ABSTRACT
The function of the novel remained the study of man and his manners and morals. The most notable developments are those due to emphasis on the emotions or sentiments of men-and of women!—rather than on their rational endowments. But just as the light of reason was regarded as uniform in all rightminded men, so were the sentiments of the heart. Rousseau’s Julie reproaches her lover for his preoccupation with “those peculiarities of manners and decorum, which ten years hence will no longer exist” and for his neglect of “the unalterable springs of the human heart, the constant and secret workings of the passions.” It is these last which, under the influence of Richardson and Rousseau, engrossed novelists increasingly, though study of manners was by no means excluded. Manners were found interesting among humble folk as well as among aristocrats, in domestica facta as well as in foreign society.2 The problem of how far the particular (the trivial, novelists and critics termed it frequently) might augment or diminish universality was seldom faced by writers. They seem, however, conscious that changeable manners and values that were only relative possessed the appeal of novelty and diversity. Strange Rousseauistic moral ideas crept into novels. Julie avowed, “My virtue is unblemished, and my love has left behind no remorse. I glory in my past life.” But such a view was foreign to English sense of decorum; no English heroine of comparable behavior thus regarded her eccentricities. If highly particular psychological reactions were to be depicted, they must normally be kept in some way “universal.” So
Manners, Morals, and Sentiments
Sterne managed his Shandean sentiments; so Fanny Burney shaped her notorious and specialized “character-mongering.”
