After a long period of neglect, emotions have become an important topic within literary studies. This collection of essays stresses the complex link between aesthetic and non-aesthetic emotional components and discusses emotional patterns by focusing on the practice of writing as well as on the impact of such patterns on receptive processes. Readers interested in the topic will be presented with a concept of aesthetic emotions as formative both within the writing and the reading process. Essays, ranging in focus from the beginning of modern drama to digital formats and theoretical questions, examine examples from English, German, French, Russian and American literature. Contributors include Angela Locatelli, Vera Nünning, and Gesine L. Schiewer.

Ingeborg Jandl is a research fellow for Russian Literature and Culture at the Institute of Slavic Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. Susanne Knaller (Prof. Dr.) teaches cultural studies and general and comparative literature at the Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz. In 2002, she received her habilitation at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. In 2009, she founded the research department General and Comparative Literature (AVL) in Graz. Since 2013, she has been the director of the Centre for Cultural Studies. Her research focuses on aesthetic theories 18th to 21st century, theory of authenticity, concepts of reality in modernity, emotion theories, writing as practice. Sabine Schönfellner is a PhD student for German and Comparative Literature at the University of Graz, Austria. Gudrun Tockner is a research fellow for English Literature at the Department of English Studies at the University of Graz, Austria.