The Man of Feeling (Oxford World's Classics)
by Henry Mackenzie
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Book Summary Information
Author: Henry MackenzieEditor: Brian Vickers
Introduction: Stephen Bending
Introduction: Stephen Bygrave
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-01-03
ISBN: 0192840320
Number of pages: 160
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of The Man of Feeling (Oxford World's Classics)
Book Review: Thomas Jefferson's Favorite Novel?
Summary: 5 Stars
That's merely a speculation. Jefferson certainly read "The Man of Feeling" -- it was an extremely popular book throughout the English-reading world from its publication in 1771 until the latter half of the the next century -- and Jefferson undoubtedly perceived himself as a Man of Feeling, of Sentiment as that concept was understood in the 18th Century. If an effort to understand Thomas Jefferson and others among the American "Founding Fathers" is of interest, it would be worth your while to read "Jefferson's Demons" By Michael Knox Beran, a book analyzes the meaning of Sentiment to people on the cusp of the Romantic reaction to and against the Enlightenment.
Henry Mackenzie's "The Man of Sentiment" is not an easy book to appreciate. I warn you, dear reader, if you haven't read much of 18th C literature -- "A Sentimental Journey" by Laurence Sterne, or Tristram Shandy by the same author, or Goethe's "Sorrows of Young Werther", or the works of Fielding or Goldsmith -- this odd book is NOT the place to start, though the Introduction to the Oxford edition will be of great assistance. "The Man of Feeling" is hardly a novel at all, in the usual narrative sense. It's a fictive memoir -- deliberately fragmentary -- of the life of 'Harley', a man of more character than accomplishment, written by an admiring neighbor about whom we learn nothing, and partly rescued from destruction by yet another man of sentiment who presents himself as the 'editor'. The memoir begins with chapter XI and hops through a dozen disconnected anecdotes until its tear-jerking conclusion with Farley's premature death. The lacunae in the narrative are evidence, for a sentimental reader, of its authenticity.
"Tears" are a hallmark of this literature of Sentiment. There are tears on almost every page, and in fact the editors of an 1886 edition prepared an "index of tears" for the book, which is attached to this edition. Men of Sentiment were not denied the use of tears; George Washington for one was well respected for his tears, his ability to cry in public as an effective tool for influencing others. What exactly did "sentiment" mean to Mackenzie and a man like Jefferson or Washington. The modern meanings of 'sensitivity' and 'benevolence' come closer than our modern discredited 'sentimentality.' Jane Austen used the term "sensibility" with that same meaning, essentially the ability to think by way of the feelings, to be alert to impressions received through the emotions. The current notion of "emotional intelligence" seems very close to the quality that readers of the 18th C esteemed in a character like Mackenzie's "Harley."
Mackenzie's and Sterne's novels of Sentiment appeared in the context of philosophical writings and discussions, especially among the intellectuals of the 'Scottish Enlightenment' such as David Hume and Adam Smith, who "mounted a sustained interrogation of human nature that consistently sought to account for the individual in relation to social institutions, economic structures, and historical conditions. Always near the centre of such discussion was the need to confront the competing accounts of human nature as fundamentally selfish or fundamentally benevolent. It is with such debates that sentimental fiction engages."
Adam Smith? The 'economist'? The author of "The Wealth of Nations"? Yes, precisely! Smith was also the author of a book titled "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" in 1759, a book which received more attention during Smith's lifetime than "Wealth". Let me stir the flames here and assert that Smith's notions of social economy have been consistently and dangerously misunderstood by latter-day ideologues who have failed to read this works in the context of his broader philosophy of 'moral sentiments.' The hero of Mackenzie's "The Man of Feeling" is nobly incapable of 'enlightened' self interest. He's the polar opposite of Homo economicus. In materialistic terms, he's a well-meaning failure, and Adam Smith would have admired him as such. The issue for Mackenzie and for Smith was, what sort of ethical conduct is possible in a complex commercial society, and to what degree must moral sentiment be discarded in pursuit of economic growth? Harley is offered as a exemplary figure who invariably chose sentiment over success.
From the editor's Introduction:
""There are, though, forms of exchange which, though similar to commercial transactions, are morally superior because apparently uncorrupted by pecuniary motives and by the negative effects of commercial success. The latter are what the eighteenth century lumped together under the term 'luxury'. The mid-eighteenth century debate on luxury ... springs more directly from late-seventeenth-century arguments that luxury is at least a necessary evil in a commercial trading society because it leads to the circulation of commodities, increased employment, and greater wealth for the nation as a whole. That is, a powerful line of argument defends the social and economic inequalities implied by luxury on the grounds that it increases the well-being of all. Set against that economic laissez-faire was the view that luxury represents the moral decay of the nation, destroying an organic sense of community ...""
Wow! Nothing new under the Sun! Ayn Rand versus Henry Mackenzie! Remember, please what side our Man of Feeling Thomas Jefferson and his compatriot John Adams consistently took in their fervid denunciations of Luxury and insistence on the maintenance of a rough economic equality to the preservation of democracy. Among the "Founding Fathers', only Alexander Hamilton exponded any notion of 'trickle-down' prosperity, and he was the principal advocate of strong central government!
I can't comfortably recommend "The Man of Feeling" as a piece of literary entertainment. Its value is chiefly as a source of insight into the mentality of people of the 18th Century, a mentality that is not at all consistence with ours today. If Mackenzie's values, embodied in his hero Harley, seem fanciful and quaint to you, you'd better think twice before you assume that you can read the US Constitution as an unchanging document.
Summary of The Man of Feeling (Oxford World's Classics)
Mackenzie'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?Classics Books
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