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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.

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1. The Need for a Language for the Passions 2. Life´s Progress through the Passions 3. "Give me a speaking and a writing Love": Passionate Letters 4. The Miscellany´s Picture Poems and Haywood´s Poems on Several Occasions 5. The Plain Dealer´s Progress from the Garrison to the Midwife 6. The Dangers of Giving Way to Language Conclusion: Hill´s, Fowke´s, and Haywood´s Progress through the Passions

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"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

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Earla Wilputte is Professor of English at Saint Francis Xavier University, Canada.

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