The Politics of Sensibility: Race, Gender and Commerce in the Sentimental Novel

ISBN-13: 9780521552219 / Angielski / Twarda / 1996 / 280 str.

Markman Ellis; Marilyn Butler; James Chandler

Opis

The sentimental novel has long been noted for its liberal and humanitarian interests. In The Politics of Sensibility Markman Ellis argues that sentimental fiction also consciously participated in specific political controversies of the late eighteenth century, including emerging arguments about the ethics of slavery, the morality of commerce, and the movement to reform prostitutes. He shows that sentimental fiction was a public as well as a private genre, and that the very form of the novel was recognized as a political tool of cultural significance.

Recenzje

"The Politics of Sensibility is successful within its scope....Ellis provides a practical book which will be useful to anyone working on the politics of the early novel." Jack Lynch, Novel

Spis treści

1. Sensibility, history and the novel; 2. 'The house of bondage': sentimentalism and the problem of slavery; 3. 'Delight in misery': sentimentalism, amelioration and slavery; 4. 'An easy, speedy and universal medium': canals, commerce and virtue; 5. 'Recovering the path of virtue': the politics of prostitution and the sentimental novel; 6. 'The dangerous tendency of novels' and the controversy of sentimentalism.