Sentimental Men: Masculinity and the Politics of Affect in American Culture

By Mary Chapman

Book Overview

The essays in this volume analyze a wide variety of cultural forms to demonstrate the centrality of masculine sentiment in American literary and cultural history from the early republic to the progressive era. Challenging the association of sentimentality exclusively with femininity in studies of American culture, the contributors analyze sentimentalism not just as a literary genre but as a structure of feeling manifested in many areas: temperance testimonials, begging letters, historiography, philanthropic performance, photography, portraiture, and poetry. Essays from a variety of disciplines-American studies, literature, history, art, gender studies-deconstruct the alignment of reason, commerce, and the public sphere with men, and feelings, domesticity, and the private sphere with women.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520216229
• ISBN13: 9780520216228
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 297 Pages
• Weight: 1.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

An outstanding and challenging collection

This collection explores the intersections of masculinity and sentiment in American culture and literature. While sentimentality may now be associated with the feminine, it originates in the traditionally masculine cult of sentiment, or sensibility, with the late eighteenth-century emergence of the 'man of feeling' exemplified by male writers such as Laurence Sterne. The transition of sentimentality from masculine ideal to feminine disadvantage is deceptively complex and requires cross-disciplinary discussion. Mary Chapman and Glenn Hendler have opened just such a dialogue in gathering papers addressing a wide range of media, including literature, political writings, art and history: this volume offers a considered and balanced representation of cultural expression. The collection showcases innovative directions in gender and American studies by literary and cultural critics, and is an excellent resource for readers interested in the concept of sentimentality. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in American culture generally, or more specifically in constructions of gender in late nineteenth-century and early modern America.