The genres of sentimentalism, in contrast to the classicist ones, called the reader to the knowledge of simple human feelings, to the naturalness and kindness of the internal state, to merging with wildlife. And if classicism worshiped only reason, building all existence on logic, on a system (according to Boileau’s poetry theory), the sentimental artist was free to feel, express it, in flight of imagination. Born in protest against the dryness of reason inherent in the Enlightenment, all genres of sentimentalism carry not what they inherited from culture, but that the depths of their souls come from their bottom.
Preconditions for the rise of sentimentalism
The absolutist regime of feudalism fell into a deep crisis. Replaced by social values came the values embodied in the human person, moreover, omniscient. Sentimentalism - the definition in literature of the moods of the widest layers of society with a powerful antifeudal pathos.
The third estate, economically sound, but socially and politically disenfranchised, became active against the aristocracy and the clergy. It was there, in the third estate, that the famous was born: "Freedom, equality, fraternity" - which became the slogan of all revolutions. The social culture of society required democratization.
A rationalist worldview postulated the primacy of the idea, hence the ideological nature of the crisis. The absolute monarchy as one of the forms of state structure fell into decay. The idea of monarchism was discredited, and the idea of an enlightened monarch was also discredited, since practically none of them corresponded to the real needs of society.
Conquest of culture
By the second half of the 18th century, the possibilities of the bourgeoisie had grown so much that it began to dictate conditions to all other classes, especially through culture. Being a supporter of the ideas of progress, she extended them to literature and art.
Moreover, she occupied them with representatives of her environment: Russo - from the family of a watchmaker, Voltaire - a notary, Diderot - a craftsman ... It makes no sense to remember artists as they are completely in the third estate, one and only.
Although in all sectors of society of the 18th century, democratic moods grew by leaps and bounds not only in the third estate. It was these moods that demanded from the late Enlightenment of other heroes, a special atmosphere and new feelings. However, the genres of sentimentalism in literature were not newcomers. Elegistic lyrics, the epistolary genre, memoirs - all the long-known forms were filled with new content.
The main features of sentimentalism in the literature
As an alternative to the rationalistic principle of Enlightenment, another means of world perception is clarified in philosophy: not with the mind, but with the heart, that is, referring to the category of sensations and feelings. Literature is precisely the field where all genres of sentimentalism flourished.
Sentimentalists were convinced that a person by nature should be alien to prudence and rationality, he was close to the natural environment, which through the upbringing of feelings gives inner harmony. Virtue must be natural, they wrote, and only with a high degree of sensitivity can humanity get real happiness. The main genres of sentimentalism in literature were therefore chosen according to the principle of chamberness: pastoral, idyll, travel, personal diaries or letters.
Reliance on the natural principles (the cultivation of feelings) and staying in the natural environment - in nature - these are the two pillars on which all genres of sentimentalism are based.
Technical and social progress, state, society, history, education - these words in the mainstream of sentimentalism are mostly abusive. Progress as the foundation on which the Enlightenment was built by encyclopedic scientists was considered unnecessary and very harmful, and any manifestations of civilization were harmful to humanity. At least a private rural life was elevated into the cult, and as a maximum, primitive and as wild life as possible.
The genres of sentimentalism did not contain the heroic stories of the past. Everyday, simplicity of impressions filled them. Instead of bright passions, the struggle of vices and virtues, sentimentalism in 18th-century literature presented the purity of feelings and the richness of the inner world of an ordinary person. Most often comes from the third estate, sometimes the origin of anything that is low. Sentimentalism, the definition of democratic pathos in literature, completely denies the class differences imposed by civilization.
The inner world of man: a different view
Concluding the Enlightenment, the new direction, of course, did not go far from enlightening principles. Nevertheless, sentimentalism and classicism in literature are easy to distinguish: among classicist writers, the character is unambiguous, in character - the predominance of a single trait, a mandatory moral assessment.
Sentimentalists showed the hero as an inexhaustible and contradictory person. He could combine both genius and villainy, since from birth both good and evil are embedded in him. Moreover, nature is a good start, civilization is evil. A monosyllabic assessment most often does not fit the actions of the hero of a sentimentalist work. He may well be a villain, but he is never absolute, for he always has the opportunity to listen to nature and return to the path of good.
It is this didacticity, and sometimes tendentiousness, that sentimentalism is firmly and firmly connected with the era that gave rise to it.
Cult of feelings and subjectivity
The main genres of sentimentalism are highly related to the subject, in this way they are most fully able to show the movements of the human heart. These are novels in letters, these are elegy, diaries, memoirs and all that allows you to tell in the first person.
The author does not detach from the subject that he depicts, and his reflection is the most important element of the narrative. The structure is also more free, the literary canons do not constrain the imagination, the composition is arbitrary, and there are as many lyrical digressions as possible.
Born in the tenth years on the shores of England, the main genres of sentimentalism by the second half of the century had already blossomed throughout Europe. Most vividly - in England, France, Germany and Russia.
England
The lyrics first introduced the lines of sentimentalism in literature. The most prominent representatives: the follower of the theorist of classicism Nicola Boileau - James Thomson, who devoted his elegy to English nature, full of pessimism; founder of the "cemetery" poetry Edward Jung; supporting the theme of the Scottish Robert Blair with the poem "Grave" and Thomas Gray with the elegy composed in a rural cemetery. For all these authors, the main idea is the equality of people before Death.
Then - and most fully - the lines of sentimentalism in literature were revealed by the genre of the novel. Samuel Richardson decisively broke with the traditions of adventure, adventurous and roguish novel, writing the novel in letters. Lawrence Stern became the “father” of the direction after writing the novel “Sentimental Journey through France and Italy by Mr. Yorick,” which gave the name to the direction. The peak of critical English sentimentalism is rightfully considered the work of Oliver Goldsmith.
France
The most classical form of sentimentalism is observed in the first third of the eighteenth century in France. De Marivo was at the very origins of such prose, describing the life of Marianne and the peasant who came out in people. Abbot Prevost enriched the palette of feelings described in literature - passion leading to disaster.
The culmination of sentimentalism in France is Jean-Jacques Rousseau with his epistolary novels. Nature in his works is self-valuable, man is natural. The novel "Confession" is the most frank autobiography in world literature.
De Saint-Pierre, a student of Rousseau, went on to substantiate the truth that the main genres of sentimentalism preach: the happiness of man in harmony with virtue and nature. He anticipated the flowering of the "exotic" in romanticism, depicting tropical lands beyond distant seas.
Also did not give up the position of followers of Russo and J.-S. Mercier, clashing in the novel "Savage" primitive (ideal) and civilizational forms of existence. Mercier defined the fruits of civilization as a publicist in the "Picture of Paris".
Self-taught writer de La Bretonne (two hundred volumes of essays!) Is one of the most devoted followers of Rousseau. He wrote about how destructive the urban environment is, turning a moral and pure young man into a criminal, and also discussed the ideas of pedagogy in terms of women's education and upbringing.
With the onset of revolutions, the lines of sentimentalism in literature naturally disappeared. The genres of sentimentalism in literature have been enriched by new realities.
Germany
A new look at literature in Germany was formed under the influence of G.-E. Lessing. It all started with the polemics of professors at the University of Zurich Bodmer and Breitinger with an ardent supporter of classicism - the German Gottshed. The Swiss stood for poetic fantasy, but the German did not agree.
F.-G. Klopstock strengthened the position of sentimentalism with the help of folklore: medieval Germanic traditions were easily intertwined with the feelings of the Germanic heart. But the heyday of German sentimentalism came only in the seventies of the 18th century in connection with the work to create national original literature by the participants of the Storm and Onslaught movement.
In his young years, belonged to I.-V. Goethe. Goethe's "sufferings of young Werther" poured provincial German literature into pan-European literature. The dramatic impact of "Storm and Onslaught" is borne by the dramas of I.-F. Schiller.
Russia
Russian sentimentalism was discovered by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin - "Letters of a Russian Traveler", "Poor Lisa" - masterpieces of sentimental prose. Sensitivity, melancholy, craving for suicide - the main features of sentimentalism in literature - at Karamzin combined with many other innovations. He became the founder of a group of Russian writers who fought against the grandiloquent archaic of the syllable and for a new poetic language. To this group belonged I. I. Dmitriev, V. A. Zhukovsky and others.