Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 823.6 EAN: 9780192840325 ISBN: 0192840320 Label: Oxford University Press, USA Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 160 Publication Date: January 03, 2002 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Sales Rank: 582664 Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
Product DescriptionMackenzie's hugely popular novel of 1771 is the foremost work of the sentimental movement, in which sentiment and sensibility were allied with true virtue, and sensitivity is the mark of the man of feeling. The hero, Harley, is followed in a series of episodes demonstrating his benevolence in an uncaring world: he assists the down-trodden, loses his love, and fails to achieve worldly success. The novel asks a series of vital questions: what morality is possible in a complex commercial world? Does trying to maintain it make you a saint or a fool? Is sentiment merely a luxury for the leisured classes?
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Well-written but fairly choppy
Mr. Harley is indeed a non-traditional hero- instead of trying to make his way in the world, he seems to care little about getting ahead and prefers to devote his time to helping the less fortunate and hearing their (usually) tragic stories. The stories themselves are very compelling (especially that of Miss Atkins and her father), but they seem to have little connection to each other than that they are being told to Mr. Harley. The ending also seems a little abrupt, though it is certainly sad and ... Read More
Rating: - The Man of Feeling
Henry Mackenzie's 1771 novel, "The Man of Feeling," is a preeminent locus of a number of mid-to-late eighteenth-century discourses: sentiment, sensibility, sympathy, and moral philosophy. A fragmentary work, "The Man of Feeling" is ostensibly a biography of one Mr. Harley, written in tribute by his friend Charles, and put together by an anonymous editor. Harley is a man of the lesser gentry, propertied, but not wealthy. His greatest concerns revolve around his heightened ability to sympathize with ... Read More
- Well-written but fairly choppy
- The Man of Feeling
