Emotion
‹ 11 · Outline
12.Emotion in society, politics and the arts
12a.Crowd passion and party spirit
See also: Opinion 7a · Madness 8a
Aeschylus, AgamemnonVol. 8
- p. 23–24Grief and suppressed wrath weigh on the city, muttering against the kings.read · scan
The Book of PsalmsVol. 44
- p. 214–215Anger of God and the people's distress and staggering under hard things.read · scan
Euripides, The BacchaeVol. 8
- p. 419Ecstatic frenzy and bloodlust of the Maenads; Pentheus' terror and pleading.read · scan
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Letters of CiceroVol. 9
- p. 97Clodius, mad with rage, loses composure; the riot erupts.read · scan
Virgil, The AeneidVol. 13
- p. 73–77The mob's fury is stilled by a pious man's words.read · scan
- p. 197The matrons swing between fear and hope, then rage, then shame and flight when Ascanius rebukes them.read · scan
- p. 248Silvia's grief and the churls' fury follow the stag's death.read · scan
- p. 366Alarm, confusion, fear and boldness among the people as the Trojans are sighted.read · scan
Luke, The Acts of the ApostlesVol. 44
- p. 465Crowd filled with wrath, confusion and uproar, most not knowing why they gathered.read · scan
- p. 470–472Mob violence and uproar, crying Away with him; the crowd quiets when Paul speaks Hebrew.read · scan
Plutarch, PericlesVol. 12
- p. 71–72Athenians, afflicted in body and soul, rage like delirious patients against Pericles and fine him.read · scan
Plutarch, CiceroVol. 12
- p. 253The people, moved to pity by Caesar's bloody body, are enraged to frenzy.read · scan
Plutarch, CaesarVol. 12
- p. 291–292Fear, panic and contrary passions seize Rome, and parties quarrel as some rejoice and others despair.read · scan
- p. 300Charging at a run fires men's spirits into flame.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 88–89The crowd's roar and blood kindle frenzy in him.read · scan
Miguel de Cervantes, The History of Don Quixote of the Mancha, Part IVol. 14
- p. 453–454Screams, dismay and confusion of the women and combatants dramatize fear and rage.read · scan
Thomas Hobbes, Of Man, Being the First Part of LeviathanVol. 34
- p. 353–354The rage of a multitude is passion, with each man's passions contributing to the seditious roar of a troubled nation.read · scan
- p. 374–375Grieved taxpayers discharge anger on collectors; fear of punishment drives them against authority.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Life of Addison, 1672-1719Vol. 27
- p. 185–186Party and passion clamor and tyrannize over imaginations of those lacking judgement.read · scan
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsVol. 10
- p. 368Mercantile jealousy and national animosity inflame each other and lead traders to interested falsehood.read · scan
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hermann and DorotheaVol. 19
- p. 373The elder's words quiet the passions of the fugitive crowd instantly.read · scan
- p. 376Despair, vengeful fury and injurious passion sweep men away, worse than raging wild beasts.read · scan
Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, The Federalist, Nos. I and IIVol. 43
- p. 201A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose in the national debate.read · scan
Robert Burns, Poems and SongsVol. 6
- p. 98–100Preacher's ranting fires the devout with fear and anger.read · scan
Sydney Smith, Fallacies of Anti-ReformersVol. 27
- p. 237–238Personalities appeal to passions, praise and vituperation stimulating where close argument quells; men expect others to share their passions.read · scan
George Washington, Washington's Farewell AddressVol. 43
- p. 240The spirit of party is rooted in the strongest passions of the human mind and is worst in popular governments.read · scan
- p. 244Habitual hatred or fondness toward other nations enslaves a nation to passion and leads it astray from duty and interest.read · scan
- p. 247–248He hopes his counsels may moderate the fury of party spirit and the current of the passions.read · scan
Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)Vol. 21
- p. 126–127The gathering crowd is full of questions, agitation and alarm, none able to answer.read · scan
- p. 198–199Indignation and passions of hearer and speaker are inflamed as crowds gather.read · scan
- p. 200Mob passion ignites like a squib in gunpowder; hunger and envy drive spontaneous pillaging.read · scan
- p. 201Crowd pressure and terror of the shop people and sheriff's alarm as the throng surges.read · scan
- p. 203Fury increases the crowd's strength and makes them forget vengeance in greed for spoil.read · scan
- p. 206The crowd's triumph and imprecation around the bonfire of bakery implements; Renzo's astonishment.read · scan
- p. 207Crowd fury and cheers of 'Hurrah for plenty'; Renzo's curiosity overcomes prudence.read · scan
- p. 209Unanimous fury drives the crowd toward the superintendent's house.read · scan
- p. 212The old man's diabolical glee and the crowd's fury show mob passion and cruelty.read · scan
- p. 214Crowds swing between ferocity and compassion, adoration and execration, as opportunity offers.read · scan
- p. 222–223The vicar clings to Ferrer like a frightened child; the crowd shouts applause and imprecations.read · scan
- p. 455Misery, angry astonishment and consternation among the starving.read · scan
- p. 514The smearing spreads consternation and public confusion.read · scan
- p. 515Passers-by shudder and murmur; fear first subsides when no slaughter follows.read · scan
- p. 520–521Panic and fury drive crowds to beat and stone suspected victims.read · scan
- p. 529–530Fear and suspicion make husband, wife, father and son objects of terror and dissolve reciprocal confidence.read · scan
- p. 569–570Cries, groans, terror and grief of the sick and children; constancy and compassion amid confusion.read · scan
- p. 572–573His anger becomes fury and anguish desperation; the mob's terror at the funeral carts.read · scan
- p. 573–574Rage, hatred and triumph of the mob and the monatti, mocking and scattering the crowd.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, The CenciVol. 18
- p. 275–276The story awakens pity and passionate sympathy for Beatrice across all ranks of Italian society.read · scan
Thomas Carlyle, CharacteristicsVol. 25
- p. 354–355The infinite gulf of human passion shattered the thin rinds of habit in France.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, CirclesVol. 5
- p. 159Wild passions in gaming and war imitate the flames of the heart.read · scan
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1311The people's wail of sorrow and anger, and Basil's passion, follow the sudden announcement like a storm.read · scan
Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln's First Inaugural AddressVol. 43
- p. 322Passion may strain but must not break bonds of affection; the better angels of our nature appeal to shared feeling.read · scan
John Ruskin, Sesame and LiliesVol. 28
- p. 114A gentle nation's feelings are constant and just, whereas a mob's are infectious and fickle.read · scan
James Russell Lowell, Abraham LincolnVol. 28
- p. 434Popular passion and enthusiasm give words like country and democracy force beyond logic, but cannot make a working political system.read · scan
Edward Augustus Freeman, Race and LanguageVol. 28
- p. 233Great emotions stirring masses, like those of Saracens and Crusaders, are serious facts that sneering cannot dismiss.read · scan
- p. 233–235Emotions persist and do their work; even the most educated cannot sneer them away.read · scan
- p. 272Generous sympathies widen from household to tribe, nation and whole race, and count among practical facts.read · scan
- p. 272Feeling of race and kinship sympathy is a powerful agent in the actions of nations, even where kinship is only claimed.read · scan
Walter Bagehot, John MiltonVol. 28
- p. 186Party zeal grows excessive through the sympathy of companions.read · scan
Frank Aretas Haskell, The Battle of GettysburgVol. 43
- p. 331–332Men grow serious and silent at the sights and sounds of battle, and Reynolds's death affects them deeply.read · scan
- p. 350–351Under fury of battle all senses die but sight; the impassioned soul is all eyes.read · scan
- p. 355The army is mad with joy at nightfall despite the day's dangers.read · scan
- p. 386All depths of passion are stirred; individuality drowns in the multitude's clamor.read · scan
12b.Tragedy and the purging of pity and fear
See also: Poetry 9d · Virtue and Vice 11c
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkVol. 46
- p. 146–148Hamlet counsels players to give passion temperance and smoothness, not tear it to tatters.read · scan
John Milton, Samson AgonistesVol. 4
- p. 412Following Aristotle, tragedy purges pity and fear by tempering them to just measure through imitation, like cures by likes.read · scan
- p. 415The tragedy ends in calm of mind, all passion spent, with peace and consolation.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 13Dramatic representation of the passions arouses them in the audience's hearts.read · scan
- p. 13–14Represented passions leave lasting impressions.read · scan
- p. 52Plays that rouse no fear are worthless; pleasure lies in the collision of contraries.read · scan
John Dryden, Dedication of the AeneisVol. 13
- p. 6Tragedy raises and calms the passions, expelling pride and introducing compassion, but only briefly.read · scan
- p. 6–9Tragedy works on violent passions like acute distempers needing strong, speedy remedies.read · scan
- p. 13Tragedy purges the passions all at once, while epic corrects manners by slow degrees.read · scan
- p. 41–42Tragedy's passions of fear, hope, compassion and horror differ from the admiration proper to epic.read · scan
John Dryden, All for Love; or, The World Well LostVol. 18
- p. 11–13Tragedy must arouse pity; divided compassion weakens it like a river cut into channels.read · scan
John Dryden, Preface to Fables, Ancient and ModernVol. 39
- p. 159–160A poet should raise pity at a death, as Virgil does for Dido, not tickle the reader to laugh.read · scan
Voltaire, Letters on the EnglishVol. 34
- p. 139–140Tragedy treats exalted passions and heroical follies.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Life of Addison, 1672-1719Vol. 27
- p. 184–185The play neither excites nor calms emotion; readers feel no care for its agents.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Preface to ShakespeareVol. 39
- p. 211Any passion, regular or exorbitant, causes happiness or calamity; stage lovers are given hyperbolical joy and sorrow.read · scan
- p. 219–220Terror and pity rising in the mind are checked by sudden frigidity of conceit.read · scan
- p. 226–227Cato's hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart.read · scan
Thomas Gray, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 455–456Shakespeare's golden keys open the gates of joy, horror, thrilling fears and sympathetic tears.read · scan
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Tragedy of Faust, Part IVol. 19
- p. 14A good play commands the audience's tears and laughter and lays bare their hearts.read · scan
Friedrich von Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of ManVol. 32
- p. 269–270Tragedy dealing with passion is perfect when it respects the soul's liberty amid storms of passion.read · scan
Charles Lamb, On the Tragedies of ShakspereVol. 27
- p. 302Stage popularity rests on coarse passion, fury talked into and out of; delicate love scenes are sullied by public exposure.read · scan
- p. 306Hamlet's soreness of mind and harshness to Polonius and Ophelia are exaggerated by actors into gross scorn for applause.read · scan
- p. 309Seeing a murder acted produces painful anxiety that destroys the sublime emotion of reading.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of PoetryVol. 27
- p. 339–340Pity, indignation, terror and sorrow strengthen the good affections through tragic sympathy.read · scan
Victor Hugo, Preface to CromwellVol. 39
- p. 369–370Tragedy for Shakespeare was a source of emotions of every sort, not a frame for description.read · scan
12c.Poetry, music and the expression of passion
See also: Language 6b · Poetry 7a
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Letters of CiceroVol. 9
- p. 101Fortunes of great men rouse wonder, suspense, joy, sorrow, hope, fear.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 146–147Augustine weeps among the hymns, sighing after God.read · scan
Stories from the Thousand and One NightsVol. 16
- p. 222–223The Khalifeh is overcome by ecstasy at the song; the lovers weep at parting.read · scan
The Story of the Volsungs and NiblungsVol. 49
- p. 251–252The work's close sympathy with all the passions that move modern readers is praised.read · scan
Sir Thomas More, UtopiaVol. 36
- p. 232Utopian music expresses natural affections so well that it moves and inflames hearers' minds.read · scan
Michel de Montaigne, Of BookesVol. 32
- p. 89–91Terence is praised for representing the motions and passions of the mind.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The TempestVol. 46
- p. 410–413Ferdinand weeps for his father's wreck; music allays both the waves' fury and his passion.read · scan
Thomas Campion, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 284–285Sorrow and pleasure in the lover's heart rise and fall with Corinna's singing.read · scan
Izaak Walton, The Life of Dr. John DonneVol. 15
- p. 351–352Music raises the affections of his heart, restoring joy and fear expressed in the hymn.read · scan
John Milton, Tractate on EducationVol. 3
- p. 244Harmonies calm distempered passions and make dispositions gentle.read · scan
John Dryden, Preface to Fables, Ancient and ModernVol. 39
- p. 160–162Strong passions are serious and admit no playing with words.read · scan
John Dryden, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 389–391Music raises and quells passion: instruments express anger, alarm, hopeless love, jealousy, fury, and holy love.read · scan
- p. 391–393Timotheus' music moves Alexander through pride, pity for Darius' fall, and tears as the passions shift.read · scan
- p. 393–395Music moves the king from pity to love to furious rage, swelling the soul to rage or kindling soft desire.read · scan
Samuel Johnson, Preface to ShakespeareVol. 39
- p. 212A confessor could predict the progress of the passions from his scenes.read · scan
David Hume, Of the Standard of TasteVol. 27
- p. 218Warm passions of youth favor tender images; age favors reflection on moderating the passions.read · scan
Thomas Gray, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 453–454Music soothes sullen cares and frantic passions; fury of Mars is curbed.read · scan
William Collins, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 475–477Fear, Anger and Despair each seize the lyre and express themselves in music.read · scan
- p. 477–478Hope, Revenge, Pity, Jealousy, Melancholy and Cheerfulness personified, each giving its passion its own musical tone.read · scan
- p. 478–480Joy's ecstatic trial, with Love and Mirth, ends the ode's parade of passions.read · scan
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulVol. 24
- p. 51Clear imagery is unnecessary for moving the passions; music does so without images, and clarity is an enemy to enthusiasm.read · scan
- p. 101An object affecting the passions works best when its properties all tend to one design.read · scan
- p. 129Words used on occasions of good or evil carry their impressions and affect the passions.read · scan
- p. 132–133Passions are affected by words that raise no ideas of the things they signify.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Prefaces to Various Volumes of PoemsVol. 39
- p. 267–268Readers should ask whether poems naturally delineate human passions, characters and incidents.read · scan
- p. 271Humble rustic life lets essential passions mature with less restraint and speak plainly.read · scan
- p. 272–273Poetry springs from powerful feelings, directed by thought, and in these poems feeling gives importance to action and situation.read · scan
- p. 276Passion naturally suggests dignified, figurative language; milder passions call for a subdued style.read · scan
- p. 278Poet imitates passions, identifying his feelings with those of persons described.read · scan
- p. 282Poet describes common human passions such as gratitude, hope, fear, sorrow, resentment and loss of friends.read · scan
- p. 282–284Metre is said to accompany passion without interfering, heightening the pleasure that co-exists with it.read · scan
- p. 285Regular metre restrains and tempers excited passion by mixing in ordinary feeling, keeping excitement within bounds.read · scan
- p. 286Emotion is contemplated until a kindred emotion arises; metre tempers the pain of deep passions.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Appendix to Lyrical BalladsVol. 39
- p. 292Early poets wrote from passion excited by real events; imitators lacked the passion.read · scan
- p. 296Violent expressions of passion are unjustified when applied to an occasion that does not warrant them.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Preface to Poems (1815)Vol. 39
- p. 297Sensibility widens the poet's perceptions and moves him to observe objects as reacted upon by his own mind.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Essay Supplementary to PrefaceVol. 39
- p. 319Shakespeare's sonnets express exquisite feelings felicitously in his own person.read · scan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, On Poesy or ArtVol. 27
- p. 255Poetry makes feelings objects of reflection and calms passion.read · scan
- p. 261–262Music recalls deep emotions of the past; human feeling exceeds its exciting cause.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of PoetryVol. 27
- p. 329Child and savage express delight and emotion in voice and motion, as a lyre answers the wind.read · scan
- p. 341Sentiment and passion without imagination are only caprice and appetite.read · scan
- p. 351–352Sorrow, terror, anguish approximate the highest good; melancholy inseparable from sweet melody.read · scan
Thomas Carlyle, Sir Walter ScottVol. 25
- p. 422Scott's romances presented human emotions conceived and sympathised with, loves and hates of men and women.read · scan
- p. 425Byronism expressed passion incapable of being turned into action, in an indolent unbelieving age.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English TraitsVol. 5
- p. 325–326Wordsworth prizes poems that touch the affections as lasting, unlike didactic theories of society that perish.read · scan
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, What Is a Classic?Vol. 32
- p. 125Genius is diversely creative in expressing the passions of drama and epic, unlike reason.read · scan
Hans Christian Andersen, TalesVol. 17
- p. 304–305The Emperor's tears show that song reaches the heart.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 15–16Campbell's poems gave him new sensations and pathos.read · scan
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1326–1328Music stirs old memories and irrepressible sadness; her heart heavy with indefinable longings.read · scan
Edgar Allan Poe, The Poetic PrincipleVol. 28
- p. 391Passion tends to degrade rather than elevate the soul.read · scan
Edgar Allan Poe, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1233–1234Wedding bells foretell rapture, alarm bells shriek terror and despair; sound conveys shifting passions.read · scan
- p. 1234–1236Iron bells' tolling evokes solemn dread, melancholy and affright; ghouls exult in human sorrow.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the MastVol. 23
- p. 263–264The old salt's absurdly bellowed sentimental song about regret and love amuses Dana for its ludicrous execution and the sailors' satisfaction.read · scan
Matthew Arnold, The Study of PoetryVol. 28
- p. 87–89Burns's overwhelming sense of pathos, in human and non-human nature, is prized in his verse.read · scan
Hippolyte Taine, Introduction to the History of English LiteratureVol. 39
- p. 433–436Literature's special office is noting sentiments; the more important the sentiments, the higher its rank.read · scan
12d.The cultivation and suppression of feeling
Sir Thomas Browne, Religio MediciVol. 3
- p. 254–255He weeps at a solemn procession while companions, blinded by prejudice, laugh in scorn.read · scan
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulVol. 24
- p. 139–140Uncultivated people admire more and express themselves passionately; affection works without any idea of its cause.read · scan
Robert Burns, Poems and SongsVol. 6
- p. 198–200Speaker keenly feels pleasures, loves and ingratitude that the hermit can despiseread · scan
- p. 246–248Pleads for sensibility and a warm heart against propriety's cold rules and harsh rebuke.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Essay Supplementary to PrefaceVol. 39
- p. 313As the mind grows serious its passions contract and sympathies become exclusive, so love converts to dislike of the author.read · scan
Thomas Carlyle, CharacteristicsVol. 25
- p. 326–327Sentimentality reigns when the generous affections are paralytic; high feeling is preached but barren.read · scan
- p. 335–336Society's self-consciousness is diagnosed as a symptom and attempt at cure, its aches and complaints understandable.read · scan
John Henry Newman, The Idea of a UniversityVol. 28
- p. 48Only the dull or uneducated can resist the strong emotions the place inspires.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English TraitsVol. 5
- p. 368The Englishman is never betrayed into curiosity or unbecoming emotion.read · scan
- p. 379English reputed morose; Emerson finds them staid, finding joys at home, with gloom and cheerfulness compared to other peoples.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 34He despised passionate emotions as madness and thought feelings not proper subjects of praise or blame.read · scan
- p. 34–37Englishmen are ashamed of showing feeling, starving the feelings themselves.read · scan
- p. 40Habitual exercise of feelings cultivates understanding; English suppression leaves feelings and faculties undeveloped.read · scan
- p. 71Father and the Benthamites undervalued feeling as justification of conduct; Mill was a reasoning machine lacking cultivation of feeling.read · scan
- p. 71–72Cultivation of feeling was neglected in favor of altering opinions; utility was attacked as cold calculation.read · scan
- p. 91–92Mill argues the feelings and passive susceptibilities must be cultivated alongside analytic powers, keeping a balance among the faculties.read · scan
- p. 94Cultivating feelings proved compatible with the habit of analysis.read · scan
- p. 94–95Roebuck wished feelings deadened; Mill valued cultivating the sympathies, and English character discounts them.read · scan
- p. 95–97Mill defends the sympathies as constituents of happiness against English suspicion of feeling.read · scan
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1322Priest says feeling is deep and still, the surface word a buoy betraying the hidden anchor.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the MastVol. 23
- p. 34–35Sailors must meet mishaps with jokes and never show disturbance, even after a near-fatal fall.read · scan
- p. 248Seafaring manliness suppresses feeling; natural feeling for home is mocked, the sick neglected, and pity thought unbecoming.read · scan
John Ruskin, Sesame and LiliesVol. 28
- p. 112–113Ruskin argues we need more sensation and passion; feeling more is what ennobles one man or animal above another.read · scan
- p. 113Vulgarity is want of sensation; true passion must be disciplined and tested, and noble feeling differs from mean wonder or curiosity.read · scan
- p. 122–123Accuses the nation of despising compassion while indulging sensation in its faith.read · scan
- p. 125Having no true emotion, we crave false ones from novel, stage and police court instead of real compassion and grief.read · scan
Matthew Arnold, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1136–1138Others teach daring and endurance, but Wordsworth alone makes men feel, loosing hearts in tears.read · scan
Ernest Renan, The Poetry of the Celtic RacesVol. 32
- p. 141–142Celtic sadness and delicacy of feeling: joy ends in elegy, deep feeling is reserved and unexpressed.read · scan
Robert Louis Stevenson, Truth of IntercourseVol. 28
- p. 282Feeling is the law that must not be garbled; unmanly shame withholds betrayal of emotion.read · scan
‹ 11 · Outline