Sentimentalism

Gerund K, Paul H (2018)


Publication Language: English

Publication Type: Book chapter / Article in edited volumes

Publication year: 2018

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH

Edited Volumes: Handbook of the American Novel of the Nineteenth Century

Series: Handbooks of English and American Studies

City/Town: Berlin/Munich/Boston

Book Volume: 7

Pages Range: 17-33

ISBN: 9783110480818

DOI: 10.1515/9783110481327-002

Abstract

This essay delineates the conceptual underpinnings of sentimental fiction and reviews some of the most popular sentimental novels of the nineteenth century, including Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Temple, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Maria S. Cummins’ The Lamplighter to outline the main features of the genre. Beyond conceiving sentimental writing simply as formula fiction, the essay considers sentimental texts as powerful interventions into social, cultural, and political discourses of the time with a particular focus on constructions of race, gender, domesticity, and women’s role in society. It identifies the “cultural work” (Tompkins) of sentimentalism in nineteenth-century American culture and fleshes out the ideological maneuvers it was enlisted for - the sentimental repertoire ranges from abolitionist slave narratives, such as Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, to fictionalized vindications of slavery, such as Caroline Lee Hentz’s The Planter’s Northern Bride. In the sentimental vein, social reform and political change have been advocated and refuted. Finally, this chapter surveys the scholarship on sentimental writing - from the initial dismissal of women’s domestic novels as trivial and sensationalist to its recuperation by feminist critics and its more recent re-evaluation in the wake of the so-called turn to affect. Sentimentalism continues to be relevant in American literature and (political) discourses and is not (and never has been) limited to women’s culture.

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APA:

Gerund, K., & Paul, H. (2018). Sentimentalism. In Christine Gerhardt (Eds.), Handbook of the American Novel of the Nineteenth Century. (pp. 17-33). Berlin/Munich/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH.

MLA:

Gerund, Katharina, and Heike Paul. "Sentimentalism." Handbook of the American Novel of the Nineteenth Century. Ed. Christine Gerhardt, Berlin/Munich/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2018. 17-33.

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