The Virtue of Sympathy

“[A]n erudite and insightful volume that . . . demonstrates how closely intertwined were natural and moral conceptions of sympathy during the seventeenth and indeed far into the nineteenth century.”—Anne-Julia Zwierlein, Milton Quarterly


“Rich in close attention to text, the book is in many ways a browser’s paradise, replete with minute observations, luxuriant quotations, and revelatory anecdotes.”—Sarah Hutton, Renaissance Quarterly


“Fascinating. . . . [Lobis] challenge[s] the lingering contention that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw a univocal transition from the communal and sensual to the private and rational.”—Katherine Eggert, Studies in English Literature 1500–1900

“Lobis offers a wide-ranging intellectual and literary history of sympathy in seventeenth-century England, demonstrating how it becomes a key subject of philosophical debate and literary representation.  His discussion of the sources and complexities of sympathy brings an important new lens to bear on major literary authors such as John Milton and Margaret Cavendish, with equally insightful readings of such later authors as James Thomson, Mary Shelley, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.”—Laura Knoppers, University of Notre Dame