Emotion in the Tudor Court

"Irish has produced a fascinating and eloquent book on a topic of enduring interest to early modern scholars." 
—Peter C. Herman, author of A Short History of Early Modern England: British Literature in Context

"Emotion in the Tudor Court rereads the intensely social literature of the Tudor court via up-to-date scientific and social-scientific research on emotion.  In doing so, it moves beyond the Historicist project of defamiliarizing the past without ever lapsing into scientistic reductionism.  Irish's smart, engaging book is at once a carefully researched study of Tudor literature and an innovative methodological blueprint for future socio-cultural histories of emotion." —Curtis Perry, author of Literature and Favoritism in Early Modern England

"In Emotion in the Tudor Court, Brad Irish adds powerfully to our understanding of the prevailing emotion scripts in that competitive, strife-filled court environment, examining the disgust, envy, rejection, and dread that motivated charismatic key players such as Wolsey, Surrey, Sidney, Leicester, and Essex. Literary scholars and Tudor historians alike will be surprised and enlightened by what they read here, finding they have much to learn about the nature of political emotions and the affective world of the Tudor court."  —Gail Kern Paster, author of Humoring the Body: Emotions and the
Shakespearean Stage

"Going beyond recent trends in cognitive and cultural literary study, Irish’s rigorous and illuminating book integrates detailed historical scholarship about the Tudor court with current research in affective science. The result is a compelling and nuanced analysis with consequences for literary and cultural study not confined to Early Modern England." —Patrick Colm Hogan, author of What Literature Teaches Us About Emotion

"Emotion in the Tudor Court has an exciting interdisciplinary premise, which is to bring up-to-date research from the cognitive sciences to bear on the study of emotions in Tudor England. In so doing, Irish is self-consciously making a radical departure from the methods and assumptions of the historicist paradigm that has been so dominant in our discipline since 1980 . . . exceptionally well researched . . ." —Neema Parvini, Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture