Talk:Sentimental novel

Sentiment and the Sentimental
Just a note on the change of sentimental novel to sentiment in Augustan literature: I understand the change, as a red link is annoying, but we (those few folks doing 18th century literature) keep waiting for one of us to break down and attempt an article on the sentimental novel. I know that I'm something like the last person on earth who could do a fair job on it, because I'm a satire fan, and the sentimental novel was one of the drippiest, most insipid things on earth, from my point of view. Bishonen knows the material better, but she likes it not much better than I do. I hope the red link, spread out now across 12 articles or so, will spur someone with training in feminist theory and the novel will jump in. (Generally, the feminist literary historians praise the sentimental novel to some degree, or find it interesting, while unreconstructed old historians and Marxist literary people like me think of it as a sign of mass psychosis.) I'm not going to change the link back, as I really have no objection to the change, but I thought I'd explain why that red link is so prevalent in articles I've been the primary author on (and a little bottle of oil (put in so the sentence doesn't end on a preposition)). Geogre 13:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC) via User_talk:Jahsonic --Jahsonic 14:19, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Pamela and Tom Jones are not sentimental novels! Pamela was written too early, and while it is psychological and the heroine "feels" a lot, she doesn't have the tragic ending a sentimental heroine has. Also, while the text does much to villify her employer/seducer, Mr. B, his reconciliation with her and their happy ending can be read as justifying his behavior. A sentimental novel would leave Mr. B as a villain, and try to make some kind of social statement about having mercy on seduced women. Sentimental novels are tragic and politicized; Pamela is neither! Also, the emphasis on feeling in sentimental literature made it a feminine genre in the eyes of many. Even its male heroes--Mackenzie's Harley, Goethe's Werther--were often seen as possessing feminine traits. Tom Jones is just the opposite! Its author Henry Fielding is famous for trying to reclaim the novel as a man's genre, and in doing so he created characters that did not talk or feel as much as they DID things. His characters, even his women, are robust people of action, and sentimentalism is deliberately dismissed in his works. Fielding explicitly parodies the aspects of Pamela that could be considered sentimental in his work Shamela, a bawdy and outrageous work that celebrates mercenary sexuality. Tom Jones should not be in an entry about sentimentalism! Finally, i think that The Power of Sympathy by William H Brown is a much more famous American sentimental work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amanda Johnson (talk • contribs) 22:08, 6 September 2006
 * Where did you get the idea that Pamela is no sentimental novel? Britannica, also Blamires, Sanders and Seeber (all works literary history) regard Pamela as prototype of the sent.nov., the tragedy is irrelevant; it is a "beclouded or unrealistic view of its subject with emphasis on the readers' capacity for tenderness" (Britannica). Though your view on Fielding agrees with these works.--FlammingoParliament 14:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Sense and Sensibility
Should the above novel not be referred to in this article? Dominictimms 12:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd think that is a satire on sentimentalism: sentimental novel was en vogue in mid-18th century, o cool, found a source.... adding it. --FlammingoHey 14:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

references, please
This page needs more references! Although the information seems generally accurate, I would really like to see some good sources for some of the assertions, especially things like young people committing suicide after reading Werther, or Evelina being the first romantic comedy. Tavn8r 20:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Sentimentalism v. sensibility
The opening of the article stresses the importance of distinguishing between the two, then fails to distinguish them. mcoverdale (talk) 18:37, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Charles Dickens
I'm surprised to find no discussion of Charles Dickens here. I have not studied this topic but it does seem to me that some kind of relationship exists between this 18th century tradition and novels like Dombey and Son and The Old Curiosity Shop, to name just two; or is Dickens' sentimentality just a Victorian quirk? I note that Britannica online does not believe that there is a connection, but my instinct is that they are wrong, especially as there has been a recent book on this topic: Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition: Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Lamb, by Valerie Purton. Rwood128 (talk) 16:00, 10 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The Britannica online article on the sentimental novel, however, does imply a connection, even though it states: "Despite such patches of emotional excess, Dickens cannot really be termed a sentimental novelist". Maybe, but the influence is there, so that some discussion of Dickens and other the Victorians would be useful; and Is the tradition really dead? Rwood128 (talk) 22:34, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Not adequately defined
Here's what we have now:

Sentimental novels relied on emotional response, both from their readers and characters. They feature scenes of distress and tenderness, and the plot is arranged to advance both emotions and actions. The result is a valorization of "fine feeling," displaying the characters as a model for refined, sensitive emotional effect. The ability to display feelings was thought to show character and experience, and to shape social life and relations.

I'm trying to think of a novel that doesn't rely on "emotional response, both from their readers and characters". Even in the most antiseptic science fiction, the device is generally used as a contrasting device to incite rage. Is this trying to say "raw, emotional outpourings"? That would at least exclude Westerns (until the final show down).

I'm guessing "fine feeling" is more Picard than Kirk, more Niles Crane than Frasier Crane (am I even getting warm here?), more Colonel Kurtz than Don Lope de Aguirre.

No, this is not working as a definition. &mdash; MaxEnt 02:48, 19 January 2017 (UTC)