"These savage beasts become domestick"

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This book examines the perception of passions in early modern English non-fiction, focusing on rhetorical textbooks and treatises. It reveals a growing awareness in sixteenth-century rhetoric of passions as both literary tools and real-world phenomena (Chapter 1). By the seventeenth century, passions began to be studied independently of rhetoric. The analysis includes works by Thomas Wright (Chapter 2), Benet of Canfield (Chapter 3), Jean F. Senault (Chapter 4), Edward Reynolds (Chapter 5), and Walter Charleton (Chapter 6), highlighting various characteristics of early modern discourse on passions. Despite acknowledging the complexities of human nature—captured in Hamlet's description of humanity as both "beauty of the world" and "quintessence of dust"—the authors demonstrate a willingness to find value in passions. Additionally, the exploration of faith and reason provides insight into this perspective, suggesting that one particular passion, amor Dei, is central to "emotional intelligence." The desire to understand passions is intricately linked to the quest for self-knowledge. The book argues that these treatises serve as rhetorics of inwardness and platforms for self-exploration, emphasizing the relationship between the texts and individual introspection.