📘 L’expression des émotions — II : Ressentir et être

Experiencing intense feelings — love, existential despair, inspired creativity — can challenge or redefine who we are. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (love and identity), Brontë’s Jane Eyre (love and equality), Hamlet and Macbeth (existential monologues), Ishiguro’s Stevens (suppressing emotions), and abstract expressionism (Mitchell, Rothko) all illustrate how feeling shapes being.

📐 A — Declarations of love

Romeo and Juliet (Act II, scene 2): Juliet’s “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” Names are social constructs, not identity → love enables self-emancipation: “Doff thy name; / And for thy name, which is no part of thee, / Take all myself.” Romeo agrees to “be newly baptized” by Juliet’s love.

Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë, 1847): “Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings?” → a statement of identity and a plea for equality first, a declaration of love second. “I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you.” Jane asserts her equality regardless of social background.

📐 B — Existential monologues

Hamlet’s “To be or not to be”: “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles.” Questions whether life is worth living given its many sufferings. “Conscience does make cowards of us all.” Invites introspection and emancipation from political/religious injunctions.

Macbeth’s “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” (Act 5, scene 5): after Lady Macbeth’s death, Macbeth realises life is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” He committed murders for someone who is now dead → life is meaningless. Makes Macbeth unexpectedly humane and tragic.

📐 C — Suppressing feelings & being inspired

Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day (1993): Stevens the butler defines himself solely through his professional duty → suppresses all feelings, including love for Sarah Kenton. “What is the point worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done?” — reason as protection against negative excesses. Contrasts with Hamlet’s introspection.

Abstract expressionism: Joan Mitchell: “I’m trying for something more specific… To define a feeling” — paintings as attempts to express what words can’t describe. Mark Rothko: saturated colourful layers ascribing one shade to one emotion. Inspired by Monet’s late water lilies.

💡 Key takeaway

Intense feelings redefine identity: love (Romeo and Juliet, Jane Eyre), existential despair (Hamlet, Macbeth) and inspiration (abstract expressionists). Stevens shows that suppressing emotions has a cost: repression leads to regret. Art gives these feelings a universal language.