It might take readers by surprise that the History of Emotions is now described as a cutting-edge field of history. One might initially ask, do emotions have a history? Yet this research area has been garnering momentum in the last two decades, with scholars from all aspects of academia – from cognitive psychologists to anthropologists – contributing. And no one yet knows how the History of Emotions will develop. Consequently, there is much room for investigation and innovation. In this guide we will utilize Gale Primary Sources to investigate this exciting aspect of history.

The archive referenced most often in this guide is Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) due to its broad scope in the early modern and beginning modern period. Gale’s Keyword Search is useful for searching for an emotion like love and the filtering tools allow for the dissection of emotion and their manifestations. One could explore, for example, specific types of love, and identify and track shifts within them. Gale's search tools also allows one to refine searches by date, which provides the opportunity to explore what emotions were being discussed at a designated time, and how they were discussed, and in correlation to the prevailing context. Using Gale Primary Sources, users can access a large number of archives from one search bar which is convenient and helps students and researchers acquire and grasp different research angles faster.

One of the most studied emotions is romantic love, not only across the centuries but across the globe. However, another, perhaps less examined, form of love is patriotic love; the love for one’s country. In the below section this guide will examine the transition of this emotion from the early to late eighteenth century.

As one begins to explore the texts available in ECCO which focus on patriotic love, one can quickly begin to see that the authors are not discussing patriotism as a positive force of loving your country, but rather a negative one. Indeed, it seems to be more of a political stance than the same type of love which our society defines as patriotism today. A great example is found in the poem below from 1734 titled ‘Modern Patriotism’ where the unnamed author berates patriots and those with similar sentiments as they go against the King. He spends about half of the 54-page poem rebuking patriots for being damaging to the kingdom, a sentiment which seems in contrast to our own understanding of patriotism today.

In the above paragraph, the author refers to ‘Bold Patriot-Quacks! Distempering every part, Weaken thy head, and swell thy raging heart.’ Comparing a patriot to a quack would be considered strange in the twenty-first century as it seems to indicate that they are a joke. Additionally, during the Enlightenment, to be guided by ‘raging’ passions was often considered a sign of weakness. From this poem, one could begin to ascertain that in 18th century England, loving your country was not considered the positive characteristic it is now. In fact, some considered it damaging, as it challenged the love people should have for God and their King. We can see this sentiment expressed further in the same poem on the next page, where patriotic love is described as ‘treason’:

Another avenue to study emotions is via analyzing the changing use of language over time, and through this, when and why new emotions emerged – something made easier when using ECCO, where primary sources have clear bibliographic information. Thus, this digital archive not only helps us investigate the history of emotions, but also learn that there is nothing boring about boredom!

Before the late eighteenth century ‘boredom’ was not written or published anywhere. In contrast to other emotions like love, fear or hatred, when you search for ‘bored’ or ‘boredom’ on ECCO, the first writings about boredom or its variations such as bore as an emotion, or the French word ennui which was also used in English-language texts, did not appear until the late eighteenth century.

As shown below, when one searches for a keyword in Gale Primary Sources, the word is highlighted for easy locating within a chosen document. 

The above sections explore just two examples of the practicality of investigating the history of emotions with primary sources. Within this archive and others lie many other poems, articles, letters, and more which offer further avenues for research as well as potential challenges to previously established interpretations in history.