Passion and language in eighteenth-century literature : the aesthetic sublime in the work ... of eliza haywood, aaron hill, and martha fowke

Writing seems like a very solitary job, but there are so many people who have helped and supported me in the making of this book. My thanks to Brigitte Shull and Ryan Jenkins at Palgrave Macmillan for encouraging this project and patiently assisting me along the way. I am also greatly appreciative of several grants from the St. Francis Xavier University Council for Research that facilitated my work. I am deeply grateful to the many scholars, colleagues, and friends who, over the years, have answered questions (and asked them), invited me to give talks, listened over coffee, shared databases and articles, critiqued, read, and made suggestions: "Wilputte deepens our understanding of three figures who are receiving increasing attention in eighteenth-century literary and cultural studies; fills in missing details in the story of the rise of sensibility by analyzing instances of sociable feeling from the first half of the century; and uncovers subtleties of figurative language in often overlooked texts by Haywood, Hill, and Fowke. This book is likely to find a readership among academics with an interest in eighteenth-century literature and culture as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students who wish to explore the uses of affect-rich rhetoric across many genres. There is much insight to be gained from the close readings of the under-explored works selected from discussion."--Kathryn R. King, Professor of English, University of Montevallo, USA "Addressing the life and writing of a fractious coterie - Eliza Haywood, Martha Fowke, and Aaron Hill - Passion and Language in Eighteenth-Century Literature illuminates the sophisticated linguistic practices of this group as they seek to understand the psychology of the passions (including their own) and to craft the Longinian or 'aesthetic sublime.' From Wilputte's deft readings of the poetry, prose, and novels of these three writers emerges an important work of cultural history - rich in material for scholars investigating the early history of sensibility, sympathy and the sympathetic reader, generic experiments in psychological realism, and the physiology of the body stimulated by passion." - Juliette Merritt, Professor of English, McMaster University, Canada Providing imaginatively contextualized close readings, this study focuses on three key eighteenth-century writers - Haywood, Hill and Fowke. Wilputte traces the development of the passionate language of these writers whose lives, writing careers, and interests intersected from 1720 to 1724 in the "Hillarian" coterie. 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 Front Matter....Pages i-ix The Need for a Language for the Passions....Pages 1-28 Life’s Progress through the Passions....Pages 29-50 “Give Me a Speaking and a Writing Love”....Pages 51-81 The Miscellany’s Picture Poems and Haywood’s Poems on Several Occasions ....Pages 83-113 The Plain Dealer’s Progress from the Garrison to the Midwife....Pages 115-146 The Dangers of Giving Way to Language....Pages 147-186 Conclusion: Hill’s, Fowke’s, and Haywood’s Progress through the Passions....Pages 187-195 Back Matter....Pages 197-240