What is sentimental literature?

Sentimentalism literature is a literary school that originated in England in the middle of18th century and developed to the whole of Europe. After the British industrial revolution, bourgeois rule was consolidated and the development of capitalism was accelerated. At the same time, the contradictions in capitalist society are becoming more and more obvious. The middle and lower classes of the bourgeoisie deeply feel the disparity between the rich and the poor, their life and social status are not guaranteed, and the enlightenment ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity are shattered, resulting in sentimental feelings. Sentimentalists divide human intelligence into two aspects: rationality and emotion. They feel that the authority of reason has been shaken under the impact of the great power of the bourgeoisie, so they are very concerned about the emotional aspects of people's lives. In this way, a new literary trend of thought-sentimentalism came into being.

/kloc-In the first half of the 8th century, there were sentimental factors in the novels of British writer samuel richardson, but the representative writer of sentimentality was Lawrence Sting. Sentimentalism is named after his novel A Sentimental Journey (1768).

In Britain, Richardson's sentimental novels only criticized the nobility at first, but beautified the family life and hypocritical morality of the bourgeoisie and defended the bourgeois system. However, with the deepening of social contradictions, writers saw the cruelty of capitalist exploitation and the extreme poverty of farmers, so sentimental writers attacked not only the nobility, but also the capitalist system. At the same time, they also expressed sympathy for the sufferings of the working people, which expressed their bourgeois humanitarian thought.

English sentimentalism literature is divided into two parts: poems and novels. Representative poets are: Four Seasons Songs represented by James Thomson; Edward young's "accusation or night about life and death and eternal life"; Thomas gray, as a representative of mourning in front of the tomb; Oliver Goldsmith, as a representative of abandoned villages. Richard johnson is the representative novelist, with Pamela, Clarissa Harlow and Sting as his masterpieces, and Biography of Shang Zhou and A Sentimental Journey as his masterpieces.

The main feature of sentimental literature is to exaggerate the role of feelings and describe the feelings and misfortunes of characters in detail, so as to arouse readers' sympathy and admiration. They often take life, death, night and loneliness as themes, and their works are sad in style and gloomy in language. They also use humor to describe human weaknesses. The favorite literary genres of sentimental writers are elegy, travel notes and epistolary novels.

Sentimentalism spread to France, Germany and Russia, showing a very complicated situation because of the different development in different places, time and social background. There is no real sentimental literary genre in France, but some writers' works are full of sentimental color, such as Jean-jean-jacques rousseau's The New Arrow. Some German writers of the crazy dash movement were also influenced by Richardson, Sting, Rousseau and others, and their works also contained strong sentimental elements. However, in Russia, there used to be a sentimental school represented by Karamsin.

18 At the end of 2009, sentimental literature was gradually replaced by romantic literature.