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Providence and Sympathy: Consoling the Bereaved in the Late Eighteenth Century
Author(s) -
Richards Anna
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
german life and letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1468-0483
pISSN - 0016-8777
DOI - 10.1111/j.0016-8777.2006.00355.x
Subject(s) - sympathy , consolation , sadness , grief , period (music) , enlightenment , narrative , humanity , sign (mathematics) , psychoanalysis , aesthetics , psychology , literature , history , sociology , philosophy , social psychology , art , epistemology , anger , psychotherapist , theology , mathematics , mathematical analysis
In the Enlightenment period restrictions were imposed on mourning practices but grief was valued as a sign of natural humanity, as long as it remained moderate. Consolation was offered to the bereaved to help them temper excessive sadness. In the second half of the eighteenth century, influenced by the period's psychological thinking, the theory and the practice of consolation became more secular and more individualised than they had previously been; consolers took the demands of self‐interest and of the emotions into account to a greater extent. This meant an emphasis on the role of providence in the death of the loved one and on the need for sympathy. This article discusses the consequences and the challenges of these developments for consolatory texts. It suggests that they called for narrative strategies and concludes that the ‘Trostschrift’ and the sentimental novel began to occupy some of the same ground at this period.