It always seemed to me sentimentality consists of
experiencing or evoking emotion for something which
does not deserve the emotion.
Most commonly the inappropriate emotion is sympathetic to its
object: pity, love, affection, admiration, adoration. But there
are other kinds of sentimentality. For example, inappropriate
kinds of emotion. Adoration of Curt Cobain , for example, would
seem to me sentimental (or worse). Admiration for certain traits
in C. C. , perhaps not. It also seems to me that a bug accidentally
washed down a sink's drain deserves a certain degree of sympathy, but
protracted mourning would seem sentimental to me, not to say
pathological.
There is also a kind of inverted sentimentality--a sentimentality
of understatement. Hemingway tried so hard to be unsentimental
that at times he is worse than the Poe of "Annabel Lee."
But there is an enormous problem in deciding what is sentimental
and what is not, especially if we are not going to allow the
cumulative wisdom and judgment of generations and multitudes of
others to affect how we view things. For Hitler's adoration of dogs
and little children was sentimentality. Unsound judgments about
human things, though they can always recur, tend not to hold up
very well,especially when they are shared only by groups or persons
who consider themselves specially elected and chosen--set above or
apart from other human beings. In such a context contempt for
everything beyond the pale is concomitant with sentimental
adulation.
There's that Catullus poem about the death of his lover's pet bird
balances a delicate cynicism against the intrinsic sentimentality
of its subject. Even the monks through whose hands the manuscripts
passed must have liked the poem, and people still read it. It
escapes sentimentality. Boorish and ill-tempered readers, of
course, can find reasons to dislike almost anything.
Williams's famous plums are full of affection, both for the plums
and for Floss. Contrarians might find his poem sentimental. But
people go on reading and liking that poem.
For really bad sentimental poetry, take a look at a lot of what
Yeats included in the 1936 OXFORD BOOK OF MODERN
POETRY.
John Montague once told me: "It is common to say of someone,
"She (usually he) is a terrible poet but a great anthologist (editor),"
and I suppose the reverse can be true, too."
And I think there's something to be said about classism somewhere
in that too.
Gerald S.
> Sentimentality is difficult to define. But I know it when I see it. (I
> think!)
> To me it means an expression of emotion that is very obvious. Where the
> reader is being told what to feel.
> It can also be emotional cliche, where, for example you say 'heart'
> because you think everyone knows what that means, when your writing
> might be more powerful if you found a more original word. IMO.
>
> As to 'classism'.
>
> We just had a very interesting poetry festival here where, to my mind, you
> could clearly see the two 'camps' of what I will call, for want of better
> words, highbrow vs lowbrow poetry.
>
> Highbrow being a style of poetics and presentation that is concerned
> with language & form ahead of content & communication.
>
> Lowbrow, where the content & communication with an audience is more
> important.
>
> I have a foot in both camps, trying to create work where both factors
> are in balance. Ken's work seems to have the same idea, as does most
> of the art I really like, including many of the poems we see on this list.
>
> Not all highbrow practitioners are stuffy or academic,
> and not all lowbrow practitioners are ranting performance poets,
> although those might be the images some of them unfortunately
> have of each other.
>
> Where people get lazy, there is sentimentality in the work of both camps.
> There are interesting and boring poems coming out of both, too.
>
> Janet
>
>> Ken, you just don't like that I'm a professor. That's your problem, not
>> mine. I quoted a workable standard definition of sentimentality. Why not
>> respond to that.
>>
>> jd
>>
>> On 10/24/07, Kenneth Wolman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >
>> > andrew burke wrote:
>> > > I define sentimentality as the over-abundant expression of sentiment.
>> > And
>> > > sentiment as a mental feeling or emotion, often with connotations of
>> > > clingingness. Clear as mud, Ken?
>> > >
>> > > Andrew
>> > >
>> >
>> > I am blessedly past the point of nodding my head and pretending I know
>> > what's going on. I don't. Am I alone in sensing a kind of classism
>> > (bad pun) here?--those who work in the academic environment vs. (yes,
>> > versus) those who don't? The assumptions of shared languages seem to
>> > break along those lines. Mud is good for the complexion, they say, but
>> > the dog don't hunt here.
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