Jealousy in Early Modern England

Emerging from the growing subfield of emotion history, this essay anatomizes the discourse of jealousy in early modern England. Through lexical analysis of a wide range of sources, the essay outlines how the passion of jealousy was understood in Renaissance England, treating four broad categories: (1) definitions of jealousy; (2) contexts of jealousy; (3) the experience of jealousy; and (4) sufferers of jealousy. Taken together, the analysis here presents one of the most complete accounts of early modern jealousy to date and points to the emotion's considerable importance in the period.