‘Eene zoete ontroering van medelyden’

Ondertitel:sentimentalisme in Hendrik Consciences zedenromans

By interpreting the novels of the Belgian author Hendrik Conscience (1812-1883) as exponents of 19th-century sentimentalism, this dissertation aims to provide a more transnational and historicizing perspective on the use of pathos in his works. Starting from the premise that the use of sentimentalist conventions was an important factor to the national and international popularity of Conscience’s novels in the 19th century, the study investigates the strategic and ideological functioning of the sentimentalist rhetoric in a selection of Conscience’s novels of manners and tracks evolutions in his use of this rhetoric between 1841 and 1881. Furthermore, the study seeks to historicize the association between sentimentalism and ‘popular’ literature that has often been made about Conscience's novels. It does so by analyzing evolutions in the reception of the selected novels and by interpreting these evolutions in relation to the growing prestige of the novel as a genre within the Flemish-Belgian literary system. Combining insights from polysystem theory and literary discourse analysis, the dissertation demonstrates that the sentimentalist rhetoric remains important to the strategic and ideological functioning of Conscience’s novels of manners throughout his career, even though sentimentalist models became more ‘peripheral’ during the second half of the 19th-century. The reception of Conscience’s works shows that his sentimentalist rhetoric was considered fashionable in the 1840s, but became increasingly associated with ‘popular’ literature later on. In the nationalistically oriented Flemish-Belgian literary system, however, Conscience’s sentimentalism gained a different kind of cultural prestige from the 1870s onwards as it was viewed as a crucial instrument in reaching and educating Flemish reading audiences. This association between sentimentalism and a ‘national’, ‘popular’ literature has remained dominant in the image of Conscience and his works throughout the twentieth century. As a result, the artistic and moral appeal that once emanated from this kind of sentimentalist literature becomes difficult to imagine, and with it the role of this type of novel in the growing dominance of the novel genre around the mid-19th century. By focusing on the sentimentalist rhetoric in Conscience's novels of manners and their literary resonance at the time, this dissertation reassesses the literary-historical significance of his oeuvre in both national and international literary contexts.

Jaar van publicatie:2021

Trefwoorden:Doctoral thesis

Toegankelijkheid:Closed