REAL - Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature, Volume 16 (2000)

The discourses of emotions are now widely studied as central to the ways societies construct their attitudes to the relationships between nature and nurture, physiology and psychology, body and mind. In this situation, it is of particular interest to explore the limits of these ambivalent discourses across a variety of genres and historical settings, as well as from various disciplinary perspectives. the different approaches to what is considere transgressive emotional behaviour, and its representations, is reflected by the wide range of articles. Discussions of sexual excess in the contemporary gay Cuban novel, of football hooliganism in Britain, of male anger management in North America, of expression and control of the feelings in 18th and 19th century discourses, of the staging of the passions in early modern mystical texts, or of their place in today´s philosophical debates can all be found in the present volume.