Sentimentalism (literally, appealing to the sentiments), as a literary and political discourse, has occurred much in the literary traditions of all regions in the world, and is central to the traditions of Indian literature, Chinese literature, and Vietnamese literature (such as Ho Xuan Huong). Sentiment can refer to: feelings and emotions the literary device sentimentality, which is used to induce an emotional response disproportionate to the situation, and thus to substitute heightened and generally unthinking feeling for normal ethical and intellectual judgment an eighteenth century literary genre called the sentimental novel This is a... Indian literature is generally acknowledged, but not wholly established, as the oldest in the world. ... // Ancient texts The Four Books (四书, Sì shÅ«) are The Great Learning, (大学, Dà Xué). The Doctrine of the Golden Mean (中庸, Zhōng Yóng). ... Vietnamese literature is literature, both oral and written, created by Vietnamese-speaking people. ... Hồ Xuân Hương (胡春香) was a Vietnamese poet born at the end of the Lê Dynasty who wrote poetry in the Confucian tradition. ...

Sentimentalism has been especially prevalent in English literature, where it developed as a genre called the sentimental novel or the "novel of sentiment". The term may also refer to melodramatic films and music. The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian. ... The sentimental novel is an 18th century literary genre which celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment , sentimentalism and sensibility. ... Poster for The Perils of Pauline (1914). ...

Today, sentimentalism is common in soap operas. The first TIME cover devoted to soap operas: Dated January 12, 1976, Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes of Days of Our Lives are featured with the headline Soap Operas: Sex and suffering in the afternoon. A soap opera is an ongoing, episodic work of fiction, usually broadcast on television...