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The sentimental novel or the novel of sensibility is an 18th-century literary genre which celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment, sentimentalism, and sensibility. Sentimentalism, which is to be distinguished from sensibility, was a fashion in both poetry and prose fiction beginning in the eighteenth century in reaction to the rationalism of the Augustan Age. 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 emotions rather than action. 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.〔Richard Maxwell and Katie Trumpener, eds., ''The Cambridge Companion to Fiction in the Romantic Period'' (2008).〕 ==History== Among the most famous sentimental novels in English are Samuel Richardson's ''Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded'' (1740), Oliver Goldsmith's ''Vicar of Wakefield'' (1766), Laurence Sterne's ''Tristram Shandy'' (1759–67), ''Sentimental Journey'' (1768), Henry Brooke's ''The Fool of Quality'' (1765–70), Henry Mackenzie's ''The Man of Feeling'' (1771) and Maria Edgeworth's ''Castle Rackrent'' (1800). Continental examples are Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel ''Julie, or the New Heloise'', his autobiography ''The Confessions'' (1764–70) and Goethe's novel ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' (1774).〔J. A. Cuddon, ''The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory'', 4th edition (London: Penguin Books, 1999), p.809; M. H. Abrams, ''A Glossary of Literary Terms'', 7th edition (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace,1999), p.283.〕 American examples are Susan Warner's ''The Wide, Wide World'' (1850), while the "death of Little Eva in Harriet Beecher Stowe's ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' (1852)" is also an example of this sensibility.〔M. H. Abrams, ''A Glossary of Literary Terms''.〕 Tobias Smollett tried to imply a darker underside to the "cult of sensibility" in his ''The Expedition of Humphry Clinker'' (1771). Another example of this type of novel is Frances Burney's ''Evelina'' (1778), wherein the heroine, while naturally good, in part for being country-raised, hones her politeness when, while visiting London, she is educated into propriety. This novel also is the beginning of "romantic comedy", though it is most appropriately labeled a conduct novel and a forerunner of the female Bildungsroman in the English tradition exemplified by later writers such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and George Eliot.〔Laura Sue Fuderer, ''The Female Bildungsroman in English: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism'' (1990)〕 While this genre is particularly associated with the second half of the 18th century, it continued in a modified form into the 19th century, especially in the works of Mrs Henry Wood, who is remembered especially for East Lynne (1861).〔"novel." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 19 Jan. 2013. By the end of the 19th century, sentimental literature faced complaints about the abundance of "cheap sentiment" and its excessive bodily display. Critics, and eventually the public, began to see sentimentalism manifested in society as unhealthy physical symptoms such as nervousness and being overly sensitive, and the genre began declining sharply in popularity.〔Richard Maxwell and Katie Trumpener, eds., ''The Cambridge Companion to Fiction in the Romantic Period'' (2008).〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「sentimental novel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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