Love in Excess

Between the late 1600s and the mid-1700s, the genre of amatory fiction formed a significant part of the literature that was being written, published, and consumed in Great Britain, especially amongst female authors and readers. Three major writers—Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, and Eliza Haywood—contributed significantly to this literary movement by writing works which tended to revolve around romantic adventures and misadventures. While melodramatic, these works tended to have conflicts revolving around fairly mundane events, such as a jealous rival or an unsympathetic guardian. They also typically involved fairly frank explorations of sexuality and desire, including describing these topics from the perspective of female characters. For example, Behn’s poem The Disappointment (1680) is sometimes seen as a precursor to the genre, describing a young woman’s perspective as a man struggles with impotence during their encounter.

Works of amatory fiction were often viewed with suspicion by the literary establishment. They were critiqued as stylistically inferior: For example, these texts did not typically feature the dense allusions that were sometimes seen as the trademark of a skilled and well-educated writer. They were also denounced as potentially morally dangerous, particularly if they were consumed primarily by female readers.