Ashley Merrill and Luke Mills
English 563
Dr. John Morillo
Introduction
Much of the critical scholarship on Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling focuses on the question of genre. In April London’s article, for example, Mackenzie’s use of genre is “enabled by the prescriptive force of customary gender distinctions” (44). Matthew Wickman narrows his focus of genre to the “core” genre of the novel and the “peripheral” genre of the romance and he discusses the difficulty that eighteenth-century novelists experienced in trying to navigate a way between these two well-established genres.
Critical scholarship on The Man of Feeling has also been quite interested in understanding the exact nature of sentimentalism. In his article “Benevolent Vision: The Ideology of Sentimentality in Contemporary Illustrations of A Sentimental Journey and The Man of Feeling,” W.B. Gerard actually delineates five different types of sentiment and he reveals how four of these types were represented in the early illustrations of The Man of Feeling and Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey. Similarly, Mark Wildermuth shows a particular interest in the nature of sentimentalism, especially its practical feasibility. Paul Duke and Eric Sterling see Emily the prostitute as Mary Magdalene, Harley as imitating Christ, and thus Harley and Christ were both men of feeling. For David Fairer, sentimental translation is about the intersection between the ideal and the material, between the mental and the physical, and Mackenzie and Sterne's characters are intrigued and driven by that interaction. Finally, in Susan Manning's article, emerging theories on dreams, nightmares, somnambulism, and the like, in the Scottish Enlightenment, inform interpretations of Mackenzie and Brown's works and their characters as signifiers of such visions themselves, with particular attention to the moral responsibility of the dreamer for what he dreams.
Duke, Paul and Eric Sterling. "Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling." Explicator 55.2 (1997): 74-76.
Paul Duke's short article on The Man of Feeling concentrates on the rather interesting hypothesis that, in the text, the prostitute Emily Atkins serves as a stand-in for Mary Magdalene. To extend the metaphor, this means that Emily's interaction with Harley mirrors that between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. Duke supports this argument by saying that Harley, in response to Emily's attempted seduction, "refuses to take advantage of her and instead altruistically offers his help" (74). When the narrator backs off following Harley and Emily into the brothel, Duke says that the narrator misinterprets Harley's action and intention as those of an infatuated man, instead of seeing them for what they are: the acts of a virtuous man who sometimes lowers himself to mingle with the sinful and associate with the socially disenfranchised, "to restore them to virtue" (74). Duke even goes so far as to compare the narrator of The Man of Feeling to a Pharisee who asks Christ why He permitted Mary to touch Him. Emily, then, is touched by Harley's virtue, and moved to repentance. Only after Emily tearfully tells him that she hasn't eaten in two days, does Harley's sympathy for her plight make her equal to him. Duke concludes that "The paradigm of compassion, repentance, and forgiveness correlates in these two stories: Mackenzie employs this parallel to heighten the reader's sympathy for Emily Atkins and admiration for Harley" (75). He also cautions us not to equate Harley to Christ, just to see the way Harley can be identified with Christ, and reminds us that sentiment is important as a Christian virtue.
This article would probably be useful to anyone writing about Emily Atkins, or flattering explanations for Harley's completely innocent presence with her in the brothel. The article provides a good amount of scriptural reference to back up the claims, but does not address anything outside the interaction between Harley and Emily.
Fairer, David. "Sentimental Translation in Mackenzie and Sterne." Essays in Criticism 49.2 (1999): 132-152.
David Fairer's article focuses on Mackenzie's Man of Feeling and Sterne's A Sentimental Journey, with many supporting appearances from Tristram Shandy. Fairer takes up the Sentimentalist focus on the moment when the physical touches the mental: moments when an idea is translated into being, when the observation of an event provokes emotions or even tears. According to Fairer, "The eighteenth-century sentimentalist was expected to be a skilled interpreter of non-verbal communication" (132), as Harley fancies himself to be when he practices physiognomy. Interpretation of that nature is the act of turning a physical expression into a meaning; it is another instance of that connection between the physical and the spiritual. Sensibility followed the Cartesian dualism of the mind and body, to theories of the organic developed in the eighteenth century. Fairer cites theorists of sensibility Walter Jackson Bate and G. J. Barker-Benfield, as "stressing the integration of mental and physical" (133). Robert Markley saw "Sensibility as social performance" (133), with its gestures as indications of virtues inherent and internal to the expressor. Fairer then goes on to discuss additional medical theorists[1], expounding their various hypotheses, before going on to Locke's principles. In reference to our friend Harley and The Man of Feeling, Fairer focuses primarily on the introductory frame of the book, where the narrator happens upon the "found text" of the novel while hunting with the curate. Fairer makes a good deal out of the slippage, emphasis on a "token" and the idea of a physical object "belonging" in proximity to certain scenes, storage and meditation, romantic sentiments and the Wordsworthian "spot of time" (139), and the notion that "absence and disappointment make the mind alert and more open to experience" (139). In that way, Fairer sees the discovered and abused text as the perfect sentimental ideal; the material is of the absolute necessity to the true sentimentalist. "The ideal sentimental text/object bears transferred human meanings as a surrogate undergoing suffering or humiliation" (140). Fairer also addresses the problem of money entering what he calls the emotional economy, where "the tribute of feeling is paid in tears or coin" (143). Fairer pays particular attention to the exchange when Harley lets a coin fall from his fingers, only to be snatched up by the beggar's trained dog; the fall of the coin becomes a Miltonic Fall, with the coin literally traveling from the hands of innocence to those of experience. However, any consequence to Harley's sentimental act are obfuscated behind a line of asterisks. Just as the coin falls from Harley's fingers, meaning cannot be contained and naturally slips when one tries to cage it. Sentimentalist texts, Fairer says, find this kind of discontinuity exciting (147).
Fairer brings up some of the same ideas that are later addressed in Susan Manning's article on the Scottish Enlightenment's explanation of dreams and why they happen, and while Fairer doesn't go as in-depth as he could with, for example, a close reading (his reading of the opening frame, while compelling, still doesn't quite address many of the ostensibly sentimental interactions in the inner text itself), his exploration of the ideas which could inform a reading of The Man of Feeling are definitely interesting. This article would also be of some use to anyone seeking to trace the influences of the Scottish Enlightenment on Sterne's later works.
Gerard, W.B. “Benevolent Vision: The Ideology of Sentimentality in Contemporary Illustrations of A Sentimental Journey and The Man of Feeling.” Eighteenth-Century Fiction. 14 (2002): 533-74.
In this article, Gerard examines and analyzes pre-1810 illustrations taken from Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey and Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling. Gerard’s specific purpose is to “demonstrate [the illustrations’] tendency towards the depiction of ethical behavior that is seemingly recommended by the texts” (534).
Gerard is interested in analyzing these illustrations according to their operation in the “social, domestic, pathetic, and erotic spheres” (538) of the two novels. As an example of an illustration residing within the social sphere, Gerard points in particular to a visual rendering of Harley’s discovery of the sleeping Edwards in The Man of Feeling. This illustration conveys social sentiment by means of its “public venue”—a road, in this case—which is “associated with random meetings” (540). Gerard claims that such a sentimental, public interaction is supposed to reinforce Harley’s claim that “we are all relations” (qtd. in Gerard, 540).
As one example of an illustration within the domestic sphere of sentiment, Gerard analyzes illustrator Richard Newton’s portrayal of “The Grace” in A Sentimental Journey. This illustration of a country dance works to reconcile class differences by its selection of subjects and its domestic setting. The subjects in the illustration are from different social strata and yet they joyfully interact. The domestic setting of a stone farmhouse also extends an invitation to guests.
Gerard very specifically defines pathetic sentiment as “an exchange between a suffering being and a sympathetic listener or viewer” (554). He offers an illustration by Thomas Stothard of “Yorick contemplating the caged starling” (556) as one example (among several) of this particular sentiment. In this illustration, Yorick, himself standing within a cage-like structure, gazes thoughtfully at a caged starling and appears to pity the suffering of the bird.
Finally, Gerard provides the reader with an illustration by John Thurston of “Yorick and the fille de chamber sitting side by side on [Yorick’s] bed” (563). Scenes of erotic sentiment are supposed to be secluded niches in an otherwise public environment. In this illustration, the private space is a bedroom and Gerard points to specific aspects of the picture to prove the exchange of erotic sentiment between Yorick and the young woman.
This article provides an interesting, fairly detailed view into the genre of the sentimental. Also, anyone interested in researching the visual representations of eighteenth-century fiction would benefit from taking a closer look at Gerard’s essay.
London, April. “Historiography, Pastoral, Novel: Genre in The Man of Feeling.” Eighteenth- Century Fiction. 10 (1997): 43-62.
London claims that Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling deserves special critical attention because “it engages the conventions of other, competing genres in highly revealing ways” (43). In particular, she asserts that “customary gender distinctions” influenced Mackenzie’s peculiar synthesis of historiography, pastoral, and novel.
In speaking about historiography and its relation to Mackenzie’s work, London reiterates much of what Harkin says in her introduction to The Man of Feeling. That is, Mackenzie structures his novel so that it has the appearance of actual historical documents. However, unlike some Enlightenment historians, he eschews any commentary on the documents comprising the novel, trusting the reader, rather, to notice “the corrosive effects of time” and sympathize with the characters “who are its victims” (45).
London goes on to claim that Mackenzie makes an effort to associate his work with the pastoral in order to avoid having his work labeled, like many novels, as “perniciously effeminizing” (46). Mackenzie employs the pastoral form to identify himself with a male elite audience, and to “identify an aversion to change” (49). London is especially interested in Harley’s pastoral poem “Lavinia” because its form and its content (a lament over a duplicitous woman) are both nods to a male audience.
This article would work well for anyone interested in the relation of literature (The Man of Feeling, in this case) to gender. Also, anyone interested in a discussion of eighteenth-century genre would most likely find this article of some use.
Manning, Susan L. "Enlightenment's Dark Dreams: Two
Fictions of Henry Mackenzie and Charles Brockden Brown." Eighteenth-Century
Life 21.3 (1997): 39-57.
Susan Manning's article does not directly address The Man of Feeling. Instead, Manning
discusses Mackenzie's ostensibly epistolary novel, Julia de Roubigné, through the lens of Enlightenment theories on
nightmares, dreaming, and somnambulism. Manning spends a great deal of time
traveling through the development of those theories. She begins with Andrew
Baxter, who disdained the notion that any part of the mind may be hidden from
any other part; in other words, he said that common sense debunked the notion
of the subconscious mind. Instead, he argued that dreams, since the mind does
not create them, must be necessarily from outside it, and blames dreams on
spirits. Later philosophers went on to find a somatic explanation for dreams, more
especially nightmares; they saw deep, uninterrupted and dreamless sleep as the
symptom of a healthy mind, and dreams as the symptoms of a diseased one.
However, they did draw a distinction between madness for which one should be
institutionalized, and madness which was simply limited to bad dreams. Probably
from a sense of necessity, they declared that bad dreams weren't enough to
warrant institutionalization. However, they also went on to try to find the
same mind (or soul)/body connection which Fairer traces in his article. Are we
personally responsible for our dreams? This question goes on to color the
discussion of sentimental fiction; if the characters themselves are, as Manning
suggests, good and virtuous people who happen to find themselves in less than
perfect situations, they can't be responsible for those situations, and
"If none are guilty, all are equally complicit" (48). Reason and any
assistance it can bring are alien from the aims of sentimental fiction, and its
exemplars function on nothing but their "diseased emotions" (48). The
world is a bad dream, and we do all we can to function within it.
This article delves a good deal into medical theory of the early eighteenth century, and the connection between the Scottish Enlightenment and certain American philosophers, including Benjamin Franklin. Even though Manning doesn't directly discuss The Man of Feeling, her ideas, especially of these characters basically existing in a waking nightmare and making the best of it, seem especially suited to an interpretation of Harley and even the fragmentary nature of the book itself.
Wickman, Matthew. “Of Probability, Romance, and the Spatial Dimensions of Eighteenth- Century Narrative.” Eighteenth-Century Fiction. 15 (2002): 59-80.
Wickman is particularly interested in what he calls “core/periphery” issues in eighteenth-century English novels. To introduce the issue, he first refers to Walter Scott’s novels and claims that his works effectively establish a “Modern British core” and a “‘romantic’ Celtic periphery” (59). Wickman claims that increased globalization has resulted in a loss of the vocabulary associated with the discussion of core and periphery but he continues to think that the core/periphery distinction is useful when looking at eighteenth-century fiction, particularly Frances Burney’s Evelina, Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling, and Jane Austen’s early novella, Love and Freindship.[2]
Wickman is interested in discussing the “core” of eighteenth-century fiction as the genre of the novel and the “periphery” as the genre of romance. Frances Burney makes this distinction clear when she discusses her own work, Evelina, in the context of her contemporaries’ writings. She claims a unique place for her novel (and novels in general) between the “core” of the belles lettres of Johnson, Fielding, Richardson, etc. and the peripheral works of the romance writers. One way in which she distinguishes the novel from the other genres is by referring to the novel’s “sober probability” (61). As Wickman says, Burney attempts to situate her work “somewhere between the normative and the fantastic” (61).
The institution of “sober probability” creates a problem for the novel, because it deprives it of both “the authority of the truth” and “the allure of fictive transcendence” (65). According to Wickman, Mackenzie and Austen see this lack and compensate for it by reintegrating the romantic back into their own work. In The Man of Feeling, for example, “Mackenzie’s novel manifests . . . a fascination with the peripheral nature of romance and its modern valences of ruin” and “in order to underscore its captivation with the experience of romance, [it] also renounces a probabilistic, Fieldingesque narrative economy (in which we are guided by the alternately visible and invisible hand of the narrator) in favor of a series of sentimental tableaux” (73).
This article would be especially helpful for anyone interested in writing about the “different” genres of the novel and romance [3] and the dialectical, or perhaps complementary, relationship between them.
Wildermuth, Mark E. “The Rhetoric of Common Sense and Uncommon Sensibility in Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling.” Lamar Journal of the Humanities 23.2 (1997): 35-47.
According to Wildermuth, recent critical scholarship has, unconsciously or not, portrayed Mackenzie’s sentimental work as opposed to any kind of prudential behavior. Wildermuth claims that such a view of Mackenzie’s work is mistaken and that, in fact, “Mackenzie uses a rhetoric of Common Sense and sentiment to teach prudence and sound moral judgment” (36). Critics have gotten it wrong, in particular, by attributing so much influence to Adam Smith on the fiction of Mackenzie. Wildermuth also notes that critics fail to mention that Smith’s philosophy had, besides a focus on human sentiment, an “equal emphasis on prudence, self-control and rational conscientiousness” (36).
Critics also forget the influence of Common-Sense philosopher Thomas Reid on the thinking and writing of Henry Mackenzie. According to Wildermuth, “Reid believes that reason, judgment, and induction play important roles in any system of inquiry, something vital to Mackenzie’s aesthetic and moral philosophy” (37). Wildermuth then turns to look at some of Mackenzie’s own non-fiction work dealing with sentiment in prudence. One particular quote taken from Mackenzie’s work is illuminating: “The decisions of sentiment are subject to the control of prudence, and the ties of friendship are subordinate to the obligations of duty” (39). Prudence is also evident in the text of The Man of Feeling. Wildermuth points to the scene in which Harley is labeled “an infamous coward” by Emily Atkins father. Harley, instead of basing his reaction on pure emotion, shows good judgment (prudence) in checking his temper and attempting to reason with the young woman’s father.
This article would be useful for anyone interested in doing research on the Scottish Enlightenment. Special attention is paid to Adam Smith and Thomas Reid. Excerpts from Henry Mackenzie’s non-fiction work may also prove useful to the researcher.
[1] Jerome Gaub (1705-80), Leyden professor,1747 lecture on mind-body interaction; Robert Whytt, Professor of Medicine at Edinburgh, late 1740s sentient principle ("an immaterial, undivided substance that could 'feel' stimuli and necessarily directed the appropriate response"); George Cheyne's The Natural Method of Cureing the Diseases of the Body, and the Disorders of the Mind Depending On the Body (1742); David Hartley's "infinitesimal elementary Body to be intermediate between the Soul and gross Body"; William Smith's "connecting medium" between mind and matter; L.J. Rather's question over how any mental exercise of the will can control the body; David Hume's treatment of the same question.
[2] Austen’s spelling
[3] Wickman includes an interesting footnote in which he references Margaret Anne Doody’s assertion that “Romance and the Novel are [and have always been] one” (78). Perhaps there is something to Doody’s claim; after all, Wickman makes it fairly obvious that the novelists under discussion could not seem to extricate themselves from the romance genre.