Stemming the torrent

"In this new study, Gesa Stedman mines the vein of emotion in Victorian writing to unearth new insights into the ways literature responded to the dramatic social and political changes then taking place." "Through an examination of the history of key Victorian emotion words, the major topics that dominate the discourses on emotions in this era, and the central fictional and non-fictional 'paradigm scenarios' which constitute these discourses, Stedman shows how slowly written representatives of the 'passions' change in the 19th century. She argues that in texts about feelings, Victorian authors…