英國十八世紀的感性崇拜（The Cult of Sensibility）歌頌細緻而豐富的情感表現。情感多見於身體表現，如嘆息、哭泣、抽搐、昏厥等，因此內在情感的傳達仰賴外在身體的表現。然而，在旁人眼中，外在表現未必直指內在情感，因此，外在身體表現常常無法免除作態虛偽之虞。外表與內在之間相互指涉的斷裂，使感性之說受到質疑。
若感性的確立需透過學習相對的外在身體表現，感性作為先天特質與情感當自然流瀉一說，即淪為虛構。身體不是忠實表達情感的載體，而是掩蓋內在的虛浮外衣。展演的身體（The Performing Body）成為劇場舞台上的奇觀（Spectacle），接受觀者（Spectator）的注目。在此脈絡中，感性的身體表現步入劇場，感性與戲劇性（Theatricality）成為密不可分的概念。
情感表現時常面臨戲劇性的問題。當情感表現公式化、變得可再生產時，完全自然的情感即不復存在。再者，感性的成立需要觀者在場目擊展演中的身體，雖然觀者並無法完全證實感性的存在。因此，感性無法預先得知，如是才不違反感性的基本立論--亦即，感性是完全的真摯與自然。戲劇性，尤其在公式化展演與「觀者-奇觀」模型的觀念上，與感性的表現息息相關。
本論文以戲劇性和感性的相互作用來閱讀兩本英國十八世紀小說。夏綠蒂•萊諾克斯的《女吉訶德》與法蘭西絲•柏尼的《依芙琳娜》的主題皆在講述與世隔絕但卻美麗善良的年輕女主角，離開父親或年長男性監護人的照護，於社交圈初次登場。本論文包含緒論、三個章節及結論。緒論簡述感性崇拜的淵源與論文的主旨。第一章探討感性與戲劇性的時代脈絡及理論架構。第二章分析小說《女吉訶德》，點出女主角的感性與自我戲劇化在傳奇框架中受嘲弄，並解析作者萊諾克斯如何以文中感性與嘲弄間的違和感來針砭傳奇文類。第三章以書信體小說《依芙琳娜》為文本，探究因小說承襲作者柏尼日記書信中的文類混雜習慣，使女主角得自由採納切換觀者與奇觀的立場，表現自己既內隱又外顯的感性。結論總結上述篇章，並重申感性與戲劇性兩相觀照之下，文本詮釋空間得以擴展。

The cult of sensibility in the eighteenth century celebrates delicate emotional responses. Such susceptibility to emotion, however, has to rely on somatic representations such as sighs, tears, convulsion, and faints. So, paradoxically, interiority is known to others only by outer bodily signs, signs that could just as easily reflect an affectation of sensibility as sensibility proper. The attempt to control the slippage in the reference between interiority and appearance becomes an anxious cultural feature of eighteenth-century men and, especially, women, of the higher classes.
If sensibility requires such careful control and practice, its assumed spontaneity becomes a fiction. The performing body of sensibility turns into a screen that veils one’s true interiority rather than a transparent reflection of it. The performing body is theatricalized— placed on the stage as a spectacle, examined by spectators. Sensibility falls prey to insincere, artificial, and affected performances.
Emotional representations are constantly facing inroads of theatricality. When emotional expressions are rendered formulaic and reproducible, they lose their naturalness. Moreover, sensibility requires witnesses, spectators who can vouch for its authenticity (but never validate it beyond all doubt). Sensibility cannot proclaim itself because such proclamation would violate sensibility’s principle of sheer sincerity and spontaneity. Theatricality, as an abstracted concept of theater, points both to the formulaic performances and to the model of spectator and spectacle in the theater. Sensibility is closely related to theatricality in these terms.
This thesis aims to reveal the dynamics of the interplay between theatricality and sensibility in two eighteenth-century British novels. Both novels present a young heroine making her debut in the world after spending her formative years in seclusion with a male guardian. The Introduction reviews the eighteenth-century cult of sensibility. Chapter One discusses the theoretical and contextual relations between theatricality and sensibility. Chapter Two deals with Charlotte Lennox’s novel The Female Quixote (1752), and how the heroine’s sensibility is ridiculed as a form of self-theatricalization. Lennox gives the clash between sensibility and ridicule a generic dimension by blaming romance for the heroine’s delusions. Chapter Three examines Frances Burney’s epistolary novel Evelina (1778) and argues that the heroine’s sensibility is both sealed and revealed in Burney’s epistolary form since it enables Evelina to switch between being both spectator and spectacle. The conclusion briefly sums up the previous chapters and points out how, more generally, interpretations of literature can benefit from a recognition of the dynamics of theatricality and sensibility.

Introduction 1
Chapter One: Theatricality in the Narratives of Sensibility 5
Chapter Two: Sensibility Ridiculed in Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote 43
Chapter Three: Evelina Sealed and Revealed—Sensibility, Theatricality, and the Epistolary Mode in Frances Burney’s Evelina 65
Conclusion 93
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