Affected sensibilities
Subtitle: romantic excess and the evolution of the novel, 1680-1810
By: Stephen Ahern.
Series: AMS studies in the eighteenth century ;; no. 49
Publisher: AMS Press
Published: 2004
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 239
Subjects: English fiction -- 18th century -- History and criticism.; Sentimentalism in literature.; Romanticism -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century.; Love stories, English -- History and criticism.; Gothic revival (Literature) -- Great Britain.; Authorship -- Sex differences.; Sex role in literature.
Description: "This book offers a groundbreaking reconsideration of the history of the English novel. Ahern develops the provocative thesis that the amatory, sentimental, and Gothic fictional forms that dominate the marketplace in the early years of the novel are deeply connected by a concern with sensibility, a capacity for living intensely that is largely determined by class and gender. In all three of these fictional forms, a pervasive yet ambivalent unease over intense feeling testifies to the persistence of a conflicted romantic aesthetic well into the second century in the history of the novel"--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.