“End Your Groan and Come Away”: A Note on the Change and Continuity of Taste

Abstract

Abstract: Taste in literature of any civilization, nation or region is all formulated in historical process. It is interwoven with values, beliefs and manners, and cannot be literally interpreted in essentialist terms. But a tast in open form has its continuity. The ups and downs that Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) has gone through for more than a century since its publication reflect the change of taste in British readership. The description of Little Nell's death in the novel touched countless readers deeply at that time, whereas it might seem, to readers today, excessively sappy. However, such a resentment to overly sentimental writing also indicates the partiality for humor and comedy in British culture. The criticism of oversentimentality in novel and poetry can be easily found in writings by Virginia Woolf and F. R. Leavis. Due to the influence from Leslie Stephen, their view contains a moral power for self-restraint and impersonality and, therefore, embodies the continuity of taste in British literature.

Key words: taste, sentimentality, Woolf, Leavis, Leslie Stephen

Lu Jiande. “End Your Groan and Come Away”: A Note on the Change and Continuity of Taste[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2021, 43(5): 55-66.

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