What does it mean to cry over a book? "I'm a reader who did not weep," Ruth Graham, a well-known critic, wrote. "Does this make me heartless? Or does it make me a grown-up?" Tears have played a surprisingly important part in the history of the novel. Readers have always asked about the role that emotion plays in reading: What does it mean to be deeply moved by a book? Which books are worthy objects of our feelings? In different times, people answered those questions in different ways. In the early eighteenth century, when the novel was still a new form, crying was a sign of readers' virtue. "Sentimental" novels, full of touching scenes, gave readers an occasion to exercise their "finer feelings." Your tear proved that you were likely to feel the suffering of others. At that time, sentimental novels were hugely popular, but also easy to attack. Tears, after all, had no necessary connection to actual virtue, and they could be not true  As the critic John Mullan points out, by the end of the eighteenth century, the word "sentimental" had acquired a new meaning -- "addicted to low emotion" -- bringing it closer to the meaning that it has for us today. In the nineteenth century, the meaning of tears evolved in two different directions. Some writers sought to waken "higher" feelings in their readers: Victorian sentimentalists wrote touching scenes in an effort to inspire social and political reform. However, the "sensation" novel, a different type of Victorian best-seller, showed that tears could be enjoyable in themselves. Sensation novels were the leaders of the modern thriller and mystery. Heavy on secrets, and madness, they were known for creating physical "sensations" in their readers -- trembling, a fast beating heart, and tears. But these were tears without moral purpose or effect. Today's debate about crying while reading looks back on all of this history. The debate, in fact, is about why books matter to us, and what reading is "for." Talking about what makes us cry is a way of talking about ourselves. What's the best title for the text?
Sentimental novels & sensation novels Crying while reading through centuries The history of the novel Why books matter to us