Sir Walter's Subtle Wit

Sir Walter Elliot is generally considered one of the duller elves among the range of Austen characters, for good reason, it would seem. Not only is he in the running for Most Narcissistic Character (of course with strong competition from Mrs. Elton), but when he tries to be funny, he doesn’t quite make it.

Jane Austen seems to make this crystal clear early on, in Chapter 3, when we read Sir Walter’s response to Mr. Shepherd’s hinting at the possibility of renting Kellynch Hall:

“ “…If a rich admiral were to come in our way, Sir Walter--"

"He would be a very lucky man, Shepherd," replied Sir Walter; "that's all I have to remark. A prize indeed would Kellynch Hall be to him; rather the greatest prize of all, let him have taken ever so many before; hey, Shepherd?"

Mr Shepherd laughed, as he knew he must, at this wit… “

Mr. Shepherd has to pretend to laugh with Sir Walter, presumably because this is false wit, a lame attempt at simile that falls flat on its face.

But is it really that lame? The narrator (reflecting Anne’s point of view, I would suggest), wants us to see Sir Walter as a fool, but then, let’s look past the narrator and analyze Sir  Walter’s symbolism. He is really comparing Kellynch Hall to a ship ready to be plundered by a privateer (like Wentworth). And that idea of plunder is actually very much on his mind in relation to the leasing of Kellynch Hall, he views the prospective lessor almost as a pirate, who is attempting to take what does not belong to him.

Actually sophisticated thinking, upon examination, especially if the reader views Mr. Shepherd (as I have since 2004) as being the kind of lawyer no client in his right mind would wish to have representing him, because of (among other major problems) the massive conflict of interest and breach of basic fiduciary duty reflected by his daughter, Mrs. Clay, doing everything in her power to marry Sir Walter. 

And, speaking of reflection, as I wrote a while back…

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2011/02/reflections-on-pun-on-sir-walters-large.html

…Jane Austen also punnily encourages her readers to both laugh at, but also think deeply about, the notion of “serious reflection”, in a novel where Sir Walter’s mirrors are among the most important symbols.

But today, I was forced to consider whether Sir Walter perhaps does possess the capacity for genuine, clever, even funny, and intentional wit, when I reread the following passage in Chapter  4, the next  discussion between Mr. Shepherd and his favorite client, this time about a specific admiral, one whom all Janeites know and love: 

"And who is Admiral Croft?" was Sir Walter's cold suspicious inquiry.

Mr Shepherd answered for his being of a gentleman's family, and mentioned a place; and Anne, after the little pause which followed, added-- "He is a rear admiral of the white. He was in the Trafalgar action, and has been in the East Indies since; he was stationed there, I believe, several years."

"Then I take it for granted," observed Sir Walter, "that his face is about as orange as the cuffs and capes of my livery."

So, where’s the wit in Sir Walter’s comments? On the surface (and, I believe, to Anne’s ears), this is just one more boring, repetitive remark by Sir Walter about facial beauty, Obsession #1, as usual filtered through the lens of status snobbery, Obsession #2. The Admiral was at sea, his face must have turned orange while this “nobody” labored at sea for decades in environments no gentlemen would have subjected himself to.

Can you see Sir Walter’s joke?  Scroll down for my explanation  of it.

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I bet you saw it now that I flagged this passage for you, and told you to look for a joke. And once you notice it, it’s pretty obvious---the joke is based on a juxtaposition of COLORS and BODY PARTS.  I.e., Admiral Croft may, by his superior  seamanship and bravery have achieved the rank of REAR admiral of the WHITE (actually, only the eighth rank out of a total of nine, for admirals) , so Sir Walter sneers, but at what “terrible” cost?  The price paid by Admiral Croft in achieving this distinction is that his FACE was turned ORANGE (which is what you get when you mix RED with BROWN)!

Maybe not lol funny, but clever, reflecting some nuanced wordplay and manipulation of imagery, the work of a somewhat ingenious mind.  And the veiled opposition of a “rear” with a “face” is, to me,  inspired as well as risqué---and of course it brings to mind the “rears and vices” pun of Mary Crawford, does  it not, the one about a circle of---who else? admirals!

And  did you know that, in Regency Era slang, an “admiral of the red” was a drunk, and an “admiral of the  white” was a cowardly admiral (i.e., one who turned white with fear)?  Could Sir Walter be aware of such slang, and then created his own slang neologism, an admiral of the orange, to refer to sailors who’ve been at sea too long?

What’s also fascinating to me is that this wordplay has apparently not been previously recognized. I know I never noticed it in the at least ten times I had previously read that passage. This time, no doubt  sensitized by my recent close readings of other such passages in JA’s novels, I saw it.  But I cannot find that Sir Walter’s wordplay has ever been taken notice in any online venue, or in the JASNA journals, or in Google Scholar or Google Books---which goes to show the power of expectation in shaping perception As I noted at the start of this post, we are primed to view Sir Walter as a narcissistic status obsessed dolt, and therefore we all glide right by his attempts at wit which the narrator does not  comment on.

But Jane Austen only created rounded characters, and so I suggest that we need to look a  whole lot more closely at Sir Walter Elliot, to see if perhaps  there is more to this man than meets the eye.

Cheers, ARNIE

@JaneAustenCode on Twitter

Austen as Sermoniser...or Playwright

In Austen-L this morning, Anielka Briggs wrote (in relevant part): 

"I contend Austen’s moralising is the clever, gentle and entertaining writing of a Church of England clergyman’s child in the tradition of the Church of England. Sermon writing is and was an art. ...Sometimes clergymen were required to preach a set sermon but quite often they were required to

compose their own sermons....even if apparently “off the cuff” they needed to be tailored to the audience and sufficiently entertaining, interesting or captivating to prevent the audience from falling asleep. Indeed, they had to be something more; they had to inspire the congregation to moral change.   If the vicar or his patron noticed a particular problem in their parish the vicar might wish or be expected to write on that topic.   The chances were that the thief would be in the congregation, would hear the words and be moved to change…if the sermon was effective .....Mrs. X would feel the full weight of her personal guilt, perhaps conscious the sermon was designed around him... Of course the best of clergymen might add a few little details to his sermon known only to herself and the chicken-thieving Mrs. X. This way Mrs. X is shown that the gentle and kindly hand of God is covertly helping her to reform and to forgiveness rather than overtly escorting her to the local magistrate, public shame and punishment..... Austen’s  six books can all be read as carefully constructed full-length sermons of a type..."

It's not an accident that Henry Crawford waxes eloquent on the subtleties of the giving of sermons AND also on Shakespeare's artistry in Mansfield Park.

I think JA's deepest and truest role model for the moral content and structure of her novels was a country playwright who wrote nearly forty miraculous "sermons" which transformed the entire world for the better-of course I mean Shakespeare and his plays.

And Shakespeare himself gave us dramatic testimony of his own monumentally ambitious goal to replace the simplistic sermon with a truly transformational teaching tool like the Ancient Greek drama and comedy, resurrected two millennia later, when he gave us "The plays the thing to catch the conscience of the king" and " We'll ha't to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in't, could you not?"

And then, as I first discovered 7 years ago, Jane Austen gave us dramatic testimony of HER equally monumentally ambitious goal to extend Shakespeare's transformational drama into the realm of the novel of everyday life, when SHE wrote the following:

"...and Sir Thomas was in hopes that another day or two would suffice to wipe away every outward memento of what had been, even to the destruction of every unbound copy of Lovers’ Vows in the house, for he was burning all that met his eye."

Sir Thomas, the father returned from the scene of his most awful crimes, Antigua, has been greeted by a "dramatic" accusation artfully staged by his "mad" son, and clearly he has felt the sting of guilt.  But, profound and resourceful hypocrite that he is, he tries to burn his guilt out of existence without atoning for it. And so he goes on to attempt to perpetrate another vile sin, compounding his earlier "sale" of his eldest daughter to a rich fool, by the further selling of his nephew and his niece to the jaded sexual pervert, Henry Crawford---ka-CHING! go the coins clinking in Sir Thomas's coffers.

Anielka also wrote: "By endowing every character with the seeds of biblical good, Austen shows us the path to grace just as George Austen, James Austen or any other Church of England  clergyman would have demonstrated in their Sunday sermon."

Ah, but that's the thing, Anielka, JA understood the profound hypocrisy of the Church of England in her world-- it's deep complicity in sins (inter)national and personal, and Sir Thomas was, i suggest, her truest representation of that deep hypocrisy, manifest in her world not only in the national "father", the future King George IV, but also in JA's own father, now dead 8 years and therefore finally safe to render this subtle public judgment on, without her having to fear being sent to "England" carrying her own death warrant.

Apparently her father, the maker of sermons, was, ironically, beyond the reach of them.

Cheers

Arnie

@JaneAustenCode on Twitter

The Riveting Spectacle of Jane Austen & Joseph Addison in a Clinching CONUNDRUM

This post is in followup to my several posts yesterday in which I claimed that Jane Austen, both in her youthful History of England, and also in Emma, covertly but strongly alluded to the following passage written by the great essayist Joseph Addison about James the First in his 4th Paper on Wit, published in The Spectator #61, 05/10/1711:

"...the age in which the pun chiefly flourished was in the reign of King James the First. That learned monarch was himself a tolerable punster, and made very few bishops or Privy Councillors that had not some time or other signalised themselves by a clinch, or a conundrum. It was, therefore, in this age that the pun appeared with pomp and dignity..."

My posts (collected here....

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-riveting-account-of-jane-austen.html

...focused on the covert, sexual punning meaning of "clinch", and included the following comment by me:

"Of the various synonyms that Addison could have used for punning vis a vis James the First’s patronage, Addison chose one [i.e., "clinch"] which was rich in alternative meanings, i.e., itself very ripe for punning. Whereas, by contrast, he also chose “conundrum”, which is barren of such possibilities."

Well, I'm here today to announce that I underestimated the audacity and brilliance of both Addison AND Jane Austen, when I referred to "conundrum" of being barren of punning, sexual possibilities. You really won't believe your eyes, when you read the following, thanks to the pioneering research of  Joseph H. Marshburn & Alan R. Velie, in Blood and knavery: a collection of English Renaissance  pamphlets, 1973, at P. 119, regarding a collection of songs from 1652 entitled A Pill to Purge Melancholy: [I was unable, as yet, to access the full text, but I will soon!]

"...and went up with her frosty lover; the fire being kindled, and wine brought up, as soon as the drawer had voided the room, the lawyer began afresh to court his mistress, and to kiss and hug her close to him, proffering TO FEEL HER CONUNDRUM, etc., all which she patiently suffered; but while he was busied that way, she was not unmindful of Hind’s...."

Needless to say, Marshburn (and several slang lexicographers citing him with approval) cite the above as evidence of "conundrum" as slang for the female sexual organ, which of course would fit perfectly with Addison's reference to James the First's demanding access to his "privy" councillors's "conundrums" as the "price" for their admission to the ""privy" council (and by the way, James's lovers Carr, Villiers and James's older French cousin Esme d'Aubigny, were ALL admitted to his Privy Council!)

And Marshburn has an intriguing footnote for a word in another part of that song I couldn't access which reads "n 8: Darling, minion. Term rarely used to describe a female lover; normally it meant catamite [i.e., sodomite]", which strongly suggests to me that the 1652 song has its own homophobic subtext, which would tie in even more closely with James the First's homosexual sex life.

But now the best part---in my posts yesterday, I claimed the spectacle rivets scene in Emma was a veiled allusion to Addison's sly sexual punning in Spectator 61. Now, I realize that was only the first half of Jane Austen's homage in Emma to Addison's punning. Now that I've recognized the sexual meaning of "conundrum", all I need do is copy, below, the other, even more amazing, half of that homage, also having Miss Bates at its center:

 

Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not anger, though a slight blush showed that it could pain her.

    "Ah! well -- to be sure. Yes, I see what she means, (turning to Mr. Knightley,) and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend."

    "I like your plan," cried Mr. Weston. "Agreed, agreed. I will do my best. I am making a CONUNDRUM. How will a CONUNDRUM reckon?"

    "Low, I am afraid, sir, very low," answered his son; "but we shall be indulgent, especially to any one who leads the way."

    "No, no," said Emma, "it will not reckon low. A CONUNDRUM of Mr. Weston's shall clear him and his next neighbour. Come, sir, pray let me hear it."

    "I doubt it's being very clever myself," said Mr. Weston. "It is too much a matter of FACT, but here it is. What two letters of the alphabet are there, that express perfection?"

    "What two letters! express perfection! I am sure I do not know."

    "Ah! you will never guess. You," (to Emma), "I am certain, will never guess. I will tell you. M. and A. Em-ma. Do you understand?"

    Understanding and gratification came together. It might be a very indifferent piece of wit; but Emma found a great deal to laugh at and enjoy in it: and so did Frank and Harriet. It did not seem to touch the rest of the party equally; some looked very stupid about it, and Mr. Knightley gravely said,

    "This explains the sort of clever thing that is wanted, and Mr. Weston has done very well for himself; but he must have knocked up every body else. Perfection should not have come quite so soon."

I will leave it for my next post to present some of my ideas for how Mr. Weston's answer, and Mr. Knightley's grave response, connect to Addison's puns and Jane Austen's youthful Sharade (and also the "courtship" charade in Emma itself).

Cheers,ARNIE

@JaneAustenCode on Twitter

The Riveting Spectacle of Jane Austen & Joseph Addison in a Witty Clinch

My eye was caught this morning by a curious resonance of expression between the following two passages written about 80 years apart:

Joseph Addison on James the First in his 4th Paper on Wit, published in The Spectator #61, 05/10/1711:

"...the age in which the pun chiefly flourished was in the reign of King James the First. That learned monarch was himself a tolerable punster, and made very few bishops or Privy Councillors that had not some time or other signalised themselves by a clinch, or a conundrum. It was, therefore, in this age that the pun appeared with pomp and dignity..."

 Jane Austen on James the First in her History of England, written circa  1790:

“His Majesty was of that amiable disposition which inclines to Freindship, and in such points was possessed of a keener penetration in discovering merit than many other people. I once heard an excellent Sharade on a Carpet, of which the subject I am now on reminds me, and AS I think it may afford my Readers some amusement to find it out, I shall here take the liberty of presenting it to them."

 I zeroed in on the intriguing word  "clinch" as used by Addison, and that proved  a very fortunate choice on my part, as you shall see.

First, here is a typical online dictionary listing for “clinch” as  a noun, which I just found, which seems accurate to me:

1. Something, such as a clamp, that clinches.

2. The clinched part of a nail, bolt, or rivet.

3. Sports:  An act or instance of clinching in boxing.

4. Nautical: A knot in a rope made by a half hitch with the end of the rope fastened back by seizing. Also called clench.

5. Slang:  An amorous embrace.

It also appears clear that, except perhaps for #3, these definitions were extant in the 18^th century as well. But, as Addison’s comments exemplify, there was another meaning of “clinch”  in the 18^th century, which has gone the way of the dodo today, and that is “clinch” as a slangish synonym for “pun”.

Now…should we be suspecting the witty Mr. Addison of a pun when he suggests that the surest path to royal patronage of the kind bestowed on Carr et al. during that amiable, learned monarch's reign was to "signalise" oneself by a "clinch" for (or, should we instead say, with) James the First himself?  

Of the various synonyms that Addison could have used for punning vis a vis James the First’s patronage, Addison chose one which was rich in alternative  meanings, i.e., itself  very ripe for  punning. Whereas, by contrast,  he also chose “conundrum”, which is barren of such possibilities.

So, I do very much suspect Addison of that mischievous intent, which he executes with subtle  skill and panache, making it seem as if  he disapproves of the mania for puns which gripped England during James I’s reign, while  simultaneously hiding a salacious pun in plain sight in the midst of his disapproval--brilliant!

But, what's more relevant to those reading along here today, is that I equally strongly suspect the 15 year old Jane Austen herself of having intentionally alluded to Addison's 80-year old bit of covert punning wit when she wrote her above quoted comments about James the First. Addison’s famous essays would  certainly have occupied an honored place in the Steventon family library, and so no question could arise as to her access to this  one.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I will point out  the following  two parallels between Addison’s and Austen’s passages (including the Sharade about Carr and carpet)  about James the First:

ONE: Both make specific mention of James’s royal patronage to his privy counselors; and

TWO: Both are about punning—Addison writing about puns, Jane Austen making a Sharade which by definition depends on the pun between “Carr-pet” and “carpet”.

In that context, it cannot be coincidence  that we then have a  third parallel:

THREE: Both punningly suggest a reliable sexual path to patronage from James the First. We can readily see how the original, PG-rated meaning of “clinch”, drawn from the world of furniture construction and nautical ropesmanship, both involving the concept of a long thin object being firmly inserted and then secured, could take on a sexual meaning.

And that observation leads us to one more block of  textual evidence, hiding in plain sight elsewhere in JA’s writings, which, in the context of the above, adds to the probability that Jane Austen had Addison’s comments about  James  the First’s love  of puns in mind when she wrote her youthful Sharade.

I give you the slyest punster of them all, the riveting reiterator herself,  Miss Bates:

'…For, would you believe it, Miss Woodhouse, there he is, in the most obliging manner in the world, fastening in the RIVET  of my mother's spectacles.—The RIVET came out, you know, this morning…. At one time Patty came to say she thought the kitchen chimney wanted sweeping. Oh, said I, Patty do not come with your bad news to me. Here is the RIVET of your mistress's spectacles out…"I declare I cannot recollect what I was talking of.—Oh! my mother's spectacles. So very obliging of Mr. Frank Churchill! 'Oh!' said he, 'I do think I can fasten the RIVET; I like a job of this kind excessively.'—Which you know shewed him to be so very.... Indeed I must say that, much as I had heard of him before and much as I had expected, he very far exceeds any thing.... I do congratulate you, Mrs. Weston, most warmly. He seems every thing the fondest parent could.... 'Oh!' said he, 'I can fasten the RIVET. I like a job of that sort excessively.' I never shall forget his manner”

And then Frank Churchill screws home the clinching rivet:

"Conjecture—aye, sometimes one conjectures right, and sometimes one conjectures wrong. I wish I could conjecture how soon I shall make this RIVET quite firm. What nonsense one talks, Miss Woodhouse, when hard at work, if one talks at all;—your real workmen, I suppose, hold their tongues; but we gentlemen labourers if we get hold of a word—Miss Fairfax said something about conjecturing. There, it is done. I have the pleasure, madam, (to Mrs. Bates,) of restoring your spectacles, healed for the present."

From 1790 to 1815, we see a quarter century of  preoccupation with this particular sexual pun on Jane Austen’s part, and now we may safely add to that preoccupation a linkage back to a famous punster of the literary past  who appears to have inspired Jane Austen's wit in this regard.

Cheers, ARNIE

P.S.: The following passage in Northanger Abbey takes on a new ironic significance in light  of the above: 

"Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it.”

 
And now I also suspect that the RIVETS Miss Bates speaks of are part of her mother's SPECTAcles, because Jane Austen read about that "clinch" in one of her FATHER's Spectators! 

P.P.S.:  See my followup to the above post, which I added on 03/10/13 at 8:45 am EST: 

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-riveting-spectacle-of-jane-austen.html