British Literature Survey
Reference Pages: Jane Austen Group

The Cult of Sensibility
by Megan Earles

Sensibility refers to the late 18th century social conventions of the genteel society that relied heavily on the exaggerated expression of emotions. Highly genderized, the mannerisms of sensibility came from the supposed delicacy of women that was related to the female nervous system. This drove the feminine propensity for showing sensitivity through crying, blushing, and fainting in reaction to situations. Feminine weakness was highly sexualized, but approved of because it was thought to improve the manners of men, and at the same time it “rationalized subordination [of women]” (Barker-Benfield 102). A man of sensibility was also benevolent and had sympathetic reactions. However, if he were too effeminate, he would relinquish his sexuality that was imbedded in dominance and power.

The practice of sensibility was debated upon in literature. Hannah More supported its implications of subordination while Mary Wollstonecraft refuted the positive impact of making women the ‘prey’ of men. Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility challenged placing “excessive faith in the self’s inner ability to reach moral decisions intuitively” (Duckworth 29). Marianne Dashworth finds herself in a miserable marriage after relying on the impulse and the internal inclinations of sensibility, whereas her sister Elinor upholds true moral conception, or sense. In this illustration of sensibility and sense through her characters, Austen recognizes the fault in depending on the social etiquette of sensibility, but also notes the “necessity of feeling” in sense “if rationality is not to become cold and inhuman” (Duckworth 34).

Works Cited

Barker-Benfield, G.J. “Sensibility.” An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture 1776-1832. Ed. Iain McCalman. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 102-113.

Duckworth, Alastair. “Improving on Sensibility.” The Improvement of the Estate. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins UP: 1971. 104-114. Rpt. in New Casebooks: Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Robert Clark. New York: St. Martin, 1994. 26-37.

Jones, Chris. Preface. Radical Sensibility: Literature and Ideas in the 1790s. By Jones. New York: Routledge, 1993. vi-xi.

Todd, Janet. Sensibility: An Introduction. New York: Metheuen, 1986.

Paul Marchbanks
marchban@email.unc.edu