Literary notes about sentimentality (AI summary)
In literary works, "sentimentality" is often deployed as a multifaceted term that can both praise gentle emotional expression and denounce excessive, inauthentic emotionalism. Some writers use it to criticize a superficial, almost stale, display of feeling—suggesting that such sentimentality may choke true art or rational thought, as when it is described as confining creative vigor [1] or as an "idle" quality that overly simplifies truth [2]. In contrast, other passages hint at a kind of fresh, endearing quality in youthful emotion [3], yet even here, caution is advised, with sentimentality being portrayed as a potential hindrance to genuine and thoughtful engagement with life [4, 5]. Thus, the word serves as a flexible critique and a complex descriptor, encompassing both the charm of delicate affection and the danger of overindulgence.
- It's this confounded Anglo-Saxon sentimentality that's choking art—that's what it is."
— from Murder in Any Degree by Owen Johnson - It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth,
— from On Liberty by John Stuart Mill - In his fresh young sentimentality there is a certain charm."
— from Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev - And Rebecca, as we have said, wisely determined not to give way to unavailing sentimentality on her husband's departure.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - If he had had more penetration he would have seen that there was no trace of sentimentality in him, but something indeed quite the opposite.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
