 | Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition: Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Lamb Subjects: Dickens Charles 1812–1870 -- Criticism and interpretation; English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism; Sentimentalism in literature; 'Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition' is a timely study of the 'sentimental' in Dickens's novels, which places them in the context of the tradition of Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Goldsmith, Sheridan and Lamb. This study re-evaluates Dickens's presentation of emotion - first within the eighteenth-century tradition and then within the dissimilar nineteenth-century tradition - as part of a complex literary heritage that enables him to critique nineteenth-century society. The book sheds light on the construction of feelings and of the 'good heart', ideas which resonate with current critical debates about literary 'affect'. Sentimentalism, as the text demonstrates, is crucial to understanding fully the achievement of Dickens and his contemporaries. Valerie Purton is Reader in Victorian Literature at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. |
