【正文】 the individual temperament. 　Sentimentalism I. The nature of SentimentalismvSentimentalism is one of the important trends in English literature of the middle and later decades of the 18th Along with a new vision of love, sentimentalism presented a new view of human nature which prized feeling over thinking, passion over reason, and personal instincts of pity, tenderness, and benevolence over social duties. vLiterary work of the sentimentalism, marked by a sincere sympathy for the povertystricken, expropriated peasants, wrote the simple annals of the poor”.vWriters of sentimentalism justly criticized the cruelty of the capitalist relations and the gross social injustices brought about by the bourgeois But they attacked the progressive aspect of this great social change in order to eliminate it and sighed for the return of the patriarchal times which they Sentimentalism embraces a pessimistic outlook and blames reason and the Industrial Revolution for the miseries and injustices in the aristocraticbourgeois society andindulges in sentiment, hence the definite signs of decadence in the literary works of the sentimental tradition. II. Social background of Sentimentalism vThe bourgeoisie gaining their ascendancy in national politics in England after the two revolutions of 1640 and 1688. vThe handicrafts labour gradually transformed to machine industry in the course of the Industrial Revolution in the middle and later decades of the 18th century vThe new capitalist relations were established. vSharp social contradictions began to take shape and to threaten the shortlived social stability in the early decades of the 18th century. vThe continuous, largescale enclosures of land resulted in rural bankruptcy. vThe poverty and misery of the exploited and unemployed labouring masses in the cities increased. vThe Enlightenment which believed in educating the people to be kind and righteous and upheld reason as the cureall for all social wrongs and miseries declined. vAll this led to skepticism and disbelief in the myth about the bourgeois society as the best of all possible worlds vLack of a better or more sound substitute for reason as the instrument to reform the nonetoosatisfactory or even highly unsatisfactory society, sentiment or even an overdose of sentiment was indulged in at least as a sort of relief if not as a salvo for the grieves and heartaches felt toward the world\39。 In the later decades of the century, strains of sentimentalism may still be found in a number of the poems of William Cowper. vIn English drama of the century, the true founder of sentimental edy has often been traced back to Richard Steele whose edies The Lying Lover (1703) and The Conscious Lovers contained elements of sentimentalism as a sort of reaction to the immoral edies of manners of the Restoration period. vin the field of prose fiction that sentimentalism had its most outstanding expression, Oliver Goldsmith\39。s external action to the theme. Early in the development of the fictional narrative, symbolism was often produced through allegory, giving the literal event and its allegorical counterpart a onetoone correspondence.　　In John Bunyan\39。s Progress, for example, everything and everyone stands for something else. The protagonist Christian, to no one\39。 his goal, the Celestial City, stands for Heaven。s fellow travelers Mr. Feeblemind, Greatheart, and the like represent not individual characters but states of being.　　Allegory is undoubtedly the simplest way of fleshing out a theme, but it is also the least emotionally satisfying because it makes things a little too easy on the reader. We feel that we are being lectured to。s almost as if the author is stopping every sentence or two to say, Now pay special attention to this, because if you don\39。t get the point. Essentially, allegory insults our intelligence.　　Allegory also, however, limits our perceptions. The best works of literature are those in which an element of mystery remains those which lend themselves to a variety of interpretations. Strict allegory seldom does this, which is why religious allegory is generally less satisfying than the scriptural story on which it was based.　　To take allegory to the next higher level, we arrive at something that for want of a better term can be called symbolism. At this level, there is still a form of correspondence, and yet it is not so onetoone, and certainly not so blatant. Whereas allegory operates very consciously, symbolism operates on the level of the unconscious. This does not mean that the author himself is unconscious of the process of creating symbolism merely that we, as readers, accept its input without really understanding how it works.　　In Shakespeare\39。s whole life has bee unreal。s murderer. The motif of the actors is a symbol for the unreality of Hamlet\39。s novel The Great Gatsby, there is the famous scene of the Valley of Ashes where Tom Buchanan\39。s soul。s actions and knows the interior of his heart, but ominously seems powerless to intervene.　　Other famous symbols are Melville\39。 Dante\39。 and Coleridge\39。egotistical sublime\39。Monk\39。 and Active / Revolutionary Romantic poets represented by those younger poets — Byron, Shelley and Keats, firm supporters of French Revolution, who expressed the aspiration of the labouring classes and set themselves against the bourgeois society and the ruling class, as they bore a deep hatred for the wicked exploiters and oppressors and had an intensive love for liberty. Women novelists appeared in this period and assumed for the first time an important place in English literature.Mrs Ann Radcliffe (17641823) was one of the most successful writers of the school of exaggerated romance. Jane Austen offered us her charming descriptions of everyday life in her enduring work. The greatest historical novelist Sir Walter Scott also appeared in this period. He praised Jane\39