Remorse and the drama of community in early modern England

In this dissertation, I argue that early modern drama addresses an epistemological problematics of remorse that the contemporary religious and moral literature could not accommodate. By “epistemological problematics,” I refer to the dilemmas of sincerity and trust that were unique to remorse as expressed between human individuals with limited knowledge, as opposed to the religious remorse offered to the omniscient Christian God. Unlike theological writing and moral philosophy, early modern drama has the imaginative resources to explore the tension between two seemingly incompatible truths about the experience and expression of remorse. On one hand, remorse is understood as a pragmatic social ritual, a necessary fiction that operates regardless of inward experience to enable community cohesion against the inevitable conflicts of a flawed and difficult world. On the other hand, expressions of remorse are unsettling because they invite speculation about inward experience, reminding readers and audiences of how fragile ideas like truth and sincerity can be outside the space of the individual, solipsistic mind. The plays I examine find ways of posing the question, “What can be done about the fact that it’s impossible to know for certain whether someone is truly sorry?” Rather than coalescing into a unified theory of secular remorse, they exemplify the eclecticism with which moral ideas must be approached among communities of limited, flawed individuals. These plays question the value of remorse without the reward of Christian salvation; they flirt with the possibility of removing remorse altogether; they treat shows of remorse as contingent and motivated as well as innate and virtuous. In these human, worldly, secular moral universes, we can see the outlines of a moral archive that is far more controversial and innovative than the doctrine of the period would have us believe.