Theaters of Solitary Selves

Abstract

Abstract The psychomachic model of the self as an unstable coalition of miscellaneous entities enables both detailed psychological analysis and intersubjectivity. It is a scalable form that may map an individual, a household, a city, or the world, thus permitting mutual indwelling. It is an implicitly dramatic form: a devotional text such as Sawles Warde has the potential to become a closet drama if read aloud, and it is possible that such devotional texts influenced the otherwise obscure early history of the psychomachic morality play. Psychomachic drama such as The Castle of Perseverance replicated the structure of anchoritic enclosure, inviting its audience to participate in its staging of an expanded self. The fifteenth-century poets John Lydgate and Thomas Hoccleve use the psychomachic form for self-analysis. Lydgate’s autobiographical Testament replicates the form of his mummings to account and repent for his past. Hoccleve, however, finds that self-analysis only produces further instability and that he needs social engagement with others in order to recover his self.