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IV. Sentimentalism
Introduction
There are two terms to
describe some literary works of the middle and latter decades of 18th
century, sentimentalism and sensibility. Nowadays, they are mainly the same
to refer to an important literary trend at that time.
Sentimentalism was a direct reaction against the cold and
hard commercialism and
rationalism as well as the surviving feudalism.
Sentimentalists criticized the cruel capitalist relations and the terrible
social injustice. They also reacted against rationalism on which they
believed the bourgeois society was founded. In the meantime, a ready and
sincere sympathy for the miserable and the trodden became part of the
accepted social morality and ethics. Besides, Sentimentalists returned to
nature to find their materials. However, sentimentalists were usually
pessimistic and falsely blamed reason and the Industrial Revolution for
torment and inequality of their time. Because they could not find a
solution, some sentimental works later indulged in mere postures of grief
and pain, and tears were shed like a fountain.
In fiction, sentimentalism, seemed to appear with the rise of
the realistic English novel, was first found in Pamela, an early
realistic novel by Samuel Richardson. By centering on the fortune of the
poor and virtuous people, Richardson clearly illustrated that effusive
emotion was evidence of kindness and goodness. Some other well-known novels
of sentimentalism are Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey through
France and Italy (1768) and Goldsmith’s The vicar of Wakefield
(1766).
In English poetry, sentimentalism reached its peak for Thomas
Gray’s “An Elegy Written in a country Churchyard” (1751). Goldsmith’s “The
Deserted village” (1770) and Cowper’s “The Task”(1785) are also
representative works of sentimentalism.
In English drama, Richardson Steele is always considered as
the true founder of sentimental comedy with his two comedies The Lying
Lover (1708) and The Conscious Lovers. In the middle decades,
some minor dramatists, such as Hugh Kelly (1739-1777) and Richardson
Cumberland (1732-1811), continued to write sentimental comedies, but they
were derided by the great dramatists of the period Richardson Brinceley
Sheridan and Oliver Goldsmith.
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