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The Augustinian Ascent

This chapter explores different pre-modern models of emotion. It surveys the sweep of pre-modern Western music, from chant to Monteverdi, in terms of four “flavors” of emotion: the Augustinian ascent, the Thomist descent, Neoplatonism, and Epicurianism. Augustine’s philosophy of love, epitomized by affection, resonated with the surges of chant. Aquinas’s relational model of emotion, based on reciprocity, chimes with “contrapuntal” models of emotion. Neoplatonism, exemplified by Ficino’s theories, resonated with the pneumatic flow of emotion through the cosmos. Petrarchan Epicurianism is reflected in the atomism of emotion, from madrigals to early opera. All told, the history of premodern emotion illuminates the changing musical styles from Hildegard, Machaut, Dufay, Ockeghem, Josquin, and Willaert, to Monteverdi.