tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1436417288060370638.post5049812463099554909..comments2024-03-29T02:57:53.320-04:00Comments on ...... SHARP ELVES SOCIETY ...... Jane Austen's Shadow Stories: “…how the Giaour was to be pronounced….as if he meant to be understood…”: Jane Austen’s Subtle Ironic Deflations of Benwick & Anne’s Poetry Colloquy in PersuasionArnie Perlsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01720424361279466002noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1436417288060370638.post-72239518959600303102016-07-11T09:16:16.025-04:002016-07-11T09:16:16.025-04:00But is the issue of how to pronounce "giaour&...But is the issue of how to pronounce "giaour" really so insignificant? I admit to having had no idea how to pronounce it myself before I looked it up just now to discover that it it rhymes with "power".<br /><br />But looking it up doesn't actually solve the problem; I also looked up the text of Byron's poem:<br /><br />http://readytogoebooks.com/LB-Giaour.htm<br /><br />The first appearance of the word in the poem is here:<br /><br />And though to-morrow's tempest lower,<br />'Tis calmer than thy heart, young Giaour<br /><br />If "lower" was then pronounced as it is today, then "Giaour" would no longer be a full rhyme with "power".<br /><br />But the word appears several more times as a rhyme word in Byron's poem, where it rhymes with power, hour, and bower.<br /><br />So the issue of pronunciation is perhaps not as mundane here as you make it out to be.<br /><br />*<br /><br />I also wonder about "as if he meant to be understood" as a deflation of what came before -- and in fact, I'm a bit surprised that you of all people read it the way you do here. For I see it as Benwick reciting in such a way as to communicate, without saying it explicitly, that these lines have a particular meaning for him. His recitation leads Anne to understand the lines as having a double sense: both their sense in the explicit stories of the works and their sense in the particular, implicit story of Benwick's life.<br /><br />So another way to read this (besides your ironic deflation) would be as a scene in which Anne engages in the kind of "double reading" that I see in the "coolness of judgment" / "eagerness of mind" passage in S&S (as well as in other places) and that you see as pervading Austen's work with the overt story and the shadow story.<br /><br />Andrew Shieldshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02804655739574694901noreply@blogger.com