The British Sentimental Novel

 The sentimental novel began in the eighteenth century in England as a reaction against excessive logic and reason of the Augustan authors who followed the trend of the Enlightment: These authors reflected the cultural and socioeconomic content of the since the established parliament along the constitutional monarch, the development of trade, travels and explorations and industry. In the epoch the English literature were influenced by economists, scientists and philosophers such as David Hume, John Locke, Isaac Newton and Adam Smith which highlighted a liberal and optimistic view on human´s progress. In the context of a alternative powers in the government of Tories and Wigs, without political turmoils but stability built on laws and property and the flourishing English overseas empire and trade of sugar, tabacco, tea and other staples to be manufactured in the homeland in a thriving industry, the number of readers increased due to free press in newspapers and pamphlets and debates in clubs and coffee houses.

London was one an important and active capital city in Europe and the British saw themselves as cultural descendants of Romans during the peaceful period of emperor Augustus in a similiar Golden Age in every field from economics to literature, there are poets such as Alexander Pope who wrote polished poetry with wit and irony although he wrote a gothic poem "Eloise to Abelard" in 1717 with Gothic traits, most authors turned into novelists like Daniel Defoe who write "Robinson Crusoe" in 1719 a realistic novel in which he proves that through reason and hard work a shipwreck survivor can thrive in an island. Jonathan Swift with his masterpiece "Gulliver´s Travels"(1726) misunderstood as a child or travel novel though he used satire to mock the ludicrous reasons of European warfare. Laurence Sterne wrote a novel "Tristam Shandy" full of digressions in form and content in psychological approach to diverse themes. The writer Samuel Richardson succeeded with the epistolary novel dealing with the emotions and event told through letters of a virtuous young woman due to an ample audience once literacy among women mainly had increased, there was a niche market of female readers eager to read about emotions, love, virtue or moral and socioeconomic problems affecting another woman. Because Richardson´s novel "Pamela or Virtue Rewarded" was a success, other authors like Henry Fielding continued the trend with the twist of humour and mockery of virtues and the picaresque protagonists of the Scottish author Tobias Smollet such as the adventures of Roderick Random or Peregrine Pickle. Besides the sentimentality of the epistolary novels there was an increasing demand of ghost and terror stories with usually young innocent heroines in dreary forests or castles such as "The castle of Otranto", "The monk", "Vathek"...and there were many successful female writers such as Clara Reeve, Sophia Lee, Anne Radcliffe and Mary Shelley at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The industrial revolution and the revolutions of America and France provocked the change in taste in the craze for an escape of the reality into exotic, past, mythical epochs and natural and wild landscapes such as the novels written by Sir Walter Scott and James Mcpherson and the quest of Celtic bards and heroes such the Celtic poet Oshene. The satire and rationalism gave way to the emotion and reflection of the poetry of Thomas Gray in his masterpiece "Elegy written in country churchyard" reflecting about the humble lives of humble people and the graveyard poets which found inspiration in modest themes such as children, birds, outcast and poor people as a reaction against the elitism and classicism of Augustan poets.