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21 | printemps 2022
La douleur de l’autre

XVIe-XVIIe siècles
The pain of the other. 16th-17th centuries
El dolor del otro. Siglos XVI y XVII
Edited by Raphaële Andrault and Ariane Bayle
La douleur de l’autre
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16 x 24 cm - 234 p.
ISBN 978-2-8107-1218-2
Français English

Empathy, a central notion in the medical humanities today, has no exact equivalent in the 16th and 17th centuries. Related notions, such as pity and compassion, are used to designate the feelings aroused by the pain of others. From an interdisciplinary perspective, the articles in this dossier focus on reactions to physical pain in various bodies of work: practical medicine, theoretical elaborations or writings from the private sphere. What they have in common is that they adopt a method of investigation based on the analysis of lexicon and enunciative choices. The 'other' in this dossier is a patient treated by a doctor, a foreigner observed by a traveller, the representative of a social otherness or a natural otherness such as children or animals. The survey highlights the way in which the subjects emancipate themselves from the behavioural norms supposedly characteristic of the period. It also contributes to shifting the chronological reference points in the history of sensibilities which, for pain, usually begins in the 18th century.

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