Sympathy, Sensibility and the Literature of Feeling in the Eighteenth Century

by Ildiko Csengei

What makes it possible for self-interest, cruelty and violence to become part of the benevolent, compassionate ideology of eighteenth-century sensibility? This book explores forms of emotional response, including sympathy, tears, swoons and melancholia through a range of eighteenth-century literary, philosophical and scientific texts.

280 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2011