Sentimentalism, Ethics and the Culture of Feeling

Sentimentalism, Ethics and the Culture of Feeling defends feeling against customary distrust or condescension by showing that the 18th-century cult of sentiment, despite its sometimes surreal manifestations, has led to a positive culture of feeling. The very reaction against sentimentalism has taught us to identify sentimentality. Fiction, moreover, remains a principal means not just of discriminating quality of feeling but of appreciating its essentially imaginative nature.