"WE CONFOUND KNOWLEDGE WITH KNOWLEDGE": POSTHUMANISM AND SENSORY ENCOUNTER IN JOHN WEBSTER'S THE WHITE DEVIL

In a number of scenes in John Webster'sThe White Devil, characters fail to encounter events with their eyes, ears, and tongues; these moments of failed sensory encounter stand in contrast to early modern anatomists' claims that unencumbered, personal human sensory encounter leads to a satisfying knowledge of the universe. This essay argues that the anxieties of sensory encounter exposed in the play are strikingly posthumanist: the play acknowledges that the senses often operate at a distance rather than bridge distances, critiques the ideas that sensory knowledge and consciousness are central to human experience, and even suggests that sensory encounter can sometimes be radically nonpersonalizable. In rehearsing a posthumanist reading, this essay also addresses some of the challenges inherent in posthumanist readings of early modern drama, namely that "reading" suggests a conscious, interpretive, and human engagement with a text.