Toward an Early Modern Theory of Trauma: Conscience in “Richard III”

Abstract

Toward an Early Modern Theory of TraumaConscience in “Richard III” Zackariah C. Long (bio) The title of this essay presents a paradox, the implications of which have yet to be explored in early modern literary studies. The use of the term trauma (from Greek “wound”) to describe a mental rather than physical injury is a relatively recent phenomenon.1 Early modern medical and philosophical texts do not speak of trauma in explaining the perturbations of the mind.2 In a literal sense, then, there is no such thing as an “early modern theory of trauma.” On the other hand, increasing numbers of critics have turned to contemporary trauma theory to interpret early modern works afresh.3 While few would question the validity of applying contemporary theory to early modern texts, usually such efforts are accompanied by an attempt to historicize the terms and concepts in question. Thus Alan Bray, in using “homosexuality” to describe male same-sex relations in Renaissance England, is careful to distinguish his use of the term from modern notions of sexuality, and Barbara Freedman, in adopting postmodern film theory to analyze “the gaze” in Shakespearean comedy, begins by considering the views of Renaissance polymath Leon Battista Alberti on perspective.4 However, no critic has yet considered how early moderns explained, or even if they recognized the symptoms that we now classify as “traumatic.”5 What follows is an attempt to explore some of the prehistory of contemporary trauma theory from the ruins of what we might anachronistically call “early modern psychology.” Specifically, I examine early modern [End Page 49] casuistical literature—religious writings about conscience—to show that much of what is now discussed in psychiatric and scientific circles concerning trauma once belonged to different lexical territory, literature about the soul.6 Indeed, in exploring a particular species of trauma—“perpetration-induced traumatic stress,” or trauma experienced by those who have inflicted suffering on others—one discovers that early modern casuistical literature offers surprisingly evocative accounts of the damage done to the soul by harming others.7 Our guide to this literature is the most influential of the English casuists, William Perkins, whose works inaugurated an explosion of casuistical texts in the seventeenth century.8 I aim to show that Perkins’s reflections on conscience can illuminate representations of trauma in early modern literature, as demonstrated through an analysis of Shakespeare’s Richard of Gloucester in Richard III. The Wounded Conscience In early modern psychology, humans were believed to be the conjunction of an immortal soul a mortal body.9 To the body belonged those things humans had in common with beasts, such as sensation; to the soul belonged those things humans held in common with God, such as understanding. Conscience was a faculty of the soul and part of understanding.10 Perkins defines conscience as “a thing placed by God in the midst between him and man as an arbitrator to give sentence and to pronounce either with man or against man unto God.” In this sense, conscience is “a little god sitting in the middle of men’s hearts” or “another person within.”11 This notion of an internalized other is nicely captured by the term itself, which combines con (with) and science (knowledge). Literally speaking, conscience is “knowledge-with”: the being with whom conscience shares knowledge is God, and the knowledge shared between them is the moral law as expressed in the biblical injunction to love God and neighbor. For Perkins, this is true even for those who have never been exposed to Scripture. Following the Pauline dictum that even the Gentiles have “the law written in their hearts” (Romans 2:15), Perkins insists that “conscience is in all reasonable creatures” lest anyone “imagine that some men by nature have conscience in them, some none at all.”12 Conscience performs its role as “arbitrator” in two main ways. First, it records the soul’s thoughts and deeds; and second, it judges them in accordance [End Page 50] with God’s law. “In this respect,” says Perkins, conscience “may fitly be compared to a notary or a register that hath always the pen in his hand, to note and record whatsoever is said...