Cultivating the Heart: Feeling and Emotion in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Religious Texts

A. S. Lazikani's Cultivating the Heart: Feeling and Emotion in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Religious Texts is the first book-length study of emotion in high medieval English literature. Lazikani's book examines the affective language of the Lambeth and Trinity Homilies (London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 487 and Cambridge, Trinity College, MS 335 [B. 14. 52]), selected saints' lives from the pre-1300 version of the South English Legendaries (SEL; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Miscellany 108), Ancrene Wisse, Wooing Group, and Passion lyrics. In her introduction, Lazikani notes the inherent difficulty of studying emotion in English texts of this period since “there are no ready made categories of feeling available” (12). A fascinating table on page 20 identifies equivalent terms for emotions in Middle English, Anglo-Norman, and Latin texts, along with Modern English translations for these words. Lazikani argues, “Feeling is inexpressible yet also shaped by the language...