Sentimentalism (literature)

Sentimentalism is the practice of being sentimental, or the tendency to base actions and reactions from emotions and feelings as opposed to reason. As a literary mode, sentimentalism has been a recurring aspect of world literature, and is important to the traditions of India, China, and Vietnam. Sentimentalism may refer to a variety of aspects in literature, such as sentimental poetry, the sentimental novel, or the German sentimentalist music movement, Empfindsamkeit.

European 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.

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 they could create a morality based 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.

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