Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England

by Michael MacDonald, Terence R. Murphy

Suicide was regarded as a deplorable act, subject to savage punishments, in Tudor and Stuart England. In Georgian England it was de-criminalized, tolerated, and even sentimentalized. Drawing on a wide variety of contemporary sources, Sleepless Souls traces the causes of this dramatic shift in attitude. Michael MacDonald and Terence R. Murphy relate changes in opinion and practice to the complex framework of life in early modern England--including political events, religious changes, philosophical fashions, and differing class interests. Their analysis uncovers the forces that were reshaping the mental outlook of different English classes and social groups, and consequently provides an invaluable social and cultural history of English society over three centuries.

Genres: Psychology, History

Hardcover

First published November 29, 1990

Reviews

[Wynne Belk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful analysis of the changing opinions and attitudes on suicide in England. It takes you right through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, where suicide was frowned upon as a reprehensible moral failing, and then on into the Enlightenment and Romantic Period where such writers as David Hume and Goethe questioned the traditional religious stance on suicide. According to Hume, suicide is permissible because it does no harm to society. I can't help but see in the changing tide of opinion (which was also a reaction against the religious enthusiasm that had precipitated the revolutions of the 17th C.) a strong individualist strain which partly explains our own modern understanding of our lives as deservedly free from all tyrannical obligation and restraint, posing a grim contrast to the Middle Ages where every individual action was understood to affect the entire community, hence the understanding of an individual's sin as a polluting agent. Whereas now, we understand our lives to be isolated monadic segments, freed from all obligatory ties and denying the intrinsic relational aspect of life.

Other trends emerging in this era is the rise of science as an explanation for suicide (suicide due to insanity rather than sin). However, the rise of this scientific understanding of the suicide act should be seen as a distinct phenomenon compared to the emerging philosophical view, which understands suicide as the ultimate rational act.