Feelings are historical phenomena that lie at the formation of aesthetic and moral values. For centuries, western philosophy and literature has sorted changing repertoires of feeling into genres defined by a variety of principles. Some feelings are noted to increase the subject’s capacity for action; others as decreasing it. Some feelings trouble the autonomy of the self; others affirm and reinforce the will. Some feelings are powerful and intense (passions); others as ambient or objectless (moods). In this course we will think historically as well as conceptually about the role of literature in not just representing, but interpreting, enacting, and even creating passions, emotions, and moods. Reading broadly across five centuries and also across a diverse group of printed genres (essays, elegies, popular periodicals, novels), we will track changes in the theory and representation of one cluster of feelings, in particular, which has played an arguably central role in western capitalist society: envy, jealousy, and competitiveness. Readings include: Bacon, Montaigne, Donne, Shakespeare, Addison and Steele, Adam Smith, Austen, Nietzsche, Robbe-Grillet, and Highsmith. (B, G, H)