What was an emotion?: T. S. Eliot and Bertrand Russell

Journal article

The aim of this article is to study the emotions of T. S. Eliot and Bertrand Russell —not just the turbulent feelings they had for each other, but the rival theories of emotion they brought to their lives and their writing. As I show, both men nursed very different views about the intelligence of feeling. This fed, in turn, divergent outlooks on value, the nature of morals, and the cognitive significance of art. The fecundity and stakes of these disagreements, moreover, can be seen throughout Eliot’s major poems and criticism.

Authors: Dwan, D

• Publication status: Accepted
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Journal: Modernism/modernity
• Acceptance date: 2023-09-11
• DOI: 10.1353/mod.2026.a989247.
• EISSN: 1071-6068
• ISSN: 1080-6601
• Language: English
• Keywords: feeling; affect; value; belief; objectivity