Writing Early Modern Loneliness

This interdisciplinary collection of twelve essays is the first to redefine historical conceptions of ‘loneliness’ in the Western world by exploring its manifestation in early modern textual sources. Contrary to current scholarly consensus that loneliness in Britain was understood as an emotion from the late eighteenth century, only beginning to emerge in its literary form in the writings of the Romantic poets, the contributors in this volume argue that early modern people were capable of complex and conflicting feelings of social and emotional isolation which were expressed in a wide range of writings. Moreover, in a world ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, these products of loneliness continue to resonate poignantly with humanity today. Hannah Yip is a UK Research Assistant for ‘GEMMS – Gateway to Early Modern Manuscript Sermons’ (SSHRC / University of Saskatchewan). Since completing her AHRC-funded PhD on the visual elements of early modern English sermons at the University of Birmingham in December 2020, Hannah has been awarded several Postdoctoral Fellowships from a number of libraries and societies, including the Henry E. Huntington Library and the Association for Art History. She is currently working on her first monograph, The Printed Sermon in Early Modern England: Materiality, Iconography, and Reformation. Her wide-ranging interests include changing terminologies relating to religious culture in the early modern era; her article, ‘What was a Homily in Post-Reformation England?’, is published in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History and was awarded the 2020 Michael K. O’Rourke Best Publication Award (University of Birmingham). With Thomas Clifton, she has published in The Lancet Psychiatry. She has also been credited as a consultant on the BBC’s highly acclaimed series, A House Through Time (Series 3, 2020). Thomas Clifton is completing his AHRC-funded PhD thesis, ‘Textual Practices and the English Meditative Tradition, 1660–1678’, at the University of Birmingham, UK. With Hannah Yip, he has published in The Lancet Psychiatry. He has substantial administrative experience as the Secretary of the Rainbow Network, the LGBTQ+ Employee Network at the University of Birmingham, and as a Research Assistant for Birmingham’s Centre for Literary Editing and the Materiality of the Text (CLEMT). While his primary research interests are centred on the work of Thomas Traherne and his contemporaries, he also has interests in re-creative approaches to study, and in applying early modern literary forms to modern therapeutic settings.