Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > "a Sigh of Sympathy"

Research

Electronic data

  • !Spence, Rebecca_FINAL.edt.rev

    Accepted author manuscript, 376 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Links

Text available via DOI:

View graph of relations

"a Sigh of Sympathy": Thomas Hardy's Paralinguistic Aesthetics and Evolutionary Sympathy

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Published

Standard

"a Sigh of Sympathy": Thomas Hardy's Paralinguistic Aesthetics and Evolutionary Sympathy. / Spence, R.
In: Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol. 50, No. 1, 31.03.2022, p. 117-139.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Harvard

Spence, R 2022, '"a Sigh of Sympathy": Thomas Hardy's Paralinguistic Aesthetics and Evolutionary Sympathy', Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 117-139. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1060150320000091

APA

Spence, R. (2022). "a Sigh of Sympathy": Thomas Hardy's Paralinguistic Aesthetics and Evolutionary Sympathy. Victorian Literature and Culture, 50(1), 117-139. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1060150320000091

Vancouver

Spence R. "a Sigh of Sympathy": Thomas Hardy's Paralinguistic Aesthetics and Evolutionary Sympathy. Victorian Literature and Culture. 2022 Mar 31;50(1):117-139. Epub 2021 Sept 7. doi: 10.1017/S1060150320000091

Author

Spence, R. / "a Sigh of Sympathy" : Thomas Hardy's Paralinguistic Aesthetics and Evolutionary Sympathy. In: Victorian Literature and Culture. 2022 ; Vol. 50, No. 1. pp. 117-139.

Bibtex

@article{457aa68a8c104d12b40d01914f57cf93,
title = "{"}a Sigh of Sympathy{"}: Thomas Hardy's Paralinguistic Aesthetics and Evolutionary Sympathy",
abstract = "This essay turns on a quiet, though intriguing, expression—the sigh—and considers the aesthetic work that it performs in the novels of Thomas Hardy. While the primary focus of the essay is the aesthetic, communicative, and biological functions of the sigh itself, the broader imperative is to demonstrate how paralanguage was implicated in broader nineteenth-century debates about evolution. It does this by setting Hardy's sighs in conversation with Herbert Spencer's essay “The Origin and Function of Music” (1857). Hardy's writing dramatizes a comparable associative relationship between paralanguage, listening, and sympathy to that which Spencer proposed in “The Origin” but does not replicate the ideological conditions of Spencer's model, which had reserved the highest forms of sympathy for the “cultivated” few. Hardy's aesthetic interest in the sigh, I argue, is more overtly related to how the biosemiotics of paralanguage communicate insights into emotional conditions that are outside the grasp of language.",
author = "R. Spence",
year = "2022",
month = mar,
day = "31",
doi = "10.1017/S1060150320000091",
language = "English",
volume = "50",
pages = "117--139",
journal = "Victorian Literature and Culture",
issn = "1060-1503",
publisher = "Cambridge University Press",
number = "1",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - "a Sigh of Sympathy"

T2 - Thomas Hardy's Paralinguistic Aesthetics and Evolutionary Sympathy

AU - Spence, R.

PY - 2022/3/31

Y1 - 2022/3/31

N2 - This essay turns on a quiet, though intriguing, expression—the sigh—and considers the aesthetic work that it performs in the novels of Thomas Hardy. While the primary focus of the essay is the aesthetic, communicative, and biological functions of the sigh itself, the broader imperative is to demonstrate how paralanguage was implicated in broader nineteenth-century debates about evolution. It does this by setting Hardy's sighs in conversation with Herbert Spencer's essay “The Origin and Function of Music” (1857). Hardy's writing dramatizes a comparable associative relationship between paralanguage, listening, and sympathy to that which Spencer proposed in “The Origin” but does not replicate the ideological conditions of Spencer's model, which had reserved the highest forms of sympathy for the “cultivated” few. Hardy's aesthetic interest in the sigh, I argue, is more overtly related to how the biosemiotics of paralanguage communicate insights into emotional conditions that are outside the grasp of language.

AB - This essay turns on a quiet, though intriguing, expression—the sigh—and considers the aesthetic work that it performs in the novels of Thomas Hardy. While the primary focus of the essay is the aesthetic, communicative, and biological functions of the sigh itself, the broader imperative is to demonstrate how paralanguage was implicated in broader nineteenth-century debates about evolution. It does this by setting Hardy's sighs in conversation with Herbert Spencer's essay “The Origin and Function of Music” (1857). Hardy's writing dramatizes a comparable associative relationship between paralanguage, listening, and sympathy to that which Spencer proposed in “The Origin” but does not replicate the ideological conditions of Spencer's model, which had reserved the highest forms of sympathy for the “cultivated” few. Hardy's aesthetic interest in the sigh, I argue, is more overtly related to how the biosemiotics of paralanguage communicate insights into emotional conditions that are outside the grasp of language.

U2 - 10.1017/S1060150320000091

DO - 10.1017/S1060150320000091

M3 - Journal article

VL - 50

SP - 117

EP - 139

JO - Victorian Literature and Culture

JF - Victorian Literature and Culture

SN - 1060-1503

IS - 1

ER -