Sentimentalism is a practice of being sentimental,
and thus tending toward basing actions and
reactions upon emotions and feelings, in preference
to reason.As a literary mode, sentimentalism
has been a recurring aspect of world literature.
Sentimentalism includes a variety of aspects
in literature, such as sentimental poetry,
the sentimental novel, and the German sentimentalist
music movement, Empfindsamkeit.
European literary sentimentalism arose during
the Age of Enlightenment, partly as a response
to sentimentalism in philosophy.
In eighteenth-century England, the sentimental
novel was a major literary genre.
== Philosophical influences ==
Sentimentalism in philosophy and sentimentalism
in literature are sometimes hard to distinguish.
As the philosophical arguments developed,
the literature soon tried to emulate by putting
the philosophical into practice through narration
and characters.
As a result, it is common to observe both
philosophical and literary movements simultaneously.
Philosophically, sentimentalism was often
contrasted to rationalism.
While 18th-century rationalism corresponded
itself with the development of the analytic
mind as the basis for acquiring truth, sentimentalism
hinged upon an intrinsic human capacity to
feel and how this leads to truth.
For the sentimentalist this capacity was most
important in morality (moral sense theory).
Sentimentalists contended that where the rationalists
believed morality was founded upon analytic
principles (i.e.
Immanuel Kant's "Categorical Imperative")
these principles could not be adequately founded
in the empirical nature of humans—such as
observing a sad image or expressing a strong
emotion physically.
Therefore, one could not obtain a sound moral
theory.
However, by developing the moral sensibility
and fine tuning the capacity to feel, a person
could access a sound moral theory by building
from an intrinsic human nature, which each
person possessed.
Sentimentalists were, thus, often seen as
relating to the schools of humanism and empirical
ethical intuitionism.
== Characteristics ==
Sentimentalism asserted that over-shown feeling
was not a weakness but rather showed one to
be a moral person.
Arising from religiously motivated empathy,
it expanded to the other perceptions - for
example, sensual love was no longer understood
as a destructive passion (Vanitas) but rather
as a basis of social institutions, as it was
for Antoine Houdar de la Motte.
Requited love was, as in serious opera (the
Tragédie en musique or Opera seria), a symbol
for a successful alliance between nations.
The "Lesesucht" re-evaluated what was permitted
literature, and the novel as a type of literature
as versus drama.
Around the middle of the century, sentimentalism
set "untouched" nature against (courtly) civilization,
as in the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
In addition, Samuel Richardson's sentimental
epistolary novel "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded"
(1740) had great literary influence.
The literary work often featured scenes of
distress and tenderness, and the plot was
arranged to advance emotions rather than action.
The result was a valorization of "fine feeling,"
displaying the characters as a model for refined,
moral and emotional effect.
Sentimentalism in literature was also often
used as a medium through which authors could
promote their own agendas—imploring readers
to empathize with the problems they are dealing
with in their books.
For example, in Laurence Sterne's novel, A
Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy,
the narrator is using the sentimental character
Yorick as a device to critique the obligation
of morality, whether it is sentimental or
rational.
There is a scene early in the novel where
Yorick meets a monk and refuses "to give him
a single sous [a penny]."
He feels discontent when he disregards what
he senses he ought to do, even though he appears
to obey "better reason" (4).
Rationally, he disregards his sentimental
obligation because "there is no regular reasoning
upon the ebbs and flows of our humours" (6)
[i.e. our emotions].
While he argues against the authority of sense,
ultimately this sense creates discontent in
his conscience.
After the monk leaves empty handed, it is
Yorick's "heart" that "smote [him] the moment
[the monk] shut the door" (7).
Accordingly, Yorick has "behaved very ill"
(7).
He has complied with his rational maxim, the
justified action of his "great claims" argument
(6).
Yet he senses from the conscience of his sentimental
nature that he has done wrong.
== Empfindsamkeit ==
In continental Europe, one aspect of sentimentalism
was Empfindsamkeit.
The sensitive style (German: empfindsamer
Stil) of music, developed in Germany, aimed
to express "true and natural" feelings, in
contrast to the baroque.
The origin of sentimentalism in this context
was chiefly religious, with the emotionally
coloured texts for the oratorios of Johann
Sebastian Bach stream being typical examples.
Empfindsamkeit is also known as secularized
pietism because it frequently came with moralizing
content that had increasingly broken free
of church and religious ties.
An important theorist of the movement was
Jean Baptiste Dubos.
=== In Germany ===
The musician and publisher Johann Christoph
Bode translated Laurence Sterne's novel, A
sentimental Journey Through France and Italy,
into German in 1768 under the title Yoriks
empfindsame Reise - the translation was a
great success.
His word "empfindsam" or "sensitive" was a
neologism that then became attached to Gotthold
Ephraim Lessing and the whole literary period.
German poets who verged on sentimentalism
were Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803),
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715–1769)
and Sophie de La Roche (1730–1807, the author
of the first epistolary novel in German) and
its influence may also be seen in Goethe's
early work Die Leiden des jungen Werthers
(1774), a high-point of Sturm und Drang.
=== Results ===
Religious sentimentalism has often been considered
as inspiration for François-René de Chateaubriand
and his creation of Romanticism, which was
another literary genre that emerged late in
the 18th Century.
In popular literature, Empfindsamkeit was
a common genre that continued into the 19th
Century, and was found in serialised novels
in periodicals such as Gartenlaube.
In a theatre sense, Empfindsamkeit was succeeded
by rührstück or melodrama.
== See also ==
Francis Hutcheson, Essay on the Nature and
Conduct of the Passions and Affections and
Illustrations upon the Moral Sense.
Sentiment (disambiguation)
Sentimental poetry
== 
Notes ==
Sterne, Laurence.
A Sentimental Journey.
New York :Oxford University Press, 2003.
== Further reading ==
Renate Krüger: Das Zeitalter der Empfindsamkeit.
Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1972
Richard Xu: The one that got away.
Berlin: T.M., 1986
Nikolaus Wegmann: Diskurse der Empfindsamkeit.
Zur Geschichte eines Gefühls in der Literatur
des 18.
Jahrhunderts.
*Metzler, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-476-00637-9
Brissenden, R.F.
Virtue in Distress: Studies in the Novel of
Sentiment from Richardson to Sade.
London: Macmillan, 1974.
McGann, Jerome.
The Poetics of Sensibility: a Revolution in
Literary Style.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
Mullan, John.
Sentiment and Sociability: The Language of
Feeling in the Eighteenth Century.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.
Nagle, Christopher.
Sexuality and the Culture of Sensibility in
the British Romantic Era.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Todd, Janet.
Sensibility: an Introduction.
London: Methuen, 1986.
Tompkins, Jane.
Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of
American Fiction, 1790-1860.
New York: Oxford UP, 1986.
