Emotional Sincerity, Social Authenticity, and Performance in England, 1660-1760

本研究考察了1660 - 1760年间英国情感真诚和社会真实性的社会历史。它探讨了表演，技巧和冒名顶替是如何被用来混淆感情和社会身份的真实性质，或者被认为是这样做的。该项目考虑了情感和身份在日常人际交往中的表现，如婚姻，友谊和信用交易。核心问题是为什么情感真诚和社会真实性在这一时期成为高度文化关注的问题，以及它们如何根据所涉及的个人的社会地位或性别而表现出不同的表现。这个项目是及时的，与当今社会文化对真实性和真诚的关注产生了共鸣。对文艺复兴和启蒙运动个人主义的研究已经考虑到了真诚，证明了它在早期现代文化和思想中的中心地位（Martin，2007; Wahrman，2004），但性别和地位作为分析范畴被忽视了。采用“自下而上”的方法，我利用法庭记录和廉价的印刷品来评估下层社会的情感真诚和社会真实性的想法，超越大都市的范围，进入省级范围。考虑到性别和等级的研究已经举例说明了这些问题在日常生活中是如何发挥作用的。然而，这些都局限于狭隘的视野，如18世纪晚期的上流社会女性与礼貌和“自然”情感的关系（Ylivouri，2018），或者较低的类型参与字面上的欺骗案件（拥抱，2009）。我优先考虑情感、性别和等级在日常生活中的不可分割的重要性，比如婚姻和友谊，以全面看待当代关于真诚和真实的想法。例如，尽管上流社会的观点表达了对情感上的不真诚和社会上的不真实的焦虑，但民谣却把欺骗视为对下层社会的颠覆。一首18世纪的民谣《被欺骗的父亲》，歌颂了一个“狡猾的”农夫通过公然的欺骗与一个富有的女孩的婚姻，同时也将这对夫妇的“真诚”的爱情理想化了。这样的描述表明，下层阶级重视真诚，但可能是漠不关心的方式或与精英不同的原因。采用罗森魏因的“情感社区”的方法，我将探讨如何情感真诚的概念化，以及如何以及为什么期望和行为根据身份和社会环境的变化。

This study investigates the social history of emotional sincerity and social authenticity in Englandbetween 1660 and 1760. It explores how performance, artifice, and imposture were used to obfuscatethe true nature of feelings and social identity, or were perceived to do so. The project considers howfeelings and identities were performed in everyday interpersonal encounters like marriage, friendship,and credit transactions. The central questions are why emotional sincerity and social authenticitybecame heightened cultural concerns in this period, and how they manifested differently depending onthe social status or gender of the individuals involved. This project is timely, resonating with present-daysociocultural concerns about authenticity and sincerity.Studies of Renaissance and Enlightenment individualism have considered sincerity, demonstrating itscentrality to early modern culture and thought (Martin, 2007; Wahrman, 2004), but gender and statushave been neglected as categories of analysis. Employing a 'bottom-up' approach, I make use of courtrecords and cheap print to assess the lower orders' ideas of emotional sincerity and social authenticity,looking beyond metropolitan confines into the provincial sphere. Studies that consider gender and rankhave exemplified how these concerns played out in everyday life. Yet these are confined to narrowpurviews, like late eighteenth-century genteel women's relationship to politeness and 'natural' feelings(Ylivouri, 2018), or the lower sort's involvement in literal imposture cases (Hug, 2009). I prioritise theinextricable importance of emotion, gender, and rank in everyday dynamics like marriage and friendshipfor a holistic view of contemporary ideas about sincerity and authenticity. For example, though genteelperspectives expressed anxiety over emotional insincerity and social inauthenticity, ballads depicteddeceit as gleefully subversive for the lower sorts. One eighteenth-century ballad, The Father Deceived,celebrates a 'crafty' farmer's marriage to a rich girl through flagrant deception-yet also idealises thecouple's 'sincere' love. Such accounts suggest that the lower orders valued sincerity, but perhaps indifferent ways or for different reasons than the elite. Employing Rosenwein's methodology of 'emotionalcommunities', I will explore how emotional sincerity was conceptualised, and how and why expectationsand behaviours shifted according to identity and social environment.