Christy Somer wrote the following in Austen L and Janeites:
"...Though Jane Austen obviously felt anxiety and fear around love (the loveless marriage), sex (pregnancy), and money (maintaining an aesthetically pleasing and fiscally comfortable environment), she also seems to have cultivated a reasonable and balanced trust in her family and religion -at least enough so as to help diminish those very private concerns when they arose."
You've articulated your opinion very well, Christy, but your opinion is one with which (as you already know, I am sure) I could not disagree more. I understand that what you've described, above, is the Jane Austen that you (and many other Janeites) perceive in her novels and letters, but I (and many _other_ Janeites) perceive a very different (and in some ways an opposite) Jane Austen in those same novels and letters.
My Jane Austen was a self-aware world class literary artist who hungered for recognition of her genius, and would have loved to be known and appreciated as an artist in the way Shakespeare was known and appreciated by the world even then in her era. And I believe that she had a very complicated, mixed relationship with family members and close friends which varied considerably in regard to trust issues. And she had a very very complicated relationship with organized religion. And I believe that she'd have made some sort of ironic joke about our dialogue on this topic, if she could read it! ;)
[Christy] "However, the mystery and power of language and composition finds its way of expressing itself no matter how the conscientiously precise artist tries to present a controlled and tidy picture of naturally layered contradictions."
And I also strongly disagree with that well-articulated opinion. My studies have proven to me, a thousand times over, that what I have seen in her novels and letters is not the inevitable byproduct of "a controlled and tidy picture of naturally layered contradictions", but is entirely intentional and thematically significant.
[Christy] "Ethically, is Jane Austen’s right of privacy (that private, venting space with Cassandra) being violated in such a way that her novels and life are read in ways never thought of by her? "
Based on my understanding of Jane Austen, not in the slightest, in fact I believe she'd be thrilled that her novels and life are being read in ways she deeply wished them to be thought of. I think she'd feel that since all the individuals being discussed have been dead for well over a century, that what mattered most were the ideas and themes she was so passionately engaged with in writing her letters and novels.
[Christy] "I believe Cassandra always counted on Fanny Knatchbull disposing of these letters -never dreaming that senility and loss of control would take over their destiny. "
And I believe that Cassandra, even though she was not entirely on the same page with JA in terms of all of JA's social and psychological agenda, felt a sacred duty to preserve enough of her sister's concealed meanings so that they could one day be discovered. And I think JA would have been outraged at the presumption of anyone destroying letters she wrote which she knew very well had been kept by CEA, and therefore it was clearly done with her consent.
But most important, in my opinion, it's good to have _both_ of our points of view on these subjects (as well as any others, which are expressed with sincerity and based on the kind of study that JA's writings deserve) expressed clearly and strongly, so that Janeites reading along can each make up their own minds.
Cheers, ARNIE
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Yet another secret answer to the second charade in Emma (this one found by me)
Earlier today, I gave a total of five hints about yet another secret answer to the second charade in Emma (this one found by me is the second one I have found to date, which, when added to the one that Colleen Sheehan found, and the four (I think) that Anielka has found and revealed to date, makes a total of seven, in _addition_, of course, to Emma's answer, "courtship"). Talk about clueless, Emma was certain she had the only answer, and now there are seven more, and still counting....
I will now reveal the latest answer I found, along with some (relatively) brief comments explaining my five hints:
[But before I begin, one caveat--whether you love puzzle solutions or hate them, or somewhere in between, the two linked literary allusions, which I've discovered in Emma and will be summarizing below, stand on their own four feet, regardless of whether you think the secret answer I will be revealing is a valid one, or you think it is completely a figment of my imagination. The secret answer truly is only the icing on the allusive layer cake]
"1. The answer consists of four syllables."
My new answer is "coronation".
Although I stumbled upon it in a roundabout way, it can be derived simply and directly as follows:
"My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings, Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease. "
As Anielka argued, persuasively, this morning, a valid and persuasive answer to those two lines is "nation".
The best part of the word "nation" in a charade, to my mind, is that it is like a generic Lego block that can be tacked onto the end of a large number of prefixes (and not merely "impreg" ) to form a large number of interesting abstract nouns in English. Perfect for a charade in English language!
"Another view of man, my second brings,
Behold him there, the monarch of the seas! "
A valid answer to these two lines is "corona", which refers, among other things, to a crown (the English form of the same word) worn by a monarch, and which, as a bonus, also begins with the letter "c" (which abbreviation Anielka used to good effect in her explication of the "C of E" or "Church of England" answer given by her just the other day).
"But, ah! united, what reverse we have! "
And when we take nation-corona and reverse the word order, just as was done for "impregnation" (Anielka) and "implantation" (Elissa), we get corona-nation or coronation!
"Man's boasted power and freedom, all are flown; Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave, And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone. "
And I claim that this is the bookend to the "Crown of _Thorns_" which I argued was metaphorically worn by Jane Fairfax _during_ her worst travail in the novel. But once her complete reversal of fortune occurs after Box Hill, and Jane winds up sitting pretty in the end of the novel, look at what Frank says:
"You will be glad to hear (inclining his head, and whispering seriously) that my uncle means to give her all my aunt's jewels. They are to be new set. I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will not it be beautiful in her dark hair?"
Sure sounds to me like Frank (and Jane Austen, ventriloquistically) is whispering seriously about a "corona"!
But the best part of this answer is yet to come, as I skip ahead to my answer to Hint #3:
"3. There is a very famous work of literature which Harriet and Miss Bates are each independently hinting about, a literary work by an author I have written about publicly within the last year as an allusive source for JA novels other than Emma, although my earlier catches have been in reference to a _different_ work of literature by that author."
That very famous work of literature is Ovid's Metamorphoses---more precisely, Book 10--more precisely still, the last section of Book 10, containing the cautonary tale of Atalanta and Hippomenes told by Venus to Adonis (which does not work because Adonis hasn't really been listening, and pays a heavy price for his inattention). And, as to the latter part of Hint #3, within the last year, I wrote about the allusions I claimed JA made to Ovid's _Heroides_:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2011/02/jane-austens-heroides.html [the first of four posts on that topic that day]
I could write 1,000 words just on the subject of all the ways that Ovid's version of the story of Atalanta is alluded to by JA in Emma, but if you are really interested, just read it yourself (it's only a few pages long) and you will see a great deal of the allusion right away without your needing me or anyone else to point all the allusions out to you--they really are everywhere--and first and foremost, it won't take any Janeite very long to realize that the character of Emma owes a great deal to the character of Ovid's Atalanta!
The most dramatic textual clues in Ovid's tale, the ones that actually led me to realize the answer I was looking for was "coronation", were two lines in Ovid's Book 10:
"The Monarch of the Seas" ("Regis Aquarum")
and
"Atalanta was crowned victor with a festal wreath [“et tegitur festa victrix Atalanta CORONA.”]
I.e., in Latin, "Atalanta corona" literally means "Atalanta was crowned"
And now on to my answer to Hint #2:
"2. Harriet Smith and Miss Bates are two of the hint-givers--that is very much as is the case with Colleen Sheehan's "Prince of Whales" answer. There are several clues hidden in plain sight in the text of Emma which confirm that this is indeed a valid answer. "
I will give you just a taste of these clues---
Harriet Smith's "wrong" guess of "Neptune" turns out to be correct not only as pointing toward Charles Lamb's _Triumph of the Whale_, but also as pointing toward Ovid's tale of Atalanta--Neptune being the great great great grandpa of Hippomenes, as he takes pains to tell Atalanta!
And Miss Bates's ejaculation "What a transformation!" upon entering the Crown Inn for the ball takes on all new meaning when you realize that "transformation" is the Latinate synonym of the Greek-origined "metamorphosis"!
And finally, you will see a whole _new_ reason for all of Miss Bates's going on and on and on about those damned apples--as in the golden apples which just happen to play a decisive role in the outcome of the footrace between Atalanta and Hippomenes.
"4. My answer is related to Anielka's "impregnation" answer in (at least) two very interesting ways, one of which will be obvious to all, the other being subtler and based on wordplay "
And now you see what I meant by the above Hint #4--it is obvious that my answer shares the ending "nation" with her answer, but what is more subtle is that her answer depends in part on the abbreviation "reg", which is part of the words "Regis Aquarum" meaning Monarch of the Seas, which is one of the clues that points to Ovid's Atalanta tale!
And, last but by no means least, here is my explanation of my Hint #5, which I added a few hours ago:
"5. The allusion to the (deceased) author is also a kind of rebuttal to a _contemporary_ author who also alluded to that earlier author."
The deceased author was, as stated above, Ovid. The contemporary author was none other than _Hannah More_, in particular Chapter 14 (title: "A VIEW OF THE PRINCIPLES AND CONDUCT PREVALENT AMONG WOMEN OF RANK AND FORTUNE") of her (best-selling) Strictures, which includes the following passage:
" Woman in the career of genius, is the Atalanta, who will risk losing the race by running out of her road to pick up the golden apple; while her male competitor, without, perhaps, possessing greater natural strength or swiftness, will more certainly attain his object, by direct pursuit, by being less exposed to the seductions of extraneous beauty, and will win the race, not by excelling in speed, but by despising the bait.*//*"
It is not news that JA read Hannah More, but as far as I can tell, it is news that this Chapter 14 was a significant source alluded to by JA in Emma, and nobody before has ever suggested that Ovid's tale of Atalanta was part of the mix for both authors!
Again, I could write 1,000 words about this, but I suggest that if you are interested, just read the Chapter by More, and literally two dozen excerpts will ring a distinct bell for parallel passages in Emma, and you will quickly realize that JA is sending up More in a comprehensive and devastating satirical critique!
That's it for now--there is a lot more to say about all of this, some very far reaching feminist implications, but no need to go there now. I welcome any public or private questions and comments, either in these groups or at my blog, where I will post this same message shortly.
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S.:
I realized I had not done one last search, to see if anyone in Janeites or Austen L had ever written about JA alluding to the Atalanta tale in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
I did the search, and what I saw was that a long time ago, the late Eugene McDonnell had once commented that he could make a pretty good case for JA having read Ovid's Metamorphoses, and much more recently, my friend Cathy Janofsky specifically commented to me that she saw all sorts of allusions to Ovid's Metamorphoses in JA's writing.
Cathy, if you're reading along, what do you think about the allusion to the Atalanta story that I see in Emma? I bet it was one of the ones that you spotted previously.....
I also want to thank Mary DeForest, about whose Persuasions articles I have written deserved praises in the past, for being the earliest pioneer in this realm of JA's classical allusions, and showing, 23 years ago, that it was a vast untapped area for further fruitful study.
I will now reveal the latest answer I found, along with some (relatively) brief comments explaining my five hints:
[But before I begin, one caveat--whether you love puzzle solutions or hate them, or somewhere in between, the two linked literary allusions, which I've discovered in Emma and will be summarizing below, stand on their own four feet, regardless of whether you think the secret answer I will be revealing is a valid one, or you think it is completely a figment of my imagination. The secret answer truly is only the icing on the allusive layer cake]
"1. The answer consists of four syllables."
My new answer is "coronation".
Although I stumbled upon it in a roundabout way, it can be derived simply and directly as follows:
"My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings, Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease. "
As Anielka argued, persuasively, this morning, a valid and persuasive answer to those two lines is "nation".
The best part of the word "nation" in a charade, to my mind, is that it is like a generic Lego block that can be tacked onto the end of a large number of prefixes (and not merely "impreg" ) to form a large number of interesting abstract nouns in English. Perfect for a charade in English language!
"Another view of man, my second brings,
Behold him there, the monarch of the seas! "
A valid answer to these two lines is "corona", which refers, among other things, to a crown (the English form of the same word) worn by a monarch, and which, as a bonus, also begins with the letter "c" (which abbreviation Anielka used to good effect in her explication of the "C of E" or "Church of England" answer given by her just the other day).
"But, ah! united, what reverse we have! "
And when we take nation-corona and reverse the word order, just as was done for "impregnation" (Anielka) and "implantation" (Elissa), we get corona-nation or coronation!
"Man's boasted power and freedom, all are flown; Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave, And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone. "
And I claim that this is the bookend to the "Crown of _Thorns_" which I argued was metaphorically worn by Jane Fairfax _during_ her worst travail in the novel. But once her complete reversal of fortune occurs after Box Hill, and Jane winds up sitting pretty in the end of the novel, look at what Frank says:
"You will be glad to hear (inclining his head, and whispering seriously) that my uncle means to give her all my aunt's jewels. They are to be new set. I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will not it be beautiful in her dark hair?"
Sure sounds to me like Frank (and Jane Austen, ventriloquistically) is whispering seriously about a "corona"!
But the best part of this answer is yet to come, as I skip ahead to my answer to Hint #3:
"3. There is a very famous work of literature which Harriet and Miss Bates are each independently hinting about, a literary work by an author I have written about publicly within the last year as an allusive source for JA novels other than Emma, although my earlier catches have been in reference to a _different_ work of literature by that author."
That very famous work of literature is Ovid's Metamorphoses---more precisely, Book 10--more precisely still, the last section of Book 10, containing the cautonary tale of Atalanta and Hippomenes told by Venus to Adonis (which does not work because Adonis hasn't really been listening, and pays a heavy price for his inattention). And, as to the latter part of Hint #3, within the last year, I wrote about the allusions I claimed JA made to Ovid's _Heroides_:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2011/02/jane-austens-heroides.html [the first of four posts on that topic that day]
I could write 1,000 words just on the subject of all the ways that Ovid's version of the story of Atalanta is alluded to by JA in Emma, but if you are really interested, just read it yourself (it's only a few pages long) and you will see a great deal of the allusion right away without your needing me or anyone else to point all the allusions out to you--they really are everywhere--and first and foremost, it won't take any Janeite very long to realize that the character of Emma owes a great deal to the character of Ovid's Atalanta!
The most dramatic textual clues in Ovid's tale, the ones that actually led me to realize the answer I was looking for was "coronation", were two lines in Ovid's Book 10:
"The Monarch of the Seas" ("Regis Aquarum")
and
"Atalanta was crowned victor with a festal wreath [“et tegitur festa victrix Atalanta CORONA.”]
I.e., in Latin, "Atalanta corona" literally means "Atalanta was crowned"
And now on to my answer to Hint #2:
"2. Harriet Smith and Miss Bates are two of the hint-givers--that is very much as is the case with Colleen Sheehan's "Prince of Whales" answer. There are several clues hidden in plain sight in the text of Emma which confirm that this is indeed a valid answer. "
I will give you just a taste of these clues---
Harriet Smith's "wrong" guess of "Neptune" turns out to be correct not only as pointing toward Charles Lamb's _Triumph of the Whale_, but also as pointing toward Ovid's tale of Atalanta--Neptune being the great great great grandpa of Hippomenes, as he takes pains to tell Atalanta!
And Miss Bates's ejaculation "What a transformation!" upon entering the Crown Inn for the ball takes on all new meaning when you realize that "transformation" is the Latinate synonym of the Greek-origined "metamorphosis"!
And finally, you will see a whole _new_ reason for all of Miss Bates's going on and on and on about those damned apples--as in the golden apples which just happen to play a decisive role in the outcome of the footrace between Atalanta and Hippomenes.
"4. My answer is related to Anielka's "impregnation" answer in (at least) two very interesting ways, one of which will be obvious to all, the other being subtler and based on wordplay "
And now you see what I meant by the above Hint #4--it is obvious that my answer shares the ending "nation" with her answer, but what is more subtle is that her answer depends in part on the abbreviation "reg", which is part of the words "Regis Aquarum" meaning Monarch of the Seas, which is one of the clues that points to Ovid's Atalanta tale!
And, last but by no means least, here is my explanation of my Hint #5, which I added a few hours ago:
"5. The allusion to the (deceased) author is also a kind of rebuttal to a _contemporary_ author who also alluded to that earlier author."
The deceased author was, as stated above, Ovid. The contemporary author was none other than _Hannah More_, in particular Chapter 14 (title: "A VIEW OF THE PRINCIPLES AND CONDUCT PREVALENT AMONG WOMEN OF RANK AND FORTUNE") of her (best-selling) Strictures, which includes the following passage:
" Woman in the career of genius, is the Atalanta, who will risk losing the race by running out of her road to pick up the golden apple; while her male competitor, without, perhaps, possessing greater natural strength or swiftness, will more certainly attain his object, by direct pursuit, by being less exposed to the seductions of extraneous beauty, and will win the race, not by excelling in speed, but by despising the bait.*//*"
It is not news that JA read Hannah More, but as far as I can tell, it is news that this Chapter 14 was a significant source alluded to by JA in Emma, and nobody before has ever suggested that Ovid's tale of Atalanta was part of the mix for both authors!
Again, I could write 1,000 words about this, but I suggest that if you are interested, just read the Chapter by More, and literally two dozen excerpts will ring a distinct bell for parallel passages in Emma, and you will quickly realize that JA is sending up More in a comprehensive and devastating satirical critique!
That's it for now--there is a lot more to say about all of this, some very far reaching feminist implications, but no need to go there now. I welcome any public or private questions and comments, either in these groups or at my blog, where I will post this same message shortly.
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S.:
I realized I had not done one last search, to see if anyone in Janeites or Austen L had ever written about JA alluding to the Atalanta tale in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
I did the search, and what I saw was that a long time ago, the late Eugene McDonnell had once commented that he could make a pretty good case for JA having read Ovid's Metamorphoses, and much more recently, my friend Cathy Janofsky specifically commented to me that she saw all sorts of allusions to Ovid's Metamorphoses in JA's writing.
Cathy, if you're reading along, what do you think about the allusion to the Atalanta story that I see in Emma? I bet it was one of the ones that you spotted previously.....
I also want to thank Mary DeForest, about whose Persuasions articles I have written deserved praises in the past, for being the earliest pioneer in this realm of JA's classical allusions, and showing, 23 years ago, that it was a vast untapped area for further fruitful study.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Jane Austen’s Letter 29: “…by the Sea or in Wales…”
Diane Reynolds wrote the following in Janeites and Austen L: "How distressing this must have been is hinted at for me in her line: "the prospect of spending future summers by the Sea or in Wales is very delightful."
I replied as follows:
Diane, you just made me realize something very very peculiar (and very very funny!) about that comment----think about the second charade in Emma, which refers to the "Monarch of the SEA"---what are two of the secret answers to that charade? Colleen Sheehan's (the "Prince of Whales") and Anielka's ("Leviathan").
Do you get the joke? "in Wales" === > "in Whales"! As in the kind of "delight" that Jonah experienced during his Biblical sea excursion!
But what does this wordplay mean in the context of Letter 29? I would say that it fits perfectly with your notion of JA feeling powerless, swept along by "waves" stronger than she can resist, which leave her no choice but to hope that the whale/Leviathan spits the Austens out into a comfortable "Bath"(tub)!
Diane then responded to my above comment: "Arnie, The sea and wales, sea and whales possible pun is very interesting--I would dismiss it if this weren't Jane Austen. In fact, as I was reading it, I was thinking, "I knew she liked the seashore, but I didn't know she liked Wales." But if it's a pun on whales ... that would be entirely consistent with her love of wordplay. I find it difficult to imagine the family uprooting itself simply to get JA away from a suitor. I too have to think there were financial issues and that Persuasion does echo real life for her. "
Glad you agree, Diane, on both counts ("Whales" and "retrenching"), which really are two sides of the same coin, i.e., the affliction of Biblical proportions suffered by the Austen women by virtue of being suddenly uprooted. And, in addition to Ann Elliot's feelings upon being forced to leave Kellynch Hall, don't forget the reaction of the Dashwood women after they are unceremoniously shouldered out of Norland, and have their bequest from Mr. Dashwood reduced to practically nothing, both courtesy of Fanny Dashwood.
Based on all that resonating "smoke", I cannot fathom how anyone could imagine that JA was happy to leave Steventon!
And it also occurred to me since I sent my previous message to look at "by the Sea or in Wales" in context. Here is the full passage:
"My Mother bargains for having no trouble at all in furnishing our house in Bath-& I have engaged for your willingly undertaking to do it all....."
Absurdism.
"...I get more & more reconciled to the idea of our removal...."
Translation: I get more and more angry about our being forced to leave...
"...We have lived long enough in this Neighbourhood,.."
That is exactly like the poignant lyrics of the song _Anatevka_ at the end of Fiddler on the Roof, in which the Jews of Anatevka (who have themselves been suddenly and ruthlessly uprooted from their country village for no reason other than religious hatred) start saying dismissive things about Anatevka (such as how insignificantly small it is), so as to blunt the acute pain they feel at losing their lifelong home.
"...the Basingstoke Balls are certanly on the decline,...."
Which is surely not the case at all, we all know from so many of JA's letters that she loved Balls, and made the best of them even when there weren't enough men to go around.
"...there is something interesting in the bustle of going away,..."
Which is complete nonsense, when actually we know how JA, like Fanny Price, was not a big fan of such "bustle", from various comments throughout this series of letters from 1801 from Letter 29 onward, including most famously Letter 37's "The whole world is in a conspiracy to enrich one part of our family at the expense of another."
"... & the prospect of spending future summers by the Sea or in Wales is very delightful...."
So why would JA drop in here a truthful accurate statement, when all the statements leading up to it have been topsy-turvy absurdism, and so are, as you will see in a second, also the sentences following it?"
"...For a time we shall now possess many of the advantages which I have often thought of with Envy in the wives of Sailors or Soldiers...."
The "advantages" of mourning, worry, loneliness, privation, predation, etc etc?
"...It must not be generally known however that I am not sacrificing a great deal in quitting the Country-or I can expect to inspire no tenderness, no interest in those we leave behind."
Which means that there will be many people whom JA and CEA will sorely miss, especially including 7 year old Anna Austen, with whom JA and CEA have been very close.
"...-The threatened Act of Parliament does not seem to give any alarm. ..."
Which is also why I have always read this as a final absurdity, as if Parliament enacted a special law specifically covering the move of the Austen family from Steventon to Bath.
And, last but not least, apropos the pun I claim JA made on Wales/whales, please note that in Letter 31, written only 9 _days_ after Letter 29, JA writes the following (the only other place besides Letter 29 in _all_ of JA's surviving letters to include a mention of Wales):
"Mrs. Welby has been singing Duetts with the Prince of Wales."
Is this factual? Le Faye quotes Chapman for evidence that the Prince was in Hampshire around that time, but as to Mrs. Welby, the best Chapman can come up with is the following: "Sir Alfred Welby tells me that he has a recollection of hearing that his ancestress was musical."
To which I say, "Yeah, right!" Given that the second charade of Chapter 9 of Emma indisputably makes a secret pun on the "Prince of Whales" with an "h", I find this mention of the Prince of Wales quite compelling additional evidence that the "Wales" in Letter 29 were indeed "whales". And it is even more so when we consider what a big deal Mrs. Elton and Mrs. Cole make about Jane Fairfax's being "mistress of music", etc etc, when what they are actually saying in code is that Jane is "mistress" of the kind of "music" that brought an _ill_ repute upon a woman in Jane Austen's world.
Cheers, ARNIE
I replied as follows:
Diane, you just made me realize something very very peculiar (and very very funny!) about that comment----think about the second charade in Emma, which refers to the "Monarch of the SEA"---what are two of the secret answers to that charade? Colleen Sheehan's (the "Prince of Whales") and Anielka's ("Leviathan").
Do you get the joke? "in Wales" === > "in Whales"! As in the kind of "delight" that Jonah experienced during his Biblical sea excursion!
But what does this wordplay mean in the context of Letter 29? I would say that it fits perfectly with your notion of JA feeling powerless, swept along by "waves" stronger than she can resist, which leave her no choice but to hope that the whale/Leviathan spits the Austens out into a comfortable "Bath"(tub)!
Diane then responded to my above comment: "Arnie, The sea and wales, sea and whales possible pun is very interesting--I would dismiss it if this weren't Jane Austen. In fact, as I was reading it, I was thinking, "I knew she liked the seashore, but I didn't know she liked Wales." But if it's a pun on whales ... that would be entirely consistent with her love of wordplay. I find it difficult to imagine the family uprooting itself simply to get JA away from a suitor. I too have to think there were financial issues and that Persuasion does echo real life for her. "
Glad you agree, Diane, on both counts ("Whales" and "retrenching"), which really are two sides of the same coin, i.e., the affliction of Biblical proportions suffered by the Austen women by virtue of being suddenly uprooted. And, in addition to Ann Elliot's feelings upon being forced to leave Kellynch Hall, don't forget the reaction of the Dashwood women after they are unceremoniously shouldered out of Norland, and have their bequest from Mr. Dashwood reduced to practically nothing, both courtesy of Fanny Dashwood.
Based on all that resonating "smoke", I cannot fathom how anyone could imagine that JA was happy to leave Steventon!
And it also occurred to me since I sent my previous message to look at "by the Sea or in Wales" in context. Here is the full passage:
"My Mother bargains for having no trouble at all in furnishing our house in Bath-& I have engaged for your willingly undertaking to do it all....."
Absurdism.
"...I get more & more reconciled to the idea of our removal...."
Translation: I get more and more angry about our being forced to leave...
"...We have lived long enough in this Neighbourhood,.."
That is exactly like the poignant lyrics of the song _Anatevka_ at the end of Fiddler on the Roof, in which the Jews of Anatevka (who have themselves been suddenly and ruthlessly uprooted from their country village for no reason other than religious hatred) start saying dismissive things about Anatevka (such as how insignificantly small it is), so as to blunt the acute pain they feel at losing their lifelong home.
"...the Basingstoke Balls are certanly on the decline,...."
Which is surely not the case at all, we all know from so many of JA's letters that she loved Balls, and made the best of them even when there weren't enough men to go around.
"...there is something interesting in the bustle of going away,..."
Which is complete nonsense, when actually we know how JA, like Fanny Price, was not a big fan of such "bustle", from various comments throughout this series of letters from 1801 from Letter 29 onward, including most famously Letter 37's "The whole world is in a conspiracy to enrich one part of our family at the expense of another."
"... & the prospect of spending future summers by the Sea or in Wales is very delightful...."
So why would JA drop in here a truthful accurate statement, when all the statements leading up to it have been topsy-turvy absurdism, and so are, as you will see in a second, also the sentences following it?"
"...For a time we shall now possess many of the advantages which I have often thought of with Envy in the wives of Sailors or Soldiers...."
The "advantages" of mourning, worry, loneliness, privation, predation, etc etc?
"...It must not be generally known however that I am not sacrificing a great deal in quitting the Country-or I can expect to inspire no tenderness, no interest in those we leave behind."
Which means that there will be many people whom JA and CEA will sorely miss, especially including 7 year old Anna Austen, with whom JA and CEA have been very close.
"...-The threatened Act of Parliament does not seem to give any alarm. ..."
Which is also why I have always read this as a final absurdity, as if Parliament enacted a special law specifically covering the move of the Austen family from Steventon to Bath.
And, last but not least, apropos the pun I claim JA made on Wales/whales, please note that in Letter 31, written only 9 _days_ after Letter 29, JA writes the following (the only other place besides Letter 29 in _all_ of JA's surviving letters to include a mention of Wales):
"Mrs. Welby has been singing Duetts with the Prince of Wales."
Is this factual? Le Faye quotes Chapman for evidence that the Prince was in Hampshire around that time, but as to Mrs. Welby, the best Chapman can come up with is the following: "Sir Alfred Welby tells me that he has a recollection of hearing that his ancestress was musical."
To which I say, "Yeah, right!" Given that the second charade of Chapter 9 of Emma indisputably makes a secret pun on the "Prince of Whales" with an "h", I find this mention of the Prince of Wales quite compelling additional evidence that the "Wales" in Letter 29 were indeed "whales". And it is even more so when we consider what a big deal Mrs. Elton and Mrs. Cole make about Jane Fairfax's being "mistress of music", etc etc, when what they are actually saying in code is that Jane is "mistress" of the kind of "music" that brought an _ill_ repute upon a woman in Jane Austen's world.
Cheers, ARNIE
Jane Austen's Letter 30: Hugh Capet and The Usurpation of the “Throne” of Steventon Rectory by James Austen
Diane Reynolds wrote in Janeites and Austen L:
“Then a statement that I am not sure I follow, but which ends on a very caustic, even bitter note: "the brown Mare, which as well as the black was to devolve on James at our removal, has not had patience to wait for that, & has settled herself even now at Deane.-The death ofHugh Capet, which like that of Mr. Skipsey-tho' undesired was not wholly unexpected, being purposely effected, has made the immediate possession of the Mare very convenient; & everything else I suppose will be seized by degrees in the same manner."
Diane, your sense of a caustic, bitter tone is validated and explained by a literary/historical allusion that the erudite JA hid in plain sight in the lines you quoted.
I did some quick checking into the name “Hugh Capet”, and found that Shakespeare refers to Hugh Capet in only one speech in all of his plays, in Act 1, Scene 2 of Henry V, when the Archbishop of Canterbury greenlights Henry V to aggressively assert his claim to the French throne.
The Archbishop, with lawyerly precision, summarizes the claims of the King of France as holding “in right and title of the female”, and therefore, he argues (of course to Henry V’s great liking), that the French King has no leg to stand on in trying to deny Henry V’s claim to the French throne, which is also “from the female”. I.e., what’s good for the goose, etc.
The Archbishop also specifically refers to Capet as “the usurper”, and so the claims of the current French king, based in part on Capet, holds a “crooked title usurp’d from” Henry V and _his_ “progenitors”.
And I believe that JA had all of the Archbishop’s speech very firmly in mind as she wrote the lines you quoted, above, in Letter 30. Note first the reference to Revd. Austen’s “ministers” who “are already deserting him to pay their court to his son.” So JA is casting James Austen as a modern day Hugh Capet, a usurper of the “throne” of the Steventon rectory (which also fits perfectly with the interpretation of JA’s History of England as also being a veiled history of the Austen family).
And in this mock legalistic verbiage, we have JA’s absurdist rendition of two mares as Revd. Austen’s “ministers”, one of whom has already bolted to the usurper ahead of schedule.
And note in that the strong parallelism to Fanny Dashwood in S&S, who has not the patience to wait for the Dashwood women to vacate Norland before _she_settles herself there.
So it is no surprise that, in the midst of this tale of royal usurpation, the name “Hugh Capet”, one of Shakespeare’s many royal usurpers, should pop up. Who knows whether Hugh Capet really was the Austen family name for the equine “husband” of the brown mare, or if she made up this name just for Letter 30. Either way, JA took full advantage of the name, and seized upon poor old Hugh Capet having apparently been put to sleep (“purposely effected”), and reframed it, in her way, like Michael Corleone seizing control of his Mafia Family by a coordinated series of hits, so that JA can then expand that one event into a global campaign of usurpation (“everything else will be seized by degrees in the same manner”).
And of course, the background of all of this is that Henry V’s being on the throne is precisely because his father usurped the throne from Richard II, another Shakespeare play which was on JA’s radar screen in a variety of ways.
And as for claims through the female line, well, here is what JA's resident experts have to say about that topic:
"How anyone could have the conscience to entail away an estate from one's own daughters, I cannot understand..."
"I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family."
How caustic an irony it is that JA is deploying here in Letter 30, in questioning the morality of women getting the short end of the stick in the devolution of family property!
Cheers, ARNIE
“Then a statement that I am not sure I follow, but which ends on a very caustic, even bitter note: "the brown Mare, which as well as the black was to devolve on James at our removal, has not had patience to wait for that, & has settled herself even now at Deane.-The death ofHugh Capet, which like that of Mr. Skipsey-tho' undesired was not wholly unexpected, being purposely effected, has made the immediate possession of the Mare very convenient; & everything else I suppose will be seized by degrees in the same manner."
Diane, your sense of a caustic, bitter tone is validated and explained by a literary/historical allusion that the erudite JA hid in plain sight in the lines you quoted.
I did some quick checking into the name “Hugh Capet”, and found that Shakespeare refers to Hugh Capet in only one speech in all of his plays, in Act 1, Scene 2 of Henry V, when the Archbishop of Canterbury greenlights Henry V to aggressively assert his claim to the French throne.
The Archbishop, with lawyerly precision, summarizes the claims of the King of France as holding “in right and title of the female”, and therefore, he argues (of course to Henry V’s great liking), that the French King has no leg to stand on in trying to deny Henry V’s claim to the French throne, which is also “from the female”. I.e., what’s good for the goose, etc.
The Archbishop also specifically refers to Capet as “the usurper”, and so the claims of the current French king, based in part on Capet, holds a “crooked title usurp’d from” Henry V and _his_ “progenitors”.
And I believe that JA had all of the Archbishop’s speech very firmly in mind as she wrote the lines you quoted, above, in Letter 30. Note first the reference to Revd. Austen’s “ministers” who “are already deserting him to pay their court to his son.” So JA is casting James Austen as a modern day Hugh Capet, a usurper of the “throne” of the Steventon rectory (which also fits perfectly with the interpretation of JA’s History of England as also being a veiled history of the Austen family).
And in this mock legalistic verbiage, we have JA’s absurdist rendition of two mares as Revd. Austen’s “ministers”, one of whom has already bolted to the usurper ahead of schedule.
And note in that the strong parallelism to Fanny Dashwood in S&S, who has not the patience to wait for the Dashwood women to vacate Norland before _she_settles herself there.
So it is no surprise that, in the midst of this tale of royal usurpation, the name “Hugh Capet”, one of Shakespeare’s many royal usurpers, should pop up. Who knows whether Hugh Capet really was the Austen family name for the equine “husband” of the brown mare, or if she made up this name just for Letter 30. Either way, JA took full advantage of the name, and seized upon poor old Hugh Capet having apparently been put to sleep (“purposely effected”), and reframed it, in her way, like Michael Corleone seizing control of his Mafia Family by a coordinated series of hits, so that JA can then expand that one event into a global campaign of usurpation (“everything else will be seized by degrees in the same manner”).
And of course, the background of all of this is that Henry V’s being on the throne is precisely because his father usurped the throne from Richard II, another Shakespeare play which was on JA’s radar screen in a variety of ways.
And as for claims through the female line, well, here is what JA's resident experts have to say about that topic:
"How anyone could have the conscience to entail away an estate from one's own daughters, I cannot understand..."
"I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family."
How caustic an irony it is that JA is deploying here in Letter 30, in questioning the morality of women getting the short end of the stick in the devolution of family property!
Cheers, ARNIE
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Margaret Dashwood is a self portrait of the 13 year old Jane Austen
As I will be detailing in my book, Margaret Dashwood is a very very smart young lady, but till today, I did not realize HOW smart, nor did I realize that she was, in a very real sense, a retrospective self portrait of Jane Austen, who, in publishing Sense and Sensibility in 1811 at the age of 35, was remembering herself at the tender age of 13 in the character of Margaret.
And what made me realize that for certain was the following passage in S&S:
""Margaret," said Marianne, with great warmth, "you know that all this is an invention of your own, and that there is no such person in existence."
"Well, then, he is lately dead, Marianne, for I am sure there was such a man once, and his name begins with an F."
This comment by Margaret takes on startling new meaning in light of the following:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2011/06/very-famous-literary-source-for-almost.html
In my above linked blog post, I claim that Loiterer #45 was ghostwritten by Jane Austen in 1789 when she was 13, and the above passage from S&S is a sly verification of her authorship!
And what makes it even slier is that Marianne Dashwood is ALSO a retrospective self portrait of Jane Austen, but at the slightly less tender age of 17!
Cheers, ARNIE
And what made me realize that for certain was the following passage in S&S:
""Margaret," said Marianne, with great warmth, "you know that all this is an invention of your own, and that there is no such person in existence."
"Well, then, he is lately dead, Marianne, for I am sure there was such a man once, and his name begins with an F."
This comment by Margaret takes on startling new meaning in light of the following:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2011/06/very-famous-literary-source-for-almost.html
In my above linked blog post, I claim that Loiterer #45 was ghostwritten by Jane Austen in 1789 when she was 13, and the above passage from S&S is a sly verification of her authorship!
And what makes it even slier is that Marianne Dashwood is ALSO a retrospective self portrait of Jane Austen, but at the slightly less tender age of 17!
Cheers, ARNIE
Northanger Abbey's Veiled Allusion to the Real Bluebeard of Bath....who was connected to Jane Austen!
[n Janeites this morning, Derrick Leigh wrote] "Jane Austen's great grandparents on the Leigh side were Theophilus Leigh and Mary Brydges. Their daughter Mary Leigh married the 4th baronet, Sir Hungerford Hoskyns in 1720."
Derrick, did you happen to notice the discussion that I initiated in these groups last November about the excellent presentation by Janine Barchas at the last JASNA AGM in Portland? In her presentation, Barchas laid out, in convincing detail, the multifaceted veiled allusion in Northanger Abbey to the Farleigh Hungerford castle outside Bath, and now her argument can finally be read in the recently published Volume 32 of the print Persuasions, at ppg. 115 et seq., under the title "The Real Bluebeard of Bath: A Historical Model for Northanger Abbey")".
I mention all this because, as I read your comment, above, I was struck by the close proximity of the names "Leigh" and "Hungerford", and I made an immediate semantic association of same to "Farleigh Hungerford".
And as you will see, below, that was a very fortunate association, and, given JA's many covert parodies of the Royal Family during her own lifetime, it is a wonderful and highly ironic serendipity that a significant advance in Jane Austen studies should be furthered by seemingly unrelated news about the latest addition to the modern Royal Family. Read on to see what I am talking about....
My immediate question upon reading your above quoted genealogical factoid was to ask whether "Hungerford" was just a name that percolated around England's noble families, such that there was no special familial linkage to be inferred by its usage? My guess was that it was a very unusual name that _would_ have been associated with a particular family, and therefore it probably _was_ a marker that somehow Sir Hungerford Hoskyns was genealogically connected to the colorful Hungerford family whose real life Gothic history JA alluded to, as Barchas brilliantly elucidated, in NA.
Well, it was my lucky day, because it turns out that my hunch was spot-on. Here is the icing on the allusive layer cake, the factoid which ties _all_ loose ends together, which I just found in Debrett's Baronetage, at p. 139:
"Hoskyns, of Harwood, Co.Hereford. 18 Dec. 1676. John Hoskynswas M.P. for Hereford, 1602 and 1613; /m. /Margery, da. of William Jones, of Llanwarren, co. Hereford, esq., by whom, amongst other children, he had, John, his youngest son, a serjeant-at-law, who was returned to the house of commons, for the same city of Hereford, 1627, in which it appears he had previously sat; because, it is related, that he was committed to the Tower of London, by order of king James 1., for a speech made in that house, reflecting upon mercenary Scottish favourites. He /m. /Benedicta, da. of Robert Moyle, of Buckwell, co. Kent, esq., by whom he had issue, /Benedicta, /m. John Markey, of Alton, co. Hereford, esq., and a son and heir,
1. Sir Bennet, created a bart., 18 Dec. 1676, /m. /ANNE, DA. OF SIR HENRY BINGLEY, of Temple Coombe, co. Somerset, knt., auditor of the exchequer, by whom he had issue, //Sir John, 2d bart. & William, of Kingston; and
2. Sir John, F.R.S., was knighted during the lifetime of his father, sat as member for Hereford during the reign of James II., and was a master in the court of Chancery, /m. /Jane, da. of sir Gabriel Law, of Newark, co. Gloucester, knt., (A LINEAL DESCENDANT, BY HIS MOTHER'S FAMILY, FROM WALTER, LORD HUNGERFORD, K.G., in the reign of Henry VI.,) by Anne, da, of sir Stephen Soame, of Haidon, co. Essex, knt, by whom he had, besides other issue, 1. Sir Bennet, 3d bart. & 2. Sir HUNGERFORD, 4th bart.....who, while a younger brother, served in several campaigns under the duke of Marlborough; m. MARY, DA. OF THEOPHILUS LEIGH, OF ADLESTROP, CO. GLOUCESTER, ESQ. (BY MARY BRYDGES, SISTER TO THE DUKE OF CHANDOS)..... " [END OF DEBRETT'S EXCERPT]
The "Walter, Lord Hungerford during the reign of Henry VI" who is named by Debrett is described as follows in Wikipedia: "Walter Hungerford was the youngest son of Robert Hungerford, 3rd Baron Hungerford and Eleanor, was M.P. for Wiltshire in 1477, and, as a partisan in earlier days of the house of Lancaster, obtained a general pardon from Richard III on his accession in 1483. He was, nevertheless, arrested by Richard on the landing of the Earl of Richmond in 1485, but escaped from custody, and joined Richmond's army. At the battle of Bosworth he slew, in hand-to-hand combat, Sir Robert Brackenbury, lieutenant of the Tower of London, under whose command he had previously served, and was knighted by Henry VII on the battlefield. Farleigh Castle and some other of the forfeited family estates, though not the family honours, were restored to him, and he was made a member of the Privy Council. ....In 1497 he assisted in quelling Perkin Warbeck's rising. After the accession of Henry VIII he continued a member of the privy council, and, dying in 1516, was buried at Farleigh. His wife was Jane....and his only son Edward was father of Walter, Lord Hungerford (1503–1540)......"
And that last-named "Walter, Lord Hungerford (1503-1540)" was _exactly_ the same guy whom Barchas devotes a great deal of ink to in her article, indeed he is none other than "The Real Bluebeard of Bath" in her article title!
I capitalized, for emphasis, three parts of that quotation from Debrett's---first, the reference to a woman named "Anne BINGLEY" who married Sir Bennet Hungerford--okay, that surname was not rare, and could be pure coincidence; but second, and clearly _not_ coincidental, this same Walter, Lord Hungerford, had a descendant, Jane Law, who was the mother of the _same_ Sir Hungerford Hoskyns, 4th bart., who married Mary Leigh, as Derrick stated, above!
And now I will show how the veiled allusion to Lord Hungerford and to Jane Austen's own matrilineal ancestry in NA is more than a genealogical parlor game, which relates to my _third_ capitalized bit from the above Debrett's listing, the marriage of Mary Leigh to Sir Hungerford Hoskyns, 4th bart.
Even if there had been no actual family linkage between "Farleigh Hungerford" and "Sir Hungerford Hoskyns", even if this had been just a random coincidence of names, I claim that JA, who knew her _own_ family lineage pretty well, would have seen the wordplay potential of the closeness of these names when she decided to represent Farleigh Hungerford in NA. I know this because I also know that JA was well aware of one extremely important fact about her own Leigh lineage (her "Leigh-niage", if you will), which was directly connected to that same theme of death in childbirth, which I claim is _THE_ central theme of Northanger Abbey. I have argued that Mrs. Tilney is the symbol of all English wives who died in childbirth, the victims of their "Bluebeard" husbands. That was the subject of my own talk at the JASNA AGM, and when I listened to Barchas in November detailing her own wonderful discovery about the wife-killing "Bluebeard" Hungerford husband at Farleigh Hungerford, I knew that this fit perfectly with my own "Bluebeard" exegesis of NA, based on the completely different death in childbirth theme.
And in support of my argument at my AGM talk, I also pointed out one of the very personal connections of this death in childbirth theme to Jane Austen's own family---that same Mary Leigh (nee Brydges) whom you mentioned, above, Derrick----the wife of Theophilus, and great grandmother of JA herself---died in childbirth after bearing her twelfth child!
But what I did not realize till this morning, when I did the sleuthing which I've outlined above, was that JA may very well have selected Farleigh Hungerford, and in particular its most notorious resident, the wife-killer Walter Hungerford, as a crucial allusive source for NA, precisely _BECAUSE_ she already was well aware of the above described genealogical connection---as per my third capitalized section---of JA's _own_ maternal great grandmother (who died in a wifely victim of childbirth) to her "sisters" in wifely victimhood, the three wives of that evil Walter Hungerford!
And, by the way, you will want to read P. 122 of the current Persuasions for Barchas's detailed account of how things went down for Walter Hungerford and, in particular, his third wife, Elizabeth, who managed to survive him and even prosper after his death!
I just rescanned Barchas's article as carefully as I could, and I still cannot find any indication that she realized the connection of the Hungerford family to the Austen family, and I know that she did not draw any connection between the "Bluebeard" antics of Walter Hungerford and the death in childbirth theme which I have described in NA.
So I claim that when you combine Barchas's original discoveries from her article together with my own original additions to same, you get an enormous synergy, which brings out in 3-D a particularly important example of what Jocelyn Harris called "Jane Austen's Art of Memory"!
Cheers, ARNIE
Derrick, did you happen to notice the discussion that I initiated in these groups last November about the excellent presentation by Janine Barchas at the last JASNA AGM in Portland? In her presentation, Barchas laid out, in convincing detail, the multifaceted veiled allusion in Northanger Abbey to the Farleigh Hungerford castle outside Bath, and now her argument can finally be read in the recently published Volume 32 of the print Persuasions, at ppg. 115 et seq., under the title "The Real Bluebeard of Bath: A Historical Model for Northanger Abbey")".
I mention all this because, as I read your comment, above, I was struck by the close proximity of the names "Leigh" and "Hungerford", and I made an immediate semantic association of same to "Farleigh Hungerford".
And as you will see, below, that was a very fortunate association, and, given JA's many covert parodies of the Royal Family during her own lifetime, it is a wonderful and highly ironic serendipity that a significant advance in Jane Austen studies should be furthered by seemingly unrelated news about the latest addition to the modern Royal Family. Read on to see what I am talking about....
My immediate question upon reading your above quoted genealogical factoid was to ask whether "Hungerford" was just a name that percolated around England's noble families, such that there was no special familial linkage to be inferred by its usage? My guess was that it was a very unusual name that _would_ have been associated with a particular family, and therefore it probably _was_ a marker that somehow Sir Hungerford Hoskyns was genealogically connected to the colorful Hungerford family whose real life Gothic history JA alluded to, as Barchas brilliantly elucidated, in NA.
Well, it was my lucky day, because it turns out that my hunch was spot-on. Here is the icing on the allusive layer cake, the factoid which ties _all_ loose ends together, which I just found in Debrett's Baronetage, at p. 139:
"Hoskyns, of Harwood, Co.Hereford. 18 Dec. 1676. John Hoskynswas M.P. for Hereford, 1602 and 1613; /m. /Margery, da. of William Jones, of Llanwarren, co. Hereford, esq., by whom, amongst other children, he had, John, his youngest son, a serjeant-at-law, who was returned to the house of commons, for the same city of Hereford, 1627, in which it appears he had previously sat; because, it is related, that he was committed to the Tower of London, by order of king James 1., for a speech made in that house, reflecting upon mercenary Scottish favourites. He /m. /Benedicta, da. of Robert Moyle, of Buckwell, co. Kent, esq., by whom he had issue, /Benedicta, /m. John Markey, of Alton, co. Hereford, esq., and a son and heir,
1. Sir Bennet, created a bart., 18 Dec. 1676, /m. /ANNE, DA. OF SIR HENRY BINGLEY, of Temple Coombe, co. Somerset, knt., auditor of the exchequer, by whom he had issue, //Sir John, 2d bart. & William, of Kingston; and
2. Sir John, F.R.S., was knighted during the lifetime of his father, sat as member for Hereford during the reign of James II., and was a master in the court of Chancery, /m. /Jane, da. of sir Gabriel Law, of Newark, co. Gloucester, knt., (A LINEAL DESCENDANT, BY HIS MOTHER'S FAMILY, FROM WALTER, LORD HUNGERFORD, K.G., in the reign of Henry VI.,) by Anne, da, of sir Stephen Soame, of Haidon, co. Essex, knt, by whom he had, besides other issue, 1. Sir Bennet, 3d bart. & 2. Sir HUNGERFORD, 4th bart.....who, while a younger brother, served in several campaigns under the duke of Marlborough; m. MARY, DA. OF THEOPHILUS LEIGH, OF ADLESTROP, CO. GLOUCESTER, ESQ. (BY MARY BRYDGES, SISTER TO THE DUKE OF CHANDOS)..... " [END OF DEBRETT'S EXCERPT]
The "Walter, Lord Hungerford during the reign of Henry VI" who is named by Debrett is described as follows in Wikipedia: "Walter Hungerford was the youngest son of Robert Hungerford, 3rd Baron Hungerford
And that last-named "Walter, Lord Hungerford (1503-1540)" was _exactly_ the same guy whom Barchas devotes a great deal of ink to in her article, indeed he is none other than "The Real Bluebeard of Bath" in her article title!
I capitalized, for emphasis, three parts of that quotation from Debrett's---first, the reference to a woman named "Anne BINGLEY" who married Sir Bennet Hungerford--okay, that surname was not rare, and could be pure coincidence; but second, and clearly _not_ coincidental, this same Walter, Lord Hungerford, had a descendant, Jane Law, who was the mother of the _same_ Sir Hungerford Hoskyns, 4th bart., who married Mary Leigh, as Derrick stated, above!
And now I will show how the veiled allusion to Lord Hungerford and to Jane Austen's own matrilineal ancestry in NA is more than a genealogical parlor game, which relates to my _third_ capitalized bit from the above Debrett's listing, the marriage of Mary Leigh to Sir Hungerford Hoskyns, 4th bart.
Even if there had been no actual family linkage between "Farleigh Hungerford" and "Sir Hungerford Hoskyns", even if this had been just a random coincidence of names, I claim that JA, who knew her _own_ family lineage pretty well, would have seen the wordplay potential of the closeness of these names when she decided to represent Farleigh Hungerford in NA. I know this because I also know that JA was well aware of one extremely important fact about her own Leigh lineage (her "Leigh-niage", if you will), which was directly connected to that same theme of death in childbirth, which I claim is _THE_ central theme of Northanger Abbey. I have argued that Mrs. Tilney is the symbol of all English wives who died in childbirth, the victims of their "Bluebeard" husbands. That was the subject of my own talk at the JASNA AGM, and when I listened to Barchas in November detailing her own wonderful discovery about the wife-killing "Bluebeard" Hungerford husband at Farleigh Hungerford, I knew that this fit perfectly with my own "Bluebeard" exegesis of NA, based on the completely different death in childbirth theme.
And in support of my argument at my AGM talk, I also pointed out one of the very personal connections of this death in childbirth theme to Jane Austen's own family---that same Mary Leigh (nee Brydges) whom you mentioned, above, Derrick----the wife of Theophilus, and great grandmother of JA herself---died in childbirth after bearing her twelfth child!
But what I did not realize till this morning, when I did the sleuthing which I've outlined above, was that JA may very well have selected Farleigh Hungerford, and in particular its most notorious resident, the wife-killer Walter Hungerford, as a crucial allusive source for NA, precisely _BECAUSE_ she already was well aware of the above described genealogical connection---as per my third capitalized section---of JA's _own_ maternal great grandmother (who died in a wifely victim of childbirth) to her "sisters" in wifely victimhood, the three wives of that evil Walter Hungerford!
And, by the way, you will want to read P. 122 of the current Persuasions for Barchas's detailed account of how things went down for Walter Hungerford and, in particular, his third wife, Elizabeth, who managed to survive him and even prosper after his death!
I just rescanned Barchas's article as carefully as I could, and I still cannot find any indication that she realized the connection of the Hungerford family to the Austen family, and I know that she did not draw any connection between the "Bluebeard" antics of Walter Hungerford and the death in childbirth theme which I have described in NA.
So I claim that when you combine Barchas's original discoveries from her article together with my own original additions to same, you get an enormous synergy, which brings out in 3-D a particularly important example of what Jocelyn Harris called "Jane Austen's Art of Memory"!
Cheers, ARNIE
Monday, June 20, 2011
Letter 30: The (Un)faithful Maria's (Un)happy Event
With the help of two of Diana Birchall's speculations back in 2006, I think I have figured out a bit more about the Payne Mystery in Letters 28 and 30, which I discussed in my previous post.
Letter 28 jokes about "the Faithful Maria" Payne's feeling more certain of "the happy Event", and Letter 30 jokes about "to what noblemen [Mr. Payne] bequeathed his four daughters in marriage", and now I think that "happy Event" in the former is one and the same thing as the hypothetical marriage of Maria--who was the eldest of Mr. Payne's four daughters---in the latter! Here is how I see it all playing out via JA's clever wordplay.
There are only two places in all of JA's novels where JA refers to a "happy Event".
One is in Ch. 57 of P&P:
"[A letter f]rom Mr. Collins! and what can /he/ have to say?"
"Something very much to the purpose, of course. He begins with congratulations on the approaching nuptials of my eldest daughter, of which, it seems, he has been told by some of the good-natured, gossiping Lucases. I shall not sport with your impatience by reading what he says on that point. What relates to yourself is as follows: 'Having thus offered you the sincere congratulations of Mrs. Collins and myself on this _HAPPY EVENT_, let me now add a short hint on the subject of another; of which we have been advertised by the same authority. Your daughter Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name of Bennet after her elder sister has resigned it, and the chosen partner of her fate may be reasonably looked up to as one of the most illustrious personages in this land.'
"Can you possibly guess, Lizzy, who is meant by this? -- 'This young gentleman is blessed, in a peculiar way, with everything the heart of mortal can most desire -- splendid property, noble kindred, and extensive patronage. Yet, in spite of all these temptations, let me warn my cousin Elizabeth, and yourself, of what evils you may incur by a precipitate closure with this gentleman's proposals, which, of course, you will be inclined to take immediate advantage of.'
"Have you any idea, Lizzy, who this gentleman is? But now it comes out --
"'My motive for cautioning you is as follows: we have reason to imagine that his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with a friendly eye."
"/Mr. Darcy/, you see, is the man! Now, Lizzy, I think I /have/ surprised you. Could he or the Lucases have pitched on any man, within the circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie more effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at /you/ in his life! It is admirable!"
Of course the "happy event" to which Mr. Collins's letter refers is the impending marriage of Bingley and Jane. But what is equally interesting vis a vis Letter 30 and it's reference "to what nobleman" is Mr. Collins's hint about the additional likely marriage of Lizzy and Darcy! After all, it is universally acknowledged among Janeites that Mr. Darcy is both a "nobleman" _and_ a "noble man", and a quick word search in the text of the novel reveals that Darcy has a "noble mien" and a "noble" estate, and also, in Ch. 54, bears Bingley's sitting next to Jane with "noble indifference"! With these five essential aspects of nobility covered, we can safely aver that Mr. Darcy is in fact the "quintessence" of nobility!
So it seems clear to me from all of the above that part of the background meaning of JA's jokes about Maria Payne and her family in Letters 28 & 30 is to point to the romantic climax of P&P.
And that's exactly where Diana's catch from 2006 kicks in, to make it _doubly_ clear, because Diana had observed that "the faithful Maria" sounds an awful lot like the narrative description of Caroline Bingley as Darcy's "faithful assistant" when she chimes in to get a dig at Lizzy on the topic of the truly accomplished woman:
" 'Oh! certainly,' cried his _FAITHFUL ASSISTANT_, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with."
When you put these two bits of allusive wordplay together, one from Letter 28 and one from Letter 30, there can be no reasonable doubt that this pointing to P&P (which JA was clearly still revising at that time) is all entirely intentional on JA's part.
And.....it turns out that my suggestion to Diana back in 2006 that Maria Bertram might be an allusive source behind "the faithful Maria" _also_ gets a boost, from the _second_ of the two references to "happy event" in JA's novels, in Ch. 9 of MP:
Mr. Crawford smiled his acquiescence, and stepping forward to Maria, said, in a voice which she only could hear, “I do not like to see Miss Bertram so near the altar.”
Starting, the lady instinctively moved a step or two, but recovering herself in a moment, affected to laugh, and asked him, in a tone not much louder, “If he would give her away?”
“I am afraid I should do it very awkwardly,” was his reply, with a look of meaning.
Julia, joining them at the moment, carried on the joke.
“Upon my word, it is really a pity that it should not take place directly, if we had but a proper licence, for here we are altogether, and nothing in the world could be more snug and pleasant.” And she talked and laughed about it with so little caution as to catch the comprehension of Mr. Rushworth and his mother, and expose her sister to the whispered gallantries of her lover, while Mrs. Rushworth spoke with proper smiles and dignity of its being a most _HAPPY EVENT_ to her whenever it took place.
However, where "happy event" was accurate in P&P, here in MP, the meaning of "happy event" is completely ironic and dark. The "happy event' is the impending marriage of (the anything but faithful) Maria to Mr. Rushworth, but here there is no real happiness at all, in this doomed mismatch. What a tragic ironic the reader already knows, which is that happiness will not be in either Maria's or Mr. R's future, because the only man to whom Maria is actually faithful is Henry Crawford!
Now, I am not claiming that JA already had a draft of Mansfield Park in the works in 1800 when she wrote Letters 28 & 30--rather, I think that when JA conceived MP in 1813 or thereabouts, she still had, in the back of her mind, the idea of a Maria who is both faithful and unfaithful, with the real life Maria Payne and her life at Daylesford in 1800 having somehow remained vivid in JA's fertile imagination!
And, finally, as to what sort of veiled commentary this all constitutes about the real life Maria Payne, who was over 50 at the time JA wrote Letters 28 & 30 (whereas two of her three younger sisters were only around 30 at the time)--I think Diana's guess is a shrewd one---i.e., that Maria's role at Daylesford was something like that of Caroline Bingley at Netherfield. I would only add that equally apt would be an even less savory representation in JA's novels, and one a lot closer in age-----the middle aged unmarried Mrs. Norris at Mansfield Park, playing the role of "surrogate wife" to the master of the house.
Either way, not a flattering portrait at all!
And therefore, perhaps, just perhaps....JA had one additional bit of wordplay fun in MP, when she wrote:
"...though Mansfield Park might have some pains [Paynes?], Portsmouth could have no pleasures."
Cheers, ARNIE
Letter 28 jokes about "the Faithful Maria" Payne's feeling more certain of "the happy Event", and Letter 30 jokes about "to what noblemen [Mr. Payne] bequeathed his four daughters in marriage", and now I think that "happy Event" in the former is one and the same thing as the hypothetical marriage of Maria--who was the eldest of Mr. Payne's four daughters---in the latter! Here is how I see it all playing out via JA's clever wordplay.
There are only two places in all of JA's novels where JA refers to a "happy Event".
One is in Ch. 57 of P&P:
"[A letter f]rom Mr. Collins! and what can /he/ have to say?"
"Something very much to the purpose, of course. He begins with congratulations on the approaching nuptials of my eldest daughter, of which, it seems, he has been told by some of the good-natured, gossiping Lucases. I shall not sport with your impatience by reading what he says on that point. What relates to yourself is as follows: 'Having thus offered you the sincere congratulations of Mrs. Collins and myself on this _HAPPY EVENT_, let me now add a short hint on the subject of another; of which we have been advertised by the same authority. Your daughter Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name of Bennet after her elder sister has resigned it, and the chosen partner of her fate may be reasonably looked up to as one of the most illustrious personages in this land.'
"Can you possibly guess, Lizzy, who is meant by this? -- 'This young gentleman is blessed, in a peculiar way, with everything the heart of mortal can most desire -- splendid property, noble kindred, and extensive patronage. Yet, in spite of all these temptations, let me warn my cousin Elizabeth, and yourself, of what evils you may incur by a precipitate closure with this gentleman's proposals, which, of course, you will be inclined to take immediate advantage of.'
"Have you any idea, Lizzy, who this gentleman is? But now it comes out --
"'My motive for cautioning you is as follows: we have reason to imagine that his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with a friendly eye."
"/Mr. Darcy/, you see, is the man! Now, Lizzy, I think I /have/ surprised you. Could he or the Lucases have pitched on any man, within the circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie more effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at /you/ in his life! It is admirable!"
Of course the "happy event" to which Mr. Collins's letter refers is the impending marriage of Bingley and Jane. But what is equally interesting vis a vis Letter 30 and it's reference "to what nobleman" is Mr. Collins's hint about the additional likely marriage of Lizzy and Darcy! After all, it is universally acknowledged among Janeites that Mr. Darcy is both a "nobleman" _and_ a "noble man", and a quick word search in the text of the novel reveals that Darcy has a "noble mien" and a "noble" estate, and also, in Ch. 54, bears Bingley's sitting next to Jane with "noble indifference"! With these five essential aspects of nobility covered, we can safely aver that Mr. Darcy is in fact the "quintessence" of nobility!
So it seems clear to me from all of the above that part of the background meaning of JA's jokes about Maria Payne and her family in Letters 28 & 30 is to point to the romantic climax of P&P.
And that's exactly where Diana's catch from 2006 kicks in, to make it _doubly_ clear, because Diana had observed that "the faithful Maria" sounds an awful lot like the narrative description of Caroline Bingley as Darcy's "faithful assistant" when she chimes in to get a dig at Lizzy on the topic of the truly accomplished woman:
" 'Oh! certainly,' cried his _FAITHFUL ASSISTANT_, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with."
When you put these two bits of allusive wordplay together, one from Letter 28 and one from Letter 30, there can be no reasonable doubt that this pointing to P&P (which JA was clearly still revising at that time) is all entirely intentional on JA's part.
And.....it turns out that my suggestion to Diana back in 2006 that Maria Bertram might be an allusive source behind "the faithful Maria" _also_ gets a boost, from the _second_ of the two references to "happy event" in JA's novels, in Ch. 9 of MP:
Mr. Crawford smiled his acquiescence, and stepping forward to Maria, said, in a voice which she only could hear, “I do not like to see Miss Bertram so near the altar.”
Starting, the lady instinctively moved a step or two, but recovering herself in a moment, affected to laugh, and asked him, in a tone not much louder, “If he would give her away?”
“I am afraid I should do it very awkwardly,” was his reply, with a look of meaning.
Julia, joining them at the moment, carried on the joke.
“Upon my word, it is really a pity that it should not take place directly, if we had but a proper licence, for here we are altogether, and nothing in the world could be more snug and pleasant.” And she talked and laughed about it with so little caution as to catch the comprehension of Mr. Rushworth and his mother, and expose her sister to the whispered gallantries of her lover, while Mrs. Rushworth spoke with proper smiles and dignity of its being a most _HAPPY EVENT_ to her whenever it took place.
However, where "happy event" was accurate in P&P, here in MP, the meaning of "happy event" is completely ironic and dark. The "happy event' is the impending marriage of (the anything but faithful) Maria to Mr. Rushworth, but here there is no real happiness at all, in this doomed mismatch. What a tragic ironic the reader already knows, which is that happiness will not be in either Maria's or Mr. R's future, because the only man to whom Maria is actually faithful is Henry Crawford!
Now, I am not claiming that JA already had a draft of Mansfield Park in the works in 1800 when she wrote Letters 28 & 30--rather, I think that when JA conceived MP in 1813 or thereabouts, she still had, in the back of her mind, the idea of a Maria who is both faithful and unfaithful, with the real life Maria Payne and her life at Daylesford in 1800 having somehow remained vivid in JA's fertile imagination!
And, finally, as to what sort of veiled commentary this all constitutes about the real life Maria Payne, who was over 50 at the time JA wrote Letters 28 & 30 (whereas two of her three younger sisters were only around 30 at the time)--I think Diana's guess is a shrewd one---i.e., that Maria's role at Daylesford was something like that of Caroline Bingley at Netherfield. I would only add that equally apt would be an even less savory representation in JA's novels, and one a lot closer in age-----the middle aged unmarried Mrs. Norris at Mansfield Park, playing the role of "surrogate wife" to the master of the house.
Either way, not a flattering portrait at all!
And therefore, perhaps, just perhaps....JA had one additional bit of wordplay fun in MP, when she wrote:
"...though Mansfield Park might have some pains [Paynes?], Portsmouth could have no pleasures."
Cheers, ARNIE
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