A Note on Dickens and Sentimentality

Abstract

Even in an age which has massively reappraised Dickens and in which his stature has grown enormously, the element of sentimentality in his works remains problematic. The very term carries pejorative overtones. The sentimental is widely attacked as marked by an insincere, false, calculating raising of the emotional temperature in art, knowingly and cynically done. Humphrey House refers to it as ‘the imposition of feeling as an afterthought upon literalness’.¹ There is an element of self-indulgence in it for the reader, wallowing in an agreeably tearful state; it is mawkish and sickly. The feelings evoked are both ‘unearned and undisciplined’.²