Abstract
NJ spite of recent feminist interest in the antipatriarchal values of nineteenthcentury women's literature, scholars have not yet examined the role of sentimentality in supporting and to a large extent creating those values.' Even Nina Baym in the excellent second chapter of Woman's Fiction shies away from acknowledging the sentimental aspects of women's fiction. Although she aptly warns the modern reader to assent to the work's before condemning it by modern standards, she asks readers to ignore the sentimental aspects of women's fiction as irrelevant to the fundamental message presented.2 Because she sees a feminist message below the surface conventions of sentimentality, she does not pause to understand sentimentality. Instead, Baym merely turns the modern condemnation of sentiment against the masculine canon:
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