Sentiment and Exploitation in British Literary Representations of Eighteenth-Century India

Abstract

This article argues that Henry Mackenzie’s novel, The Man of Feeling (1771), represents an important shift in British literary depictions of the indigenous peoples of India. Although the inhabitants of the West Indies had been represented condescendingly in British literature for centuries prior to the publication of Mackenzie’s novel, East Indian characters, such as John Dryden’s version of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, were seen as powerful and civilized. By 1771, however, East and West “Indian” characters had become virtually indistinguishable from one another in British literature.