Table Of ContentThe Interpersonal Idiom in Shakespeare, Donne,
and Early Modern Culture
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The Interpersonal Idiom in
Shakespeare, Donne, and
Early Modern Culture
Nancy Selleck
© Nancy Selleck 2008
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-1-4039-9906-1
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this
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may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
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work in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2008 by
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Selleck,Nancy Gail,1956–
The interpersonal idiom in Shakespeare,Donne,and early modern
culture / Nancy Selleck.
p.cm.
Includes index.
1. Donne,John,1572–1631—Criticism and interpretation.2. Shakespeare,
William,1564–1616—Criticism and interpretation.3. English
literature—Early modern,1500–1700—History and criticism.
4. Identity (Psychology) in literature.5. Self in literature.
6. Drama—Psychological aspects.I. Title.
PR2248.S34 2008
821'.3—dc21 2008000192
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08
For Jörg
and in memory of my mother
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Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction: Other Selves 1
1 Properties of a ‘Self’: Words and Things, 1580–1690 21
2 Persons in Play: Donne’s Body and the Humoral Actor 56
3 Material Others: Shakespeare’s Mirrors and Other Perspectives 89
4 ‘Womans Constancy’: The Poetics of Consummation 123
Epilogue: Subjects, Objects, and Contemporary Theory 162
Notes 168
Index 208
vii
Acknowledgments
My work on this book has been inspired and sustained by many friends,
mentors, and colleagues. At Princeton, Victoria Kahn encouraged and
supported its beginnings as a dissertation, provided rigorous and inci-
sive guidance, and became a model for me of generous intellectual
engagement. Her enthusiasm and support have shaped the book’s
development and mine. Michael Goldman was likewise a brilliant and
careful mentor and a great example, and I am very grateful to have had
the chance to work with him. Lawrence Danson was an invaluable
reader and guide on this project as well, and his support also meant a
great deal to me. The tremendously engaging intellectual community I
found at Princeton was a real boon, and it was epitomized for me by
Oliver Arnold and Vance Smith, whose generous insights, conversation,
and advice clarified and expanded my thinking early on. A Mellon dis-
sertation fellowship at Princeton’s interdisciplinary Center for Human
Values was also a rich source of inspiration and insight, and I thank
Amy Gutman and the many scholars who shared their work and com-
mented on mine over the course of that year. In its early stages, this
work also benefited from a Folger Institute seminar with Gail Kern
Paster, and I am grateful to Gail and to the seminar members and guests
for those formative discussions.
More recently, I am deeply indebted to Jonathan Gil Harris for his
thorough and incisive reading of the full manuscript, and to Pamela
Brown for her repeated readings and encouragement in the process of
developing and revising the book. I thank Pam also for starting the
delightful and challenging writing group whose commentary, friend-
ship, and examples have meant so much to me during the process of
revision – Bianca Calabresi, Julie Crawford, Natasha Korda, Tanya
Pollard, Rachel Poulsen, Cristine Varholy, and our dearly missed Sasha
Roberts. I owe much as well to other generous scholars who have read
and listened and offered their thoughts on this work over the years,
including Diana Fuss, Martin Harries, Ron Levao, Christina Malcolmson,
Doug Mao, Nick Moschovakis, Anne Prescott, David Sedley, Julie Robin
Solomon, and Ramie Targoff. For their friendship and always lively
interest and conversation I also want to thank Hyungji Park, Julia Lee,
Pat Crain, Ann Gaylin, Jonathan Marks, and Irving Kriesberg. My won-
derful colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Lowell continue to
viii
Acknowledgments ix
provide an exciting and nurturing working environment, and I am espe-
cially grateful to Mary Kramer, Marlowe Miller, Melissa Pennell, Bill
Roberts, and Tony Szczesiul for their thoughtful guidance, support, and
friendship. My students too have been a constant source of inspiration and
insight, particularly Jenah Blitz, Nick Colella, Jim Hurley, Ryan Kernan,
John Kneeland, and Dhvani Kortua.
To some I owe more than I can say. My friends Suzanne Churchill and
Lisa Sternlieb have shared the whole journey of this book, valued it
beyond its deserving, edited, collaborated, cajoled, and always inspired
with the example of their own work. I thank my whole family too for
their strong support and love, especially my late mother for all that she
knew and gave, and for her example as a teacher. My greatest debt is to
my husband Jörg, whose love and humor have held me up, whose wis-
dom has challenged and enhanced my thinking and this book, and
whom ‘I throughly love.’
