Happiness: Early Modernity and Shakespearean Comedy

This thesis investigates attitudes to happiness in the early modern period and literary representations of positive emotion. It is situated methodologically at the nexus of a number of interconnected approaches. Against a background of body studies and Freudian psychology, it engages with current research in the history of the emotions and work being done in the field of positive psychology. The insights provided by positive psychology into the power of positive emotions, such as optimism, resilience and emotional intelligence, open up a way to access the originality of Shakespeare’s understanding of the emotions and their power in people’s lives. An interdisciplinary approach provides a methodology that can incorporate analysis of imaginative and non-fiction texts with research into the historical, cultural, religious and political influences that shaped how people might have thought and felt about happiness. It considers the extent to which people could be happy in the context of religious beliefs that emphasised the fallen nature of man. As a result of increasing political absolutism and the failure of political theory to provide for societal or personal happiness, people engaged in a process of myth making. They imagined utopian societies, and they imposed their beliefs in the possibility of discovering a lost paradise on the new worlds they discovered in the Americas. More realistically, they accommodated themselves to the conditions of their lives by searching for happiness through forming meaningful personal relationships. Ethical theories about happiness formulated by Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics were influential, but came into conflict with theology, especially Augustine’s emphasis on original sin. Aquinas attempted to reconcile philosophy with theology, offering hope that a limited form of happiness might be found in this life. Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas were formative influences on the ways in which Shakespeare dramatizes the search for happiness in his comedies, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It and Twelfth Night. He reflects the influence of Aristotle in his representation and evaluation of different types of happiness in the comedies. He also creates fallen political and religious worlds in which his characters must grapple with adversity. Aristotle believed that happiness was dependent on living in a benign political state. Living in fallen worlds, some of Shakespeare’s characters demonstrate an aspect of happiness that Aristotle did not address, that it is a condition that can be achieved through adversity