Defining self and subjectivity
As a term, “self” refers to the inward perception of a person's individual character. It is a term that relates to how we see our own personality and our actions; it guides our interaction with other individuals and those institutions of which our society is comprised. As Stephen Greenblatt notes:
…there are always selves – a sense of personal order, a characteristic mode of address to the world, a structure of bounded desires – and always some element of deliberate shaping in the formation and expression of identity. (Stephen Greenblatt. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1980, 1)
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Citation: Cummings, Raymond. "The Self and Subjectivity in The Middle Ages". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 November 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1749, accessed 23 November 2024.]
