The Game of Love in Georgian England: Courtship, Emotions, and Material Culture by Sally Holloway

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Game of Love in Georgian England: Courtship, Emotions, and Material Culture by Sally Holloway Marilyn Morris Sally Holloway, The Game of Love in Georgian England: Courtship, Emotions, and Material Culture (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2019). Pp. 256; 33 b/w illus. $74.00 cloth. Although a mainstay of eighteenth-century poetry and the plots of novels and plays, the twisting, turning, often bumpy path to matrimony had not attracted intensive historical analysis. Sally Holloway employs the methodologies of the histories of emotions and of material culture to vividly reconstruct what "was variously conceptualized as an exhilarating sport, a frenetic battlefield, a strategic game of chess, or a determined crossing of a stormy sea" (166). So infamous were its vicissitudes that the courtship process inspired a board game designed by the Society of Anatomists in 1747 that sold for a shilling. The Game of Love charts the ways that the language and rituals of courtship evolved from c. 1714 to 1830 with the expansion of letter writing, the postal service, and consumer goods' variety and availability as well as the new cultures of sensibility and romanticism. Based on extensive archival research, the first five chapters analyze the papers of sixty couples, representing a broad range of ages, [End Page 323] religions, social ranks, professional occupations, and geographical areas, who are listed chronologically in Appendix 1. The sixth chapter, on breach of promise suits, draws upon ninety cases reported in newspapers and court records detailed in Appendix 2. Holloway further illustrates the trends she maps out in these sources with evidence from literature, particularly novels, and visual representations. The emotional experience of courtship, however, has greatest redolence in its material artifacts: the locks of hair, portraits, silhouettes, Valentines, decorative boxes, sheet music, clothing, jewelry, handkerchiefs, perfume, nosegays, and other tokens of affection that courting couples exchanged. Letter writers and novelists described how men and women imparted meaning to these objects and used them to cultivate feelings. All the senses were engaged during the process of falling in love and negotiating a match. The physical toll of even the chastest of courtships is reflected in the characterization of disappointment in love as "heartbreak." Holloway begins by describing how definitions and understandings of romantic love shaped by religion, medicine, and literature changed over the course of the century. The letters of courting couples featured discussions about human nature, interwoven with biblical quotations, designed to assess the piety of one's potential spouse. The tenor of the discussion varied by denomination, with nonconformist women tending to be more assertive about their views, sometimes to a suitor's dismay. Biblical couples stood as models of devotion or warnings of the dangers of deception, and verses invoking fire, milk, honey, fruit, and wine offered a sensuous vocabulary for expressing passion. Galen's theories of animal spirits and humoral balance continued to support beliefs about women's weakness and, when combined with Cartesian models of the animal spirits traveling through the nerves connecting heart and mind, helped turn lovesickness into a particularly female malady, although men could also experience its sleeplessness, trembling, and sighs. The new sciences of chemistry and electricity provided new metaphors for expressing passion. Classical poetry remained popular, but in the 1730s men began rejecting its heroic postures as well as its assumptions regarding women's susceptibility to flattery. By the late 1770s, however, the tropes of chivalry made a comeback. Troilus and Cressida, Abelard and Héloïse, and, with the Shakespeare revival, Romeo and Juliet elucidated love's torments. Epistolary and sentimental novels introduced new romantic couples to contemplate and undoubtedly contributed to the increased volume of love letters and poetry exchanged over the course of the century. As Chapter 2 reveals, love letters not only signaled a serious intent to pursue a betrothal, helped articulate feelings, and allowed a courting couple to assess one another's character and degree of commitment. Letter writing also involved churning up sensations of anticipation and anxiety that heightened the emotional intensity of falling in love. Whereas letters became less formal and more expressive of feelings as the century progressed, Holloway finds significant gender differences. Men tended to emphasize their honor, sincerity, and favorable...