...Lindsey Larre The many disguises of Edgar in King Lear have led critics to dub the chameleonic figure a choreographer of human compassion in a play that holds compassion as a vital dramaturgical principle. This essay argues that Edgar's performances of suffering and his choreographies of deception...

... the extent or, importantly, the causes of ecological catastrophe. Its forms suggest that creation's compassion for Christ's suffering actually results in violent self-destruction—a suggestion that troubles twenty-first-century narratives of ecological catastrophe and human responsibility. Although the motif...

...—most famously Susan Sontag—have commented on the problems inherent in trying to write about suffering and on the limitations of metaphorical language. At the same time, many writers (both premodern and modern) have seen opportunities in the richness, polysemy, and (sometimes) novelty of medical...

..., which held that all animal and plant life will perish after the Last Judgment and not be part of the promised “new heaven and new earth,” Bradford argues that creation in its entirety—not just humanity—will joyously be freed from the suffering it has endured since the Fall. © 2015 by Duke University...

... century via two of its earliest theorists, Nicholas Love and Margery Kempe, and it shows how compassion functioned as a keyword, registering a series of challenges and confusions in its meaning that represented a cultural change—including increased focus on the humanity of Christ—which demanded new...

... less than the fact that these were all afflictions involving humoral flow, and that these afflictions accounted, together, for the greater part of human suffering. And in any case, most rheumatisms were in fact catarrhs; most harmful fluxes did flow down from the brain. Catarrhs thus...

... Hadewijch calls relaxed, extended, inclined, or protracted (“neyghede”) time, like an Augus- tinian distentio, that is, as the distention of the soul. The time of creation, for Hadewijch, yearns in the measure of what it lacks; thus humanity suffers, but does so productively. Finally...

.... Is that all? Our responses to these tales have to begin with the simple fact that they record episodes of human suffering. What makes it possible to respond to that suffering with laughter? What would it take to tip these tales over into tragedy? Many early modern writers would answer this question...

... them, the rules that govern the game of theater itself come to attention in a way that bears implications for the availability of playing as a means to inquire into human suffering. The action begins with the image of two men who appear to be playing different scenes: one man pretends...

... as Wilson writes, “Christ Jesus beeing the trueth and substance, who in the offering of himselfe once upon the crosse, hath fully apeased Gods wrath.”10 The term that had been used to describe an action that humans perform on behalf of God now designates an act of divine suffering performed on behalf...

... suffering casts its net widely across the spectrum of human experience, with mortal ends available to all ranks of early medieval society. One needn't live by the sword or spear in order to die by one; wolves prey upon the weak and vulnerable; death by drunken brawl requires only two people and an excess...

... the Father inflicted on his Son “the weight of divine vengeance” by subjecting him to “the powers of hell and horrors of eternal death.” Made to suffer “the death which was inflicted on the wicked by an angry God,” the Son paid the price required by the Father to deliver humans from damnation (II.16.10...

... in the visibility of the human turns out to resonate quite directly with medieval theories of Christian suffering. Essential to the conception of Christ s passion that developed from the early twelfth century onwards is the nature and extremity of his suffering and experience of dying.42 This hypersensitivity...

..., in which Julian reaffirms her commitment to Jesus in his suffering humanity by choosing not to look away from the crucifix. Saturated with awkwardly paired images, the revelation is especially enlightening because it shows how such discord supports union. The revelation begins with a strikingly...

... has no eye for human suffering. In Acts, Paul is described as being blinded by Christ; the new sight he receives signifies his conversion. Sight is important in a slightly different way to medieval treatments of the Penitential Psalms, which dramatize per- sonal conversion with tropes...

... herself from Cecca in the process. Insulted and misunderstood by humans, especially those closest to her, Catherine bore all these sufferings “victoriously by her courageous and ever-­vigilant patience” (par. 415), eventually winning the three women’s conversions, one by one. Demons also...

... of affective devotion nor in identification with the human suffering of Christ — but the celebration of the triumph over death of Christ Panto- crator. There is suspense in it, enormous power and sublimity, but no sad- ness. The debates between Lucifer and Satan before the harrowing of hell, their mutual...

... display of mas- terful dominance could exist than to displace Christ himself as an exemplar of Christian suffering? But the conditions under which this displacement emerges suggest that this is less an example of Donne’s brilliant mastery than of his fumbling humanity. After all, we arrive...

... inadvertently provides a means to reconcile them. Knowledge of “oure wrechednes”—of the sin and suffering caused by the devil—can draw humans closer to the divine. In the third remedy, Julian highlights the union between humankind and the divine that emerges from sin and suffering. “This place is prison...

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