Sentimentalism, ethics, and the culture of feeling

the Rights of Woman ix Ariel . . . if you now beheld them, your affections Would become tender. Prospero Dost thou think so spirit? Ariel Mine would, sir, were I human. ## Prospero And mine shall. Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling, Of their af ̄ictions, and shall not myself, One of their kind, that relish all as sharply Passion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art? (William Shakespeare, The Tempest, v, i, 18±24) Bitter and earnest writing must not hastily be condemned; for men cannot contend coldly, and without affection, about things which they hold dear and precious. A politic man may write from his brain, without touch or sense of his heart; as in a speculation that appertaineth not unto him; ± but a feeling Christian will express, in his words, a character of zeal or love. Lord Bacon. ## (Epigraph to William Wordsworth's Convention of Cintra) The development of man's capacity for feeling is, therefore, the more urgent need of our age, not merely because it can be a means of making better insights effective for living, but precisely because it provides the impulse for bettering our insights. (Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man) . . . a man who is emotionally educated is as rare as phoenix. Sentimentalism, Ethics And The Culture Of Feeling Defends The Value Of Feeling Against A Customary Distrust Or Condescension By Analysing The Creation Of A Culture Of Feeling Out Of The Eighteenth-century Cult Of Sentiment. This Study Foregrounds How Fiction Remains A Principal Means Not Just Of Discriminating Quality Of Feeling But Of Appreciating Its Essentially Imaginative Nature.--jacket. Introduction: The Transformations Of Sentiment -- 1. 'affective Individualism' And The Cult Of Sentiment -- 2. Feeling And/as Fiction: Illusion, Absorption And Emotional Quixotry -- 3. Friedrich Schiller And The Aestheticizing Of Sentiment -- 4. Wordsworth: The Man Of Feeling, Recollected Emotion And The 'sentiment Of Being' -- 5. Victorian Sentimentality: The Dialectic Of Sentiment And Truth Of Feeling -- 6. Feeling As Illusion: Rousseau To Proust -- 7. Modernism And The Attack On Sentiment -- 8. Henry James And D.h. Lawrence: 'felt Life' And Truth To Feeling -- Conclusion: Literature, Criticism And The Culture Of Feeling. Michael Bell. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 219-226) And Index. Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction: the Transformations of Sentiment....Pages 1-9 ‘Affective Individualism’ and the Cult of Sentiment....Pages 11-56 Feeling and/as Fiction: Illusion, Absorption and Emotional Quixotry....Pages 57-73 Friedrich Schiller and the Aestheticizing of Sentiment....Pages 74-91 Wordsworth: the Man of Feeling, Recollected Emotion and the ‘Sentiment of Being’....Pages 92-117 Victorian Sentimentality: the Dialectic of Sentiment and Truth of Feeling....Pages 118-149 Feeling as Illusion: Rousseau to Proust....Pages 150-159 Modernism and the Attack on Sentiment....Pages 160-169 Henry James and D. H. Lawrence: ‘Felt Life’ and Truth to Feeling....Pages 170-204 Conclusion: Literature, Criticism and the Culture of Feeling....Pages 205-207 Back Matter....Pages 208-230 Sentimentalism, Ethics and the Culture of Feeling defends feeling against customary distrust or condescension by showing that the affective turn of the eighteenth-century cult of sentiment, despite its sometimes surreal manifestations, has led to a positive culture of feeling. The very reaction against sentimentalism has taught us to identity sentimentality. Fiction, moreover, remains a principal means not just of discriminating quality of feeling but of appreciating its essentially imaginative nature. "Sentimentalism, Ethics and the Culture of Feeling defends feeling against customary distrust or condescension by showing that the 18th-century cult of sentiment, despite its sometimes surreal manifestations, has led to a positive culture of feeling. The very reaction against sentimentalism has taught us to identify sentimentality. Fiction, moreover, remains a principal means not just of discriminating quality of feeling but of appreciating its essentially imaginative nature."--Pub. desc "Sentimentalism, Ethics and the Culture of Feeling defends the value of feeling against a customary distrust or condescension by analysing the creation of a culture of feeling out of the eighteenth-century cult of sentiment. This study foregrounds how fiction remains a principal means not just of discriminating quality of feeling but of appreciating its essentially imaginative nature."--BOOK JACKET.