Several
days ago, I wrote my second Admiral Byng post… http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2018/06/binh-goh-uncle-toby-siege-of-namur-atom.html …about the outcry in the aftermath of the
execution of the scapegoated Admiral Byng for alleged “cowardice” in failing to
“do his utmost” to relieve the Siege of Minorca during the Seven Days’ War.
That outcry included, as I’ve now shown, overt or thinly veiled critical
reactions by a list of no less than five literary luminaries: Voltaire in Candide; Samuel Johnson in various
writings; Laurence Sterne (in Tristram
Shandy); Tobias Smollett in Adventures
of an Atom); and Jane Austen in Persuasion.
In the
next two days, I’ll finally deliver on my promise to write another post in
which I’ll greatly expand on the scope of the allusion to the Byng execution
that I see Jane Austen having woven into the subtext of her final novel, Persuasion, including showing how
Austen’s allusion to Byng includes both Tristram
Shandy and one of Shakespeare’s plays as well.
In the
interim, I follow up today to expand on a brief teaser in my previous post
about “the (to my mind, obvious) allusion by W.S. Gilbert (of Gilbert &
Sullivan fame) to Smollett’s Atom,
when Gilbert wrote the libretto for The
Mikado more than a century after Smollett wrote his novella. The parallels
are overwhelming, most of all with the faux Japanese names that poke sharp fun
at the real life English rulers they represent…”
Here
goes. As far as I can tell, after diligent online research, no other scholar
has ever suggested that W.S. Gilbert, in his 1884 libretto for The Mikado, intentionally alluded to
Tobias Smollett’s 1769 novella, Adventures
of an Atom; let alone that such
allusion to Atom by Gilbert had as perhaps
its primary purpose and subtexts, that very same “unjust execution of Admiral
Byng” which, as I laid out in detail in my previous post, is a clear subtext of
Smollett’s novella.
I first
suspected Gilbert’s allusion to Smollett’s Atom
as I was composing my punny Subject Line for my previous post: “Binh-goh! Uncle Toby, Siege of Namur &
the Atom as Touchstones of Sterne/ Smollett’s Admiral Byng!” It was at the instant of writing “Binh-goh!” that
my mind traveled back a half century, to when my 7th grade class staged
The Mikado for the rest of our
school. The Mikado was, I now know, the
most successful of all the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas; but at age 13 I
had never heard of it. As a member of the stage crew, I watched many
rehearsals, as well as the final performance-- and what stood out most in my
memory were all the “Japonified” names of the characters, such as Nanki-Poo, Yum-Yum,
Ko-Ko, etc., even as I have not seen another performance of The Mikado since then.
Fresh
from writing my last post about Smollett’s Atom
which also had that same sort of absurd Japanese character naming, I wondered
if Gilbert might’ve had Smollett on the brain? So I Googled and searched the
usual databases, and I found first that Jeremy Lewis, in his 2003 bio of
Smollett, noted as part of his summary of Atom
that “the story is set in 'Niphon', an imaginary Japan at war with
China, and the characters are provided with pseudo-Japanese names,
reminiscent of those used later in The
Mikado.”
I also
found a much more interesting snippet by a Berkeley prof named Grace Lavery from
only a few years ago, which not only recognized that naming similarity, but
also analyzed it incisively; although Lavery didn’t go so far as to argue that
the character-name parallels were intentional or meaningful:
“Smollett’s
The History and Adventures of an Atom
offers both an early example of comic writing about Japan and an example of
what The Mikado might look like if it
were unambiguously a satire of English political culture. A picaresque
it-narrative told by a roguish atom to an amanuensis named Nathaniel Peacock,
the novel describes a trip around Japan, comprising a number of eccentric ‘political
anecdotes’. Like those in The Mikado,
the Japanese politicians described are variously ruthless, stupid, and pedantic
and given to pointless arguments—though, written at the highwater mark of English
picaresque, the jokes are much bawdier than Gilbert’s, and the narrative
involves a punishingly detailed series of ass-kissing scenes, both literal and
figurative. Characters’ names, too, share with “Nanki-Poo” and “Pooh-Bah” a
queasily euphemistic anality: “Nin-kom-poo-po,” “Fika-kaka,” “Sti-phi-rum-poo.”
Yet the most striking difference from The
Mikado is that Adventures of an Atom
rests on a tight allegorical correspondence between its characters and the
British political figures it has set out to describe in the service of a
critique of the Seven Years’ War of 1754–1763…” END QUOTE FROM LAVERY
I’ll
argue, below, that the similarities first spotted by Lewis and then discussed
by Lavery were not only intentional, they were also meaningful, on Gilbert’s
part. I’ve concluded that Gilbert intended thereby to point in-on-the-joke readers
not only to Smollett’s novella Atom,
but more importantly, to the execution of Admiral Byng, the very one which
Smollett himself pointed to more than a century earlier.
For
starters, it’s well known to Gilbert scholars that Smollett was one of
Gilbert’s favorite authors. Now, look at how closely Gilbert mirrored
Smollett’s names – this is way way beyond being “reminiscent”:
Gilbert
turned “Nin-Kom-Poo-Po” into “Nanki-Poo”; and
Gilbert
turned “Cuboy” into “Pooh-Bah”; and
Gilbert
turned “Fika-kaka” into “Ko-Ko”; and finally,
Gilbert
turned “Pish” into “Pish-Tush”.
Even if
I were to stop right here, do you agree that I’ve already made a prima facie case that Gilbert deliberately
echoed Smollett’s Atom?
[Before
I go further, having making my point about Gilbert’s transformed character
names, I want to bring to your attention the strong critique of racial
stereotyping in The Mikado, as
well-explained in these excerpts from “The Mikado: History and Satire as Scapegoat for
Yellowface” by Khaleesi: http://casting.web.unc.edu/2017/10/the-mikado-yellowface/
“The Mikado’s…chief
aesthetic characterization comes from its fictionalized Japanese setting and
the racialized caricatures that its cast embody, most often in yellowface…[one
of] the play’s problematic aspects through its history…In 19th century England,
there was not an abundance of Asian actors available (nor were casting
directors much concerned with such casting practices) so the entire production
instead relied heavily on stereotypical visual trappings of Orientalism (…fans,
kimono) as well as on yellowface. This went uncontested in Europe and the U.S…
…The Mikado is, even in
modern productions, also steeped in racial language, from Japon-esque gibberish
(…Pooh-Bah and Yum-Yum) to mockingly high-pitched accents…the
previously-mentioned excuse of the racial caricature as a veil for the
satirical. If The Mikado is
distinctly about the English, then the ‘Japanese’ setting remains fantastical
and is thus detached from any meaning….Some of the first publicized protests
of The Mikado began
in 1990… Performances around the country have drawn criticism and protests in
recent years, including in NYC (2004), L.A. (2007 & 2009), Boston (2007),
Austin (2011), Denver (2013), & Seattle (2014)….The Seattle Gilbert &
Sullivan Society’s 2014 production of The
Mikado features a near all-white cast …occupying the production’s 40
roles in yellowface. Considering Seattle’s racial demographics (Asians …constituting
13.8% of the city’s population…), the lack of Asian representation coupled with
the use of yellowface is especially flagrant, and certainly did not go
unnoticed.
…one
central thread retains continuity in arguments from both the pro-Mikado and anti-Mikado camps respectively—the idea
that The Mikado is
about Britain and not about Japan. In other words, that the actual
intellectual weight of the work is separate from its Orientalist overtones.
This piece of rhetoric leads one to wonder, if detached from its racist settings and characters, is it still able
to carry the same intellectual message? Would the piece be liberated
by the removal of its problematic surface?...Without the racial
fantasy, there is no metaphor, no guise for the “British-ness” to hide behind.
There is no play. …The Mikado, as a production to which race
is intrinsic, must explicitly face questions of racial representation, racial
performance, and privilege, and has failed to thus far.”
END
QUOTE FROM KHALEESI BLOG POST]
Not for
a moment, then, forgetting that The
Mikado was an imperfect product of its racist era, I’ll now return to presenting
the evidence I’ve gathered that makes me so certain that Gilbert, in a more
worthy mode, meant to repeatedly but subliminally parody, and thereby critique,
the execution of Admiral Byng, for which he had the model of Smollett’s parody
thereof in Atom. To borrow one of The Mikado‘s most memorable lines, “I’ve
got a little list”—actually not so little-- of reasons why I am so certain:
FIRST:
The previously mentioned character-name echoing between Atom and The Mikado;
SECOND:
Prior to writing The Mikado, Gilbert
wrote not one but two successful, and today still famous, operettas which have
English sailors as its lead characters: HMS
Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance;
Gilbert’s father was initially a naval surgeon; and in HMS Pinafore, all the action takes place on a ship is at anchor off
Portsmouth -- and it was a famous historical fact that Admiral Byng was
executed on a ship at anchor off Portsmouth! Just coincidence? I don’t think
so!
THIRD
(closely related to SECOND): Despite the fact that the action of The Mikado takes place on land, and its
cast has no sailors, the famous opening musical number of The Mikado is, inexplicably, “a song of the sea”:
NANKI-POO:
A
wandering minstrel I –
A thing
of shreds and patches,
Of
ballads, songs and snatches,
And
dreamy lullaby!
…
Our
warriors, in serried ranks assembled,
Never quail – or they conceal it if they do –
And I
shouldn’t be surprised if nations trembled
Before
the mighty troops of Titipu!
CHORUS:
We shouldnt be surprised, etc.
NANKI-POO:
And if you call for a song of the
sea,
We’ll heave the capstan round,
With a yeo heave ho, for the wind
is free,
Her anchor’s a-trip and her helm’s
a-lee,
Hurrah for the homeward bound!
CHORUS.
Yeo-ho – heave-ho – Hurrah for the homeward bound!
NANK.
To lay aloft in a howling breeze
May tickle a landsman’s taste,
But the happiest hour a sailor sees
Is when he’s down
At an inland town,
With his Nancy on his knees,
yeo-ho!
And his arm around her waist!
CHORUS.
Then man the capstan – off we go,
As the
fiddler swings us round,
With a yeo heave ho,
And a
rumbelow,
Hurrah
for the homeward bound!
Note
also that Nanki-Poo asserts that Japan’s warriors “never quail”, which just
happens to coincide with “cowardice” having been the most scurrilous and
damaging charge against Admiral Byng!
And
speaking of courage, look at these lyrics sung by Pish-Tush, also in Act One:
PISH-TUSH:
“criminals who are cut in two can hardly feel the fatal steel, and so are slain
without much pain. If this is true, it’s jolly for you; your courage screw to
bid us adieu, and go and show both friend and foe how much you dare.”
These
lines stop being funny, when we recall that Admiral Byng, the scapegoated
“criminal”, faced his execution with extraordinary courage.
And
speaking of Admiral Byng’s courage….
FIFTH: The Mikado being a comedy and not a
tragedy, of course Nanki-Poo is not
executed, mainly and ironically because Ko-Ko is too afraid to behead him! And this is, I suggest, Gilbert pointing to
the fact widely publicized after his execution, that Admiral Byng was at his
most courageous in his last moments of life, as he faced execution -- even so
far as his being willing to wear a handkerchief over his face – not for his own
benefit, but to make it easier for the queasy shooters to shoot him at point
blank range!
And I
believe I am spot-on in asserting that WS Gilbert had that historical factoid
very specifically in mind when, at the end of Act Two, Ko-Ko, Pooh-Bah, and
Pitti are scrambling to explain to the Mikado why they executed the Mikado’s
son, Nanki-Poo (when actually they had only lied about executing him, but couldn’t
say that –yes, it’s typical madcap G&S plotting), we read this curious bit
of dialog:
POOH-BAH.
No, of course we couldn’t tell who the
gentleman really was.
PITTISING.
It wasn’t written on his forehead, you know.
KO-KO. It might have been on his
pocket-handkerchief, but Japanese don’t use pocket-handkerchiefs! Ha! ha! ha!
MIKADO.
Ha! ha! ha!
That
laughter, I suggest, is really W.S. Gilbert’s laughter – but he’s not happy as
he laughs, because he reminds us that it is indeed the English gentleman Admiral Byng who used a pocket handkerchief to
hide his face – Gilbert finds the absurdity in this tragedy, which is to
suggest that those shooting him would therefore have not known his identity!
SIXTH:
There are two sly references by Pooh-Bah in The
Mikado to Smollett’s hero, Atom:
POOH-BAH:
…I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of
pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a
protoplasmal primordial ATOMIC globule.
&
POOH-BAH:
(aside to KO-KO). Well, I shan’t mean it. (With a great effort.) How de do,
little girls, how de do? (Aside.) Oh, my
protoplasmal ancestor!
KO.
That’s very good. (Girls indulge in suppressed laughter.)
SEVENTH:
One of Ko-Ko’s multiple positions in the governance of Titipu is that of “Lord
High Admiral”, even though, again, there is nothing in the operetta to suggest
that Ko-Ko, in the village of Titipu, is in command of any ships at all!
However, I suspect that W.S. Gilbert was once again winking at Admiral Byng,
who had not one but two “Lord High Admirals” at both ends, so to speak, of his
life:
First,
his own father, who had once been Lord High Admiral as well as a great naval
hero, and who of course was one of the two persons who brought him into the
world;
Second,
the Lord High Admiral, George Anson, who bore an implacable hostility toward
Byng, and was right there at King George
II’s side, doing everything possible to scapegoat Byng, and get him executed as
soon as possible, ushering him out of the world.
To put
it another way, Byng was clearly on the Lord High Admiral’s and the “Mikado’s”
(i.e., the King’s) little list (or should I say, the King’s little Navy List (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_List
) of potential victims whom Gilbert had in mind when he wrote these memorable,
acidly satirical lyrics:
KO-KO:
As some day it may happen that a
victim must be found,
I’ve got a little list – I’ve got a
little list
Of
society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed – who
never would be missed!
[…]
And that singular anomaly, the lady
novelist –
I don’t think she’d be missed – I’m
sure she’d not be missed!
CHORUS.
He’s got her on they list – he’s got her
on the list;
And I don’t think she’ll be missed
– I’m sure she’ll not be missed!
And, by
the way, I wonder if “that singular anomaly, the lady novelist” might be Gilbert
slyly referring to “the lady novelist” who, as I’ve been saying in this thread
of posts, alluded to Admiral Byng in Persuasion
– i.e., Jane Austen!! More on that in my next post!
EIGHTH:
Perhaps most compelling of the reasons why I am certain Gilbert alluded to Atom/Byng, is that the driving force of
the plot of The Mikado is the capricious,
arbitrary edict by the Mikado (and by the way, a “Meckaddo” is also mentioned
in Atom!) demanding an execution:
KO-KO:
…A letter from the Mikado! What in the world can he have to say to me? (Reads
letter.) Ah, here it is at last! I thought it would come sooner or later! The
Mikado is struck by the fact that no executions have taken place in Titipu for
a year, and decrees that unless somebody
is beheaded within one month the post of Lord High Executioner shall be
abolished, and the city reduced to the rank of a village!
So
Ko-Ko must execute someone –anyone, it doesn’t matter who!- or else he will be
out of one of his jobs! The problem is, though, that Ko-Ko is afraid to do the
deed! That’s when Nanki-Poo happens to wander by, contemplating suicide over what
seems to be unrequitable love for Yum-Yum:
KO-KO.
Is it absolutely certain that you are resolved to die? NANK. Absolutely!
KO-KO.
Will nothing shake your resolution? NANK.
Nothing.
KO-KO.
Threats, entreaties, prayers – all useless? NANK. All! My mind is made up.
KO-KO. Then,
if you really mean what you say, and if you are absolutely resolved to die, and
if nothing whatever will shake your determination – don’t spoil yourself by
committing suicide, but be beheaded handsomely at the hands of the Public
Executioner!
A bit
more brainstorming, and Nanki-Poo then gives Ko-Ko a “perfect” solution – he
will volunteer to be the arbitrary victim of a beheading, provided he first gets
to be married to Yum-Yum for one month.
Think
about the obvious satirical parallel here to the arbitrary (and cynical) motives
behind the King’s demand for execution of Admiral Byng. As I’ve outlined in my
prior two posts about him, the general consensus of historians is that Byng was
a scapegoat for English naval failure -- a slab of raw red meat flung to a
bloodthirsty rabble. That rabble was making the King and his governmental
toadies feel pretty insecure; and so the mob’s anger was deliberately diverted
onto Admiral Byng, and then stoked up by the King’s propaganda machine.
In
other words, I believe Gilbert was parodying the tragic absurdity of Admiral
Byng being selected to make an “encouraging” example to other British admirals,
by presenting the comic absurdities of how Nanki-Poo comes to agree to be
executed by the Lord High Executioner, Ko-Ko. Nanki-Poo may have been willing
to die, but Nanki-Poo is not real – Gilbert also surely knew that the real
Admiral Byng pulled out all the stops asking for clemency in his trial; but
all, cruelly, to no avail – no fictional deus
ex mikado, if you will, popped up to save him, like the solution that the
desperate Ko-Ko comes up with when his own life is politely threatened by the
Mikado:
KO-KO:
… (To Mikado.) It’s like this: When your Majesty says, ‘Let a thing be done,’
it’s as good as done – practically, it is done – because your Majesty’s will is
law. Your Majesty says, ‘Kill a gentleman,’ and a gentleman is told off to be
killed. Consequently, that gentleman is as good as dead – practically, he is
dead – and if he is dead, why not say so?
MIKADO:
I see. Nothing could possibly be more satisfactory!
This is
bitter satire indeed, since the clear situation with Byng was that he was a
scapegoat – i.e., guilt was irrelevant. Gilbert’s words drip acid as he says,
in effect, that King George II and his Lord High Admiral (and, in effect, executioner!)
Anson could have just said Byng was dead. And since the King is like a god,
wouldn’t that have been enough?
Now, I
claim no expertise whatsoever in British history in the 1880’s, but if anyone
reading this post does possess it, was there anything that happened between,
say, 1860 and 1885 that Gilbert might also have had in mind—some similar act of
cruel, arbitrary power by the British government – which he might also have
been skewering, via his above eight “winks” at Admiral Byng? I’d love to hear
about it if there was!
Anyway,
in the end, Gilbert gets in one final satirical dig at George II, when the
“humane” Mikado pats himself on the back with this ode to self-blindness:
My
object all sublime
I shall
achieve in time
To let
the punishment fit the crime –
The
punishment fit the, crime;
And
make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly
represent
A
source of innocent merriment!
Of
innocent merriment!
As Gilbert
wished the world to know, if ever a punishment did NOT fit the crime, that was
the case with Admiral Byng! And that is the perfect moment to end my little
list, and this post along with it!
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
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