The Politics of Sensibility Race, Gender and Commerce in the Sentimental Novel

The sentimental novel has long been noted for its liberal and humanitarian interests. In The Politics of Sensibility Markman Ellis argues that sentimental fiction also consciously participated in specific political controversies of the late eighteenth century, including emerging arguments about the ethics of slavery, the morality of commerce, and the movement to reform prostitutes. He shows that sentimental fiction was a public as well as a private genre, and that the very form of the novel was recognized as a political tool of cultural significance.

The sentimental novel has long been noted for its liberal and humanitarian interests, but also for its predilection for refined feeling, the privilege it accords emotion over reason, and its preference for the private over the public sphere. In The Politics of Sensibility, however, Markman Ellis argues that sentimental fiction also consciously participated in some of the most keenly contested public controversies of the late eighteenth century, including the emergence of anti-slavery opinion, discourse on the morality of commerce, and the movement for the reformation of prostitutes. By investigating the significance of political material in the fictional text, and by exploring the ways in which the novels themselves take part in historical disputes, Ellis shows that the sentimental novel was a political tool of considerable cultural significance.

1. Sensibility, history and the novel; 2. 'The house of bondage': sentimentalism and the problem of slavery; 3. 'Delight in misery': sentimentalism, amelioration and slavery; 4. 'An easy, speedy and universal medium': canals, commerce and virtue; 5. 'Recovering the path of virtue': the politics of prostitution and the sentimental novel; 6. 'The dangerous tendency of novels' and the controversy of sentimentalism.

Markman Ellis contests the enduring view that the sentimental novel is concerned only with displays of refined feeling. He analyses such fiction's engagement in public controversies of the late eighteenth century: emerging anti-slavery opinion, discourse on the morality of commerce, and the movement to reform prostitution.