The Man of Feeling

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The Man of Feeling is a 1771 picaresque novel by Scottish author Henry Mackenzie. In contrast to the masculine ideals of the Age of Reason, it inaugurated a long-lasting vogue for a new kind of hero, "the man of feeling," a sensitive male. The book looks forward to the kind of Romantic-era heroes who were unashamed to weep, who fell against the thorns of life and bled. As late as the 1830s, Oliver Twist's endless swooning and fainting, sometimes in every chapter, are meant to indicate his superior nature.