Victorian Feeling and the Victorian Novel

This article examines the recent explosion of interest in the emotions in the context of the Victorian novel. It focuses specifically on work published since the “theoretical turn” of the 1970s, describing how recent feminist critics have expanded the range of texts we examine and questioned the value we grant or refuse to sentimental literature, how Foucauldian critics have called attention to the historicity of the emotions, and how post-Althusserian critics have redefined literature as an Ideological State Apparatus. The result has been a renewed interest in – as well as a new skepticism about – emotional responses to literary texts.