Early Modern Cognition and In-spired Energeia: Philosophy, Theology and Medicine on the Continent

At HAB, I am examining the rich collection of philosophical, theological, and medical holdings that pertain to the early modern idea of energeia, especially as it pertains to continental medical texts and ideas of enactive embodiment that informed Elizabethan poetics and literary practice. I focus on early modern medical and theological texts, whose continental perspectives filtered into England as diplomats and young Englishmen, notably Philip Sidney, completed prolonged tours under the direction of mentors such as Hubert Languet. On the continent they encountered a broad spectrum of integrated intellectual activity, especially as regards Sidney’s poetics in the tradition and spirit of Melanchthon and his followers. My research at HAB will contribute to several chapters of a book project that is tentatively titled Energeia: Enaction and Embodied Energy in Early Modern Culture and English Literary Poetics.