Sentiment and Sociability by John Mullan

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Summary

The rise of the novel in the mid-18th century was also the rise of sentimentalism. This study explores the attitudes which led novelists to associate virtuous feeling with disabling suffering. It also examines the role of women in fiction and in society during that period.

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Sentiment and Sociability by John Mullan

With the rise of the novel in the mid-eighteenth century came the rise of sentimentalism. While the fondness for sentiment embarrassed later literary critics, it originally legitimized a morally suspect phenomenon: the novel. This book describes that legitimation, yet it looks beyond the narrowly literary to the lives and expressed philosophies of some of the major writers of the age, showing the language of feeling to be a resource of philosophers like David Hume and Adam Smith, as much as novelists like Richardson and Sterne.
'Mullan's prose is stylish.. and his argument compelling ... this is a remarkable study of sentimentalism.'Times Literary Supplement
'Mullan has provided a stimulating study which is not afraid to explore complex themes and be provocative in its judgements' Times Higher Education Supplement
'admirable study' Notes and Queries
'responsible, informed and thoughtful book' Yvonne Noble, British Journal of 18th Century Studies, 13:2
`Mullan's study is a valuable, sustained, and richly suggestive meditation on the essential ambiguity of the language of feeling. He deserves much credit for his refusal to talk reductively about a subject so complex ... I can highly recommend this book.' Eighteenth-Century Fiction
'absorbing study' English Studes
Mullan's book is an original and important contribution to the history of ideas. It offers brilliant and convincing reinterpretations kof Clarissa adn Tristam Shandy. * The Eighteenth Century *

John Mullan is a lecturer at University College London's English department and the author of How Novels Work. He has served as a judge for the Man Booker Prize and writes a popular fiction column for the Guardian. Mullan gives Jane Austen lectures all around the world.

SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780198122524
ISBN 10 0198122527
Title Sentiment and Sociability
Author John Mullan
Series Clarendon Paperbacks
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Oxford University Press
Year published 1990-09-06
Number of pages 270
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.