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Document Details : Title: In het oog, in het hart Subtitle: Over de sentimentalistische modus in gedichten en liederen Author(s): HAM, Laurens Journal: Spiegel der Letteren Volume: 67 Issue: 2-3 Date: 2025 Pages: 171-196 DOI: 10.2143/SDL.67.2.3294990 Abstract : This article analyses the similarities between the oeuvres of the nineteenth-century poet Hendrik Tollens and the twentieth-century singer Zangeres Zonder Naam in the way they make use of the sentimentalist mode. Sentimentalism is a transhistorical, transmedial and transnational tradition of artworks that appeal to the emotions of the reader, listener or viewer; the mode notion enables the critical reader to analyse this tradition across the borders of countries, media and time periods. In this article’s operationalisation of sentimentalism, this tradition is also strongly linked to an implied reader’s or listener’s reflexive view of an imagined world. Usually, that imagined world depicts the suffering of underprivileged groups. This article analyses and compares the tropes of these texts, revealing the janus head of sentimentalism. This mode promises its reader that through the heart – the seat of feeling, which can be reached through a precise and compassionate gaze – communication is possible between people from diverse social backgrounds. In practice, however, these inequalities are not only constantly named, but even strengthened by that naming. |
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