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The Reaction Against Melodramatic Sentimentality in The English Novel, 1796–1830

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Winfield H. Rogers
Winfield H. Rogers*
Affiliation:
Western Reserve University
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Extract

The purpose of this study is to set forth the reaction that occurred in novelistic form, and in novels, both in prefaces and in the body of the works, to melodramatic sentimentality in the English novel between 1796–1830. The term melodramatic sentimentality is subject to objection. It includes those things most often reacted to: the romantic, the sentimental, the gothic—in fact, all the unrealistic and unnatural elements that had been incorporated into the novel. But it does not include those novels which were unrealistic because their authors were unfamiliar with their subject matter.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 1934 , pp. 98 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1934

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References

1 James R. Foster demonstrates the essential oneness of the novel of “sensibility” and “gothic” novel in “The Abbé Prevost and the English Novel,” PMLA, xlii, 443 ff.

2 James R. Foster, “Charlotte Smith, Pre-Romantic Novelist,” PMLA, xliii, 465.

3 Cf. Joseph Bunn Heidler, “The History, from 1700 to 1800, of English Criticism of Prose Fiction,” Univ. of Ill. Studies in Language and Literature, xiii (1928), 170.

4 Frederick T. Blanchard, Fielding the Novelist, a Study in Historical Criticism (1926), Chap. xi, pp. 271–300.

5 Dr. Frances Theresa Russel in her work Satire in the Victorian Novel (1920) speaks of the Victorian novel as representing the “marriage of a satiric Medway and a fictional Thames …” (p. 41).—Rather it represents the progeny of the marriage.

5a Mr. J. M. S. Tompkins in The Popular Novel in England 1770–1800 (1932) indicates (cf., particularly, Ch. v) that by 1800 the process of purging the novel of its unhealthy falsities, such as melodrama, sentimentality, and conventionally exalted heroes and heroines, and that of re-introducing realism, was accomplished. The number of reactions set forth in this article indicates that the objects of attack in the first thirty years of the century could not have been merely “straw men.” Furthermore my own investigation in the popular novel indicate that such was by no means the case.

5b Tompkins (ibid. p. 207 and n. 1, p. 211) indicates that in isolated cases, in 1770, 1788, 1790, critics through the influence of Mrs. Lennox reacted fairly sharply to the recrudescence of the older romance formula. (Cf. also, ibid., pp. 60 and 61.) Further reactions in the last ten years of the century and in 1800 are noted by Mr. Tompkins on pp. 211, 212, 213. Mr. Tompkins especially singles out James White's Earl Strongbow (1789) with its alternating parody and romance. White seems to have inclined progressively to greater parody in dealing with subjects at once gothic and historical (ibid., p. 227, 232, n. 1, 240 and n. 2. Cf. Tompkins, “A Forgotten Humourist,” Review of English Studies, April, 1927).

6 Clara Reeve in The Progress of Romance (1785) had objected to the perverted picture of life that the novel presented, and the pernicious effects of such works, particularly on young women, who are “taught to expect adventures and intrigues …” See Novelists on Novels from the Duchess of Newcastle to George Eliot. Selected with an Introduction by R. Brimley Johnson (1928), 149.—The Wonderful Travels of Prince Fan-Feredin, in the Country of Arcadia. Interspersed with Observations, historical, geographical, physical, critical and moral. Translated from the Original French (1794), is probably a satire on the sentimental-pastoral school.—Mysteries Elucidated (By Mrs. MacKensie)(1795), The Critical Review, xvi (1796), 359, describes as a poor criticism of the gothic novel.—The Critical Review also states, xv (1795), 480, that Memoirs of Mme. de Barneveldt Translated from the French by Miss Gunning (1795), contained some satire of the novel.

7 Previous to Beckford, Richard Cumberland (1732–1811) in Henry (1795), had taken it upon himself to chastize the novelist. He protests against the sentimental (4th ed., 1825, i, v.), against the typical heroine (i, 7), against the idea that the hero must always be good (ii, 217), against unnatural and startling effects as found in the gothic novel (iii, 109 ff.). Cumberland feels that characters must be drawn from life (iii, 112), and protests that, though virtuous, his hero differs from the ordinary in that he is natural, and therefore subject to temptations (iv, 7). Within the limitations of his capabilities and time, Cumberland is one of the earliest novelists to follow Fielding.

8 When Modern Novel Writing was published it was ascribed by one reviewer to Robert Merry! See The Critical Review, xx (1797), 470.—An earlier review stated: “Our author seems, by his rambling, unconnected style, to entend a satire on the obscure desultory, incorrect manner of the inferior modern novelists.” See The Critical Review, xviii (1796), 472.

9 Modern Novel Writing, ii, 9 and 10.

10 The Critical Review, xx (1797), 470.

11 The most important non-fictional attack of this period on the gothic novel was the well known one published in the Anti-Jacobin (1797–1798), The Rovers.

12 The Critical Review, xxiv (1798), 236.

13 More Ghosts, v.

14 Rosella, or Modern Occurrences (1799), i, 9.

15 Ibid., i, 122.

16 Argal, or The Silver Devil, Preface, vii.

17 Novels and Tales (New York, 1832), i, Moral Tales, 6.

18 Old Nick, Preface, xii.

19 Ibid., ii, 115.

20 The Miniature, a Periodical Paper, by Solomon Grildrig (1805), p. 13.

21 Ibid., p. 16.

22 Ibid., p. 17.

23 Juvenile Indiscretions, i, 119.

24 Men and Women (2nd edition, 1807), i, 93.

25 Ibid., iii, 165.

26 Ibid., ii, 67.

27 Lady Morgan was a follower of Maria Edgeworth in that she satirized the English and decadent Irish in Ireland, and the absentee, though she was ever romantic in plot, character treatment, and atmosphere.

28 The Wild Irish Girl, ii, 185.

29 Cf. Blanchard, op. cit., 344.—Blanchard does not cite Letters from England.

30 Letters from England: by Don Manuel Alvarez Esprilla. Translated from the Spanish. Letter lvi.

31 Ibid., Letter lvi.

32 Blanchard, pp. 194–195.

33 Cælebs in Search of a Wife, Preface, x.

34 R. Brimley Johnson, Novelists on Novels, op. cit., p. 151.

35 Ibid., p. 152, 153.

36 The Refusal, ii, 5.

37 Ibid., ii, 22.

38 Self-Control, (2nd. edition, Edinburgh.) i, 85.

39 I'll Consider Of It, i, 7.

40 Ibid., i, 23.

41 Ibid., i, 31.

42 The Heroine, by Eaton Stannard Barrett. With an introduction by Walter Raleigh (Oxford, 1909). The Heroine, by Eaton Stannard Barrett. With an introduction by Michael Sadleir (Stokes, 1927).

43 The Heroine, (1927), p. 26.

44 Ibid., p. 22.

45 Ibid., p. 30.

46 Ibid., p. 53.

47 Ibid., p. 66.

48 Ibid., p. 199.

49 The Heroine, pp. 105–106.

50 Ibid., p. 114.

51 Ibid., p. 113.

52 Ibid., p. 349

53 Introduction, p. 15.—It is interesting to note that Barrett some years before, in satirizing the education of the scions of noble families, said that “Novels supply the place of experience, and give lectures of intrigues and gallantry.” See The Tarantula or the Dance of Fools (1809), i, 62.

54 Conduct, i, 23.

55 O'Donnell, Preface, vii.

56 Ibid., iii, 70.

57 Hardenbrass and Haverill, Editor's Preface, vi.

58 Hardenbrass and Haverill, ii, 153.

59 The Hero, i, 5.—Perhaps a reminiscence of Don Quixote's library.

60 Ibid., i, 82.

61 The Hero, i, 90.

62 Ibid., i, 131.

63 Ibid., i, 97.

64 Six Weeks at Long's, ii, 183.

65 The Sexagenarian, i, 361.

65a The reaction to the excessive sensibility, apart from that in Northanger Abbey, which is found in other of Jane Austen's principal works, particularly in Sense and Sensibility, is not dealt with in the body of this article because to do so would constitute needless repetition of already well known facts. In the instance of Marianne in Sense and Sensibility, however, it should be emphasized that the reaction is a great deal more than incidental.

66 The English Association Pamphlet No. 68 (November, 1927).

67 See his introduction to The Heroine, op. cit.

68 W. and R. A. Austen-Leigh, Jane Austen Her Life and Letters (1913), Chap. xiii, 230–234 and the introductory note by R. W. Chapman to his edition of Jane Austen's Works (Clarendon Press, 1923).

69 Published with a preface by G. K. Chesterton (Chatto & Windus), (New York: Frederick A. Stokes).

70 Love and Freindship, op. cit., p. 8.

71 Ibid., p. 36.

72 Fragment of a Novel, Written by Jane Austen, January-March, 1817 (Clarendon Press, 1925), p. 108.

73 The Halliford Edition of the Works of Thomas Love Peacock, iii, 50.

74 Ibid., iii, 52.

75 Bath, i, 105.

76 Prodigious, i, 127–142.

77 Ibid., i, 127.

78 Prodigious, i, 128.

79 Ibid., i, 129.

80 Prodigious, ii, 287.

81 Happiness, i, 52.

82 'bid., i, 5.

83 Ibid., i, 5.

84 Isn't It Odd? Preface, vi.

85 The Writer's Clerk, i, 10.

86 Granby, i, 71.

87 De Vere (Philadelphia, 1827), Preface, v.

88 Ibid., Preface, vii.

89 Truckleborough Hall, ii, 21.

90 Ibid., ii, 201.

91 Ibid., iii, 41.

92 Rank and Talent, ii, 62.

93 Ibid., iii, 96.

94 The English in France, i, 254.

95 Ibid., i, 255.

96 Ibid., iii, 279.

97 Bulwer's Novels (Boston, 1891), viii, 153.

98 Ibid., iv, 217.

99 Ibid., iv, 217.

100 Ibid., iv, 218.

101 The Oxonians, (New York, 1830) Introduction, v.

102 Ibid., ii, 3.

103 John A. Doyle, Memoirs and Correspondence of Susan Ferrier (London, 1898), p. 192.