Passion and Language in Eighteenth-Century Literature

Eighteenth-century writers struggled to find a language to accommodate new and emerging understandings of the role of the emotions in an increasingly secular world. The 'aesthetic sublime' offered a figurative language through which to explore authors' inner lives, sociable interconnections, and psychosexual entanglements. This study traces the development of the passionate language of Haywood, Hill, and Fowke whose lives, writing careers, and interests intersected from 1720 to 1724 in the 'Hillarian' coterie, through imaginatively contextualized close readings of their works.