particularly its introduction—is something I needed in 2015. It is still useful now, but it would have been of particular use to those of us involved in preparing Emotions in Medieval Textual Media (edited by Mary C. Flannery) for the same Brepols series 'Early European Research'. That Performing Emotions in Early Europe has been so long in the production is no fault of the editorial team. The illness and passing of Philippa Maddern seriously delayed the editing and compilation of the chapters, which began life as papers in a 2011 conference under the aegis of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (CHE). Perhaps because that conference was so foundational to the CHE's work, and because the CHE has been so central to the study of premodern emotions during the long production timeline of this book, nothing about the final product feels out-of-date. Rather, it collects varied and interesting interventions into ongoing scholarly conversations. [End Page 229] Performing Emotions in Early Europe defines performance broadly, on the basis that emotions 'are anticipated and produced through certain bodily acts and naturalized gestures' (p. xiv), and works from the shared assumption that emotional performances are not singular acts but part of systems of repetition and ritual. The scope of the contributions is broad, and includes studies of late medieval liturgical music, early modern marriage negotiations, Renaissance art, and contemporary performance of premodern drama. The introduction deserves special mention for its clarity in drawing together key threads, and its lucid theoretical framing. Philippa Maddern, Joanne McEwan, and Anne Scott draw together performance theory, emotion theories from a range of disciplines, and historicized textual readings, and the introduction serves not only as a platform for the subsequent essays but a forward-looking essay that will prove useful to scholars in many areas of the history of emotions. One noteworthy aspect is the number of chapters that build their arguments on the basis of evidence from several different media and source types. Emily Cock's essay is a particular stand-out in this respect, for its deft navigation between legal records of prostitution and fictional representations. There is a strong art history thread throughout the collection, where we find artistic representation of emotion placed in conversation with literary texts (Scott), liturgical history (Richard Read) and historical records (Louise Marshall). Several chapters are also notable for their navigation of the vexed problem of the distance between emotions invoked in historical documents and the lived experience of emotion. Susan Broomhall and Jacqueline Van Gent's chapter looks at the deployment of love as a justification, motivation, and demonstration of loyalty in documents relating to Orange-Nassau marriage negotiations. Here the authors allow space for the probability of real feeling—parental love and concern, love as desire for a prospective spouse, and so forth—alongside love as justification for political choices. Particularly interesting are cases where love is not invoked: in the event of failed marriage negotiations, a parent might cite protective love of their daughter as a reason not to pursue the marriage against the bride's inclination, while the same parent might make no mention of love for their child when pressing another, reluctant, daughter into an advantageous marriage. Broomhall and Van Gent do not use these examples to speculate on whether protective love was actually a felt emotion for either child, but examine the factors which make the public performance of such love appropriate to one situation but not the other. Similarly, Lindsay Diggelmann's chapter on emotional performance, particularly of kings, in Anglo-Norman historical records, attends closely to the bodily signals of intense emotion. Here Diggelmann focuses on the ways in which a diverse and sometimes contradictory suite of emotional performances could be construed as...