Ellen Moody wrote the following in Austen L earlier today: "I've bought myself an inexpensive copy of Southey's Letters from England."
Here is an online version:
http://www.archive.org/stream/lettersfromengla02soutuoft/lettersfromengla02soutuoft_djvu.txt
[Ellen] "Southey imagines himself a Spaniard visiting England and writing letters back to a periodical."
Even though Southey adopted the pose of (anonymous) translator--complete with ersatz translator's notes--it was apparently well known pretty quickly that he was the author, and JA's comment about "the foreigner he assumes" shows _she_ is fully aware that he is the writer.
I found a long and mostly favorable 1808 review of the book here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=KQPlAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA380&dq=Southey+Espriella&hl=en&ei=ysMtToTNL8q_tgeapuHXAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CD0Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Southey%20Espriella&f=false
And JA would have had a very personal reason to know Southey was the author--indeed, to know about the book as soon as anyone would have--which is that earlier in that same Letter 56 in which JA writes about the Espriella book, she advises CEA that their friendthe 33-year old Catherine Bigg was about to marry the 59 year old Revd. Herbert Hill, who just happens to be Robert Southey’s uncle: “[Mary Lloyd Austen] hears that Miss Bigg is to be married in a fortnight. I wish it may be so.”
It can't be a coincidence that JA lays her hands on the second volume of Southey's book at the very instant when her good friend was about to marry Southey's uncle!--Perhaps she got to borrow a copy from Catherine Bigg?
[Ellen] "By remaining more realistic than most of these...he can really describe customs realistically from the vantage point of Spain (where I believe he went) and both satirize and comment on humanity and its social customs. Southey is very readable. "
I browsed through several sections of the second volume of Espriella, and I think that Southey in general does an excellent job in skewering the inhumanity of several aspects of the English economic system and in particular its brutal exploitation of the poor. However, Southey does lapse now and again into little unconscious misogynies presented as little witticisms, which JA would have noted (and I can imagine how she'd have camped them up as she read aloud, presumably to Mrs. Austen, by candlelight) and JA would _not_ have been amused by them.
But otherwise I think it a creditable performance by Southey, and I believe JA would also have overall approved of Southey's ideas---our first clue is that JA is reading the _second_ volume-if she had found the first volume unacceptable, why in the world would she go on and read the second one? Shades of Mark Twain here with his faux criticism of P&P which _he_ has read repeatedly--and I think Twain might well have taken note of JA's faux critique of Southey's book!
[Ellen] "I like travel books but am drawn to this because Austen (we know) read it. As is so common with her, she comments caustically and adversarially. She was one jealous author :) She also shows an unfortunate narrow-minded and chauvinism: how dare he comment adversely on England! "
I completely disagree with Ellen. As usual, I claim she is missing that JA is being ironic, and she is _not_ writing in her own voice, when she writes "The Man...is horribly anti-english. He deserves to be the foreigner he assumes."
That is, I would imagine, _Mrs. Austen's_ view of Southey's blistering critique of the English economic system, not JA, so she is mocking her mother's xenophobic chauvinism!
There is an enormous amount of evidence in JA's letters and novels to show that she would have felt exactly the same as "Espriella" did about exploitation of the poor and the working class, even though JA's focus was, for good reason, on injustices toward the _rural_, rather than the urban, laborer. JA was the antithesis of a narrow minded chauvinist--indeed Northanger Abbey in particular is, from start to finish, a wide ranging critique of English patriarchalism.
I bet JA took particular note (and so did Southey's friend Charles Lamb) of the following line written by "Espriella" in his 49th letter:
"Let us leave to England the BOAST of supplying all Europe with her wares; let us leave to these LORDS OF THE SEA the distinction of which they are so tenacious, that of being the white SLAVES of the rest of the world, and doing for it all its dirty work."
Compare the above, written in 1808, with its topsy-turvy irony of the lords being slaves to the following, published by JA in 1816 in some political tract--I think the title is something like _Emma_?: ;)
"My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings, LORDS of the earth! their luxury and ease. Another view of man, my second brings, Behold him there, the MONARCH OF THE SEAS! But ah! united, what reverse we have! 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 here is my followup post to the above:
When I wrote the above earlier today, I had not:
1. Read all of Southey's Espriella letters, I only skimmed Vol. 2, and
2. Did not stop to follow up on the word I had in my mind when I wrote the following:
"There is an enormous amount of evidence in JA's letters and novels to show that she would have felt exactly the same as "Espriella" did about
exploitation of the poor and the working class, even though JA's focus was, for good reason, on injustices toward the_rural_, rather than the urban, laborer. "
The word I was thinking was "enclosure" and it turns out that I had completely forgotten that Helena Kelly, in her excellent excellent article....
http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol30no2/kelly.html
..._begins_ that article about the enclosure subtext of JA's novels by quoting that very line from JA's Letter 56, and then taking it straight to the topic of enclosure!:
Robert Southey’s 1807/Letters from England/—the text Austen refers to in this letter to Cassandra—takes the form of correspondence purporting
to be from a Spanish traveler, Don Espriella. The/Letters/ describes a landscape in a state of alteration. Indeed at times it seems that
Espriella can discern little or nothing from his carriage that is not connected to a discussion of the enclosure or lack of enclosure in the
surrounding countryside. The commentary begins in the second letter, where Espriella shares his opinion that “the beauty of the country is
much injured by enclosures” (7). In the next letter, the traveler begins to see the potential aesthetic attractions of an enclosed countryside: “the Vale of Honiton, which we overlooked on the way, is considered as one of the richest landscapes in the kingdom: it is indeed a prodigious extent of highly cultivated country, set thickly with hedges and hedgerow trees” (8). The open field system of unenclosed Dorsetshire appears to him by contrast, “dreary. . . . I had been disposed to think that the English enclosures rather deformed than beautified the landscape, but I now perceived how cheerless and naked the cultivated country appears without them” (9). Espriella’s description of Salisbury Plain in Letter Five makes brief reference to Stonehenge, “the famous druidical monument,” but only after describing how “Salisbury plain stretches to the North, but little of it is visible from the road which we were travelling; much of this wide waste has recently been enclosed and cultivated” (12). Almost everywhere Espriella travels subsequently—Basingstoke (12), the outskirts of London (13, 61), Blenheim (66), the Midlands—enclosure rears its head. The/Letters/ describes a countryside that looks both unreal—“lines of enclosure lay below us like a map” (89)—and rawly new: “an open country of broken ground with hills at a little distance enclosed in square patches and newly as it appeared brought into cultivation. There was not a single tree rising in the hedgerows” (89). Southey’s 1805 poem
/Madoc/ touches on the emotional and philosophical implications of enclosure, but the picture of England that the/Letters/ offers is, as Austen appears to acknowledge, grounded firmly in reality. Enclosure occurred from the Tudor period into the twentieth century, but traditional accounts fail to make clear the sheer scale—and speed—of agricultural change during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Around half of all the Enclosure Acts passed between 1727 and 1845 were enacted during one twenty-year period between 1795 and 1815 (Mingay 20) when more than three million acres of wastes, commons, and heaths were enclosed (John 30). This figure equates to just under five thousand square miles, an area about one tenth the size of England. Simon Winchester calculates that during this time parliament must have been passing enclosure acts at “the rate of one a week” (23)."
In my overlooking Vol. 1 of Espriella, I missed Southey's focus on enclosure --now that i know about it, however, that only solidifies my certainty that JA was only joking about disapproving of Southey's radical social critique---JA must have been thrilled and even electrified at reading Southey's biting, comprehensive, brilliant, outside the box gonzo journalism--JA surely took inspiration from Southey's courageous stand for the little guy.
Diane Reynolds then wrote: "Henry Tilney's comment, in the middle of the speech about how rational and non-Gothic Britain is, noting that every man spies on his neighbors. Harding uses that as evidence of JA's "regulated hatred." It's not flattering."
Diane, you are correct in that interpretation, but that is only the tip of a huge ironic iceberg "floating" beneath the surface of Henry's rant--that rant is like the charade in Emma, wheels within wheels within wheels.... world without end.
Cheers, ARNIE
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Letter 34 & NA: "...you would rather accept the attentions of John.."
I just found another "bread crumb" that shows yet another significant echo of JA's fiction in her letters. First, here is the real life end of the equation, in Letter 34:
"She meditates your returning into Hampshire together, & if the Time should accord, it would not be undesirable. She talks of staying only a fortnight, & as that will bring your stay in Berkeley Street to three weeks, I suppose you would not wish to make it longer.-Do not let this however retard your coming down, if you had intended a much earlier return.-I suppose whenever you come, Henry would send you in his carriage a stage or two, where you might be met by John, whose protection you would
we imagine think sufficient for the rest of your Journey. He might ride on the Bar, or might even sometimes meet with the accomodation of a sunday-chaise.-James has offered to meet you anywhere, but as that would be to give him trouble without any COUNTERPOISE of CONVENIENCE, as he has no intention of going to London at present on his own account, we suppose that you would rather accept the attentions of John.-"
In the latter half of this passage, as I noted a week ago, JA paints an unforgiving portrait of brother James as a man who, like John Dashwood, has reduced life in general, and moral judgment in particular, to an endless series of calculations of costs and benefits. If the cost of his interrupting his plans (of, e.g., going hunting with one of his rich friends who are the objects of his persistent Collinsesque toadying) were, heavens forbid, to exceed the benefit of meeting CEA (e.g., if by doing so he might also be able to accomplish some other selfish goal), then the self-centered "clockwork orange" which is James Austen would fall out of
balance, the finely calibrated mechanism would be disrupted, and that cannot be allowed.
Which goes a long way toward explaining why Fanny Dashwood, and also Mary Lloyd Austen, have such an easy time manipulating their respective husbands to do banal evil---the clever wife need only speak in her husband's own language, the language of tit for tat, the diametric opposite of the Christian charity one might have hoped to receive from a Christian clergyman.
And note that JA plants a subtle mnemonic device in this passage, the turn of phrase "counterpoise of convenience", both to make it more noticeable and also to make it more memorable. "Counterpoise" is actually a word that was almost exclusively used in JA's time in a physics or chemistry context, i.e., a hard science term. JA adapts it metaphorically to a moral context, and uses it ironically. CEA cannot count on receiving the "time of day", so to speak, from brother James.
I then wondered whether JA ever used the word "counterpoise" in any other instance, and look what I found when I searched for it, in Chapter 11 of Northanger Abbey:
"She could not think the Tilneys had acted quite well by her, in so readily giving up their engagement, without sending her any message of excuse. It was now but an hour later than the time fixed on for the beginning of their walk; and, in spite of what she had heard of the prodigious accumulation of dirt in the course of that hour, she could not from her own observation help thinking that they might have gone with very little INCONVENIENCE. On the other hand, the delight of exploring an
edifice like Udolpho, as her fancy represented Blaize Castle to be, was such a COUNTERPOISE of good as might console her for almost anything. "
Is it just a coincidence that in Letter 34, the words "counterpoise" _and_ "(in)convenience" are used in the context of the pros and cons of how a young woman, CEA, is to be transported by others from Point A to Point B, and that in the above passage from NA, these 2 words are _also_ used in the context of a young woman, Catherine Morland, being tempted to accept the rude, obnoxious invitation of John Thorpe to drive her to a desirable destination, in reaction to a perceived slight in regard by supposedly generous friends to another desired conveyance of a female body?
And..is it also just a coincidence that in the cast of players in NA we have a John (Thorpe), a Catherine (Morland), a Henry (Tilney) and a James (Morland), and in the cast of real life players we _also_ have a John (Lyford?), a Catherine (Bigg), a Henry (Austen) and a James (Austen)--the last being an older brother in both cases? And, even more specific, in both cases the attentions of "John" are deemed preferable!
And note the crucial linkage of real life to fiction via a stick with the same unusual words attached to each end of that stick! Or, perhaps a better metaphor, drawn from the world of science, as suggested by that word "counterpoise", would be of a chemical bond between two "molecules"-- uniting the pathetic tales of the "heroine" CEA and the "heroine" Catherine Morland, respectively.
How could this linkage be more intentional and significant? And the capper is that the above passage in Letter 34 comes immediately _after_ the passage containing "while Steventon is still ours", which I also highlighted a week ago-a "story" in which the heroine goes to Bath from her home in the English countryside.
In short, then, I give you the Revd. James Austen, the ANTI-hero of the story of the dispossession of the Austen women from Steventon to Bath.
And that CEA did _not_ destroy Letter 34, and did _not_ excise this long paragraph about that dispossession, knowing full well exactly what it signified, and how it connected to NA, speaks volumes about CEA's agreement with JA on this judgment of brother James, and of CEA's honoring her dead sister by not silencing her after death had taken her body.
Cheers, ARNIE
"She meditates your returning into Hampshire together, & if the Time should accord, it would not be undesirable. She talks of staying only a fortnight, & as that will bring your stay in Berkeley Street to three weeks, I suppose you would not wish to make it longer.-Do not let this however retard your coming down, if you had intended a much earlier return.-I suppose whenever you come, Henry would send you in his carriage a stage or two, where you might be met by John, whose protection you would
we imagine think sufficient for the rest of your Journey. He might ride on the Bar, or might even sometimes meet with the accomodation of a sunday-chaise.-James has offered to meet you anywhere, but as that would be to give him trouble without any COUNTERPOISE of CONVENIENCE, as he has no intention of going to London at present on his own account, we suppose that you would rather accept the attentions of John.-"
In the latter half of this passage, as I noted a week ago, JA paints an unforgiving portrait of brother James as a man who, like John Dashwood, has reduced life in general, and moral judgment in particular, to an endless series of calculations of costs and benefits. If the cost of his interrupting his plans (of, e.g., going hunting with one of his rich friends who are the objects of his persistent Collinsesque toadying) were, heavens forbid, to exceed the benefit of meeting CEA (e.g., if by doing so he might also be able to accomplish some other selfish goal), then the self-centered "clockwork orange" which is James Austen would fall out of
balance, the finely calibrated mechanism would be disrupted, and that cannot be allowed.
Which goes a long way toward explaining why Fanny Dashwood, and also Mary Lloyd Austen, have such an easy time manipulating their respective husbands to do banal evil---the clever wife need only speak in her husband's own language, the language of tit for tat, the diametric opposite of the Christian charity one might have hoped to receive from a Christian clergyman.
And note that JA plants a subtle mnemonic device in this passage, the turn of phrase "counterpoise of convenience", both to make it more noticeable and also to make it more memorable. "Counterpoise" is actually a word that was almost exclusively used in JA's time in a physics or chemistry context, i.e., a hard science term. JA adapts it metaphorically to a moral context, and uses it ironically. CEA cannot count on receiving the "time of day", so to speak, from brother James.
I then wondered whether JA ever used the word "counterpoise" in any other instance, and look what I found when I searched for it, in Chapter 11 of Northanger Abbey:
"She could not think the Tilneys had acted quite well by her, in so readily giving up their engagement, without sending her any message of excuse. It was now but an hour later than the time fixed on for the beginning of their walk; and, in spite of what she had heard of the prodigious accumulation of dirt in the course of that hour, she could not from her own observation help thinking that they might have gone with very little INCONVENIENCE. On the other hand, the delight of exploring an
edifice like Udolpho, as her fancy represented Blaize Castle to be, was such a COUNTERPOISE of good as might console her for almost anything. "
Is it just a coincidence that in Letter 34, the words "counterpoise" _and_ "(in)convenience" are used in the context of the pros and cons of how a young woman, CEA, is to be transported by others from Point A to Point B, and that in the above passage from NA, these 2 words are _also_ used in the context of a young woman, Catherine Morland, being tempted to accept the rude, obnoxious invitation of John Thorpe to drive her to a desirable destination, in reaction to a perceived slight in regard by supposedly generous friends to another desired conveyance of a female body?
And..is it also just a coincidence that in the cast of players in NA we have a John (Thorpe), a Catherine (Morland), a Henry (Tilney) and a James (Morland), and in the cast of real life players we _also_ have a John (Lyford?), a Catherine (Bigg), a Henry (Austen) and a James (Austen)--the last being an older brother in both cases? And, even more specific, in both cases the attentions of "John" are deemed preferable!
And note the crucial linkage of real life to fiction via a stick with the same unusual words attached to each end of that stick! Or, perhaps a better metaphor, drawn from the world of science, as suggested by that word "counterpoise", would be of a chemical bond between two "molecules"-- uniting the pathetic tales of the "heroine" CEA and the "heroine" Catherine Morland, respectively.
How could this linkage be more intentional and significant? And the capper is that the above passage in Letter 34 comes immediately _after_ the passage containing "while Steventon is still ours", which I also highlighted a week ago-a "story" in which the heroine goes to Bath from her home in the English countryside.
In short, then, I give you the Revd. James Austen, the ANTI-hero of the story of the dispossession of the Austen women from Steventon to Bath.
And that CEA did _not_ destroy Letter 34, and did _not_ excise this long paragraph about that dispossession, knowing full well exactly what it signified, and how it connected to NA, speaks volumes about CEA's agreement with JA on this judgment of brother James, and of CEA's honoring her dead sister by not silencing her after death had taken her body.
Cheers, ARNIE
Sunday, July 17, 2011
The 194th anniversary of Jane Austen's premature death
I just reread my blog post of a year ago on the occasion of the anniversary of Jane Austen's premature death:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2010/07/when-once-we-are-buried-you-think-we.html
What strikes me today, as we are now about 7 months into our marathon group reading of Jane Austen's letters, one per week, in Janeites and Austen-L, is how crucial--and how badly understood by most Janeite scholars--was the relationship between Jane Austen and her eldest brother James, who also died young, but not quite as young--in 1819.
Before she is cold in her crypt at Winchester Cathedral, James writes a poem about "Venta" which is a whitewash of JA's witheringly sarcastic poem about St. Swithin which I discuss in my above post from last year.
In late 1800 and early 1801, we have the series of letters from JA which show her rage and sarcasm at James and his wife evicting the Austen family from Steventon, and James's wife Mary trying to whitewash this by pretending that this eviction is not really happening.
And my various previous posts about the Loiterer, most recently....
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2011/06/remarkable-veiled-meaning-of-latin.html
....show how crucial James was in JA's meteoric rise as a writer at age 13 in 1789, as I have shown repeatedly that JA covertly satirizes the literary poseur and wannabe James.
Much food for thought on this anniversary of JA's death...
Cheers, ARNIE
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2010/07/when-once-we-are-buried-you-think-we.html
What strikes me today, as we are now about 7 months into our marathon group reading of Jane Austen's letters, one per week, in Janeites and Austen-L, is how crucial--and how badly understood by most Janeite scholars--was the relationship between Jane Austen and her eldest brother James, who also died young, but not quite as young--in 1819.
Before she is cold in her crypt at Winchester Cathedral, James writes a poem about "Venta" which is a whitewash of JA's witheringly sarcastic poem about St. Swithin which I discuss in my above post from last year.
In late 1800 and early 1801, we have the series of letters from JA which show her rage and sarcasm at James and his wife evicting the Austen family from Steventon, and James's wife Mary trying to whitewash this by pretending that this eviction is not really happening.
And my various previous posts about the Loiterer, most recently....
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2011/06/remarkable-veiled-meaning-of-latin.html
....show how crucial James was in JA's meteoric rise as a writer at age 13 in 1789, as I have shown repeatedly that JA covertly satirizes the literary poseur and wannabe James.
Much food for thought on this anniversary of JA's death...
Cheers, ARNIE
Letter 34: "....while Steventon is still ours...."
"He received my letter, communicating our plans, before he left England, was much surprised of course, but is quite reconciled to them, & means to come to Steventon once more while Steventon is ours.-"
In case there was any doubt as to how the less influential members of the Austen family felt about the move to Bath, the above very clear statement must remove a great deal of that doubt. And the unstated but clear implication is that James Austen and his wife are not part of that "ours", they are dispossessors, evictors.
I cannot help but be reminded of the scene at the end of Fiddler on the Roof (which I will check tomorrow to see if it is a modern invention or was part of Sholom Aleichem's original stories), when the Tsar's local boss, who has known Tevye all their lives, gives Tevye and his fellow Jewish villagers the notice to get out of Anatevka forever within a couple of days. Tevye finds one shred of dignity he can still preserve in the face of this horrible act of injustice, when he tells his "old friend" the\ boss to get off of Tevye's land, while it is still Tevye's for those few
days.
As far as I can tell from a quick check online, the only Austen biographer who makes a specific comment about the plain meaning of this passage is Tomalin. Nokes quotes the passage, but does not otherwise take special note,and the few other biographers who even touch on this passage at all merely include it within a quotation of the entire paragraph and otherwise treat this passage as if it were no different from other routine gossip and family news.
I love, and totally agree with, Tomalin's very frank and straightforward discussion of JA's anger over being evicted from Steventon by brother James and his wife Mary. I was particularly pleased to see Tomalin connecting the dots back to the following passage in Letter 30, written less than a month before Letter 33, which I had overlooked a few weeks ago, because I did not realize exactly what was being described:
"The wedding-day is to be celebrated on the 16th because the 17th falls on Saturday -& a day or two before the 16th Mary will drive her sister to Ibthrop to find all the festivity she can in contriving for everybody's comfort, & being thwarted or teized by almost everybody's temper.-Fulwar, Eliza, & Tom Chute are to be of the party;-I know of nobody else.-I was asked, but declined it."
What this means, Tomalin has noticed, is that James and Mary were celebrating their 6th wedding anniversary, and it is hard to avoid the feeling that Mary is a kind of Mrs. Norris, a busybody who intrudes and oppresses family while claiming to be concerned about everyone else's comfort. And Tomalin sees meaning, and I agree with her, in JA's very matter of fact report of her refusal of this invitation--"I declined it"--nothing else need be said, CEA understands all the reasons why JA
declined it.
When you look at this series of letters from late 1800 through Feb. 1801, the theme of anger over being dispossessed is everywhere, but also the surreal and grotesque added layer of being forced into frequent contact with the dispossessors, who are celebrating this moment in Austen family history. No wonder the sarcasm drips from so many places in these letters, it was the hypocrisy about the injustice, the final indignity of being expected to grin and bear it, while being treated so abominably, that JA hated the most.
And isn't that the essence of the first half dozen chapters of S&S, the way that the three Dashwood women must endure Fanny's triumphal hypocrisy? Marianne can barely stifle her anger, and expressing it against Fanny.
Sound familiar? I can just imagine the lost epistolary version of Elinor and Marianne, with letters being written from Norland by Marianne which sound exactly like this series of letters written by JA from Steventon to CEA at Godmersham.
Cheers,
Arnie
In case there was any doubt as to how the less influential members of the Austen family felt about the move to Bath, the above very clear statement must remove a great deal of that doubt. And the unstated but clear implication is that James Austen and his wife are not part of that "ours", they are dispossessors, evictors.
I cannot help but be reminded of the scene at the end of Fiddler on the Roof (which I will check tomorrow to see if it is a modern invention or was part of Sholom Aleichem's original stories), when the Tsar's local boss, who has known Tevye all their lives, gives Tevye and his fellow Jewish villagers the notice to get out of Anatevka forever within a couple of days. Tevye finds one shred of dignity he can still preserve in the face of this horrible act of injustice, when he tells his "old friend" the\ boss to get off of Tevye's land, while it is still Tevye's for those few
days.
As far as I can tell from a quick check online, the only Austen biographer who makes a specific comment about the plain meaning of this passage is Tomalin. Nokes quotes the passage, but does not otherwise take special note,and the few other biographers who even touch on this passage at all merely include it within a quotation of the entire paragraph and otherwise treat this passage as if it were no different from other routine gossip and family news.
I love, and totally agree with, Tomalin's very frank and straightforward discussion of JA's anger over being evicted from Steventon by brother James and his wife Mary. I was particularly pleased to see Tomalin connecting the dots back to the following passage in Letter 30, written less than a month before Letter 33, which I had overlooked a few weeks ago, because I did not realize exactly what was being described:
"The wedding-day is to be celebrated on the 16th because the 17th falls on Saturday -& a day or two before the 16th Mary will drive her sister to Ibthrop to find all the festivity she can in contriving for everybody's comfort, & being thwarted or teized by almost everybody's temper.-Fulwar, Eliza, & Tom Chute are to be of the party;-I know of nobody else.-I was asked, but declined it."
What this means, Tomalin has noticed, is that James and Mary were celebrating their 6th wedding anniversary, and it is hard to avoid the feeling that Mary is a kind of Mrs. Norris, a busybody who intrudes and oppresses family while claiming to be concerned about everyone else's comfort. And Tomalin sees meaning, and I agree with her, in JA's very matter of fact report of her refusal of this invitation--"I declined it"--nothing else need be said, CEA understands all the reasons why JA
declined it.
When you look at this series of letters from late 1800 through Feb. 1801, the theme of anger over being dispossessed is everywhere, but also the surreal and grotesque added layer of being forced into frequent contact with the dispossessors, who are celebrating this moment in Austen family history. No wonder the sarcasm drips from so many places in these letters, it was the hypocrisy about the injustice, the final indignity of being expected to grin and bear it, while being treated so abominably, that JA hated the most.
And isn't that the essence of the first half dozen chapters of S&S, the way that the three Dashwood women must endure Fanny's triumphal hypocrisy? Marianne can barely stifle her anger, and expressing it against Fanny.
Sound familiar? I can just imagine the lost epistolary version of Elinor and Marianne, with letters being written from Norland by Marianne which sound exactly like this series of letters written by JA from Steventon to CEA at Godmersham.
Cheers,
Arnie
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Emma Watson and Emma Woodhouse the "little" heroines of Jane Austen
In honor of the auctioning off of 2/3 of the existing manuscript pages (showing Jane Austen's own editing interlineations and deletions) of her novel fragment, The Watsons, at Sotheby's for nearly a million pounds, here are a couple of Watsonian tidbits about the heroine of The Watsons, Emma Watson, who of course shares her first name with Jane Austen's second most famous heroine (with Elizabeth Bennet her most famous heroine, of course), Emma Woodhouse.
First, I bet you did not know that Sir Francis Darwin, Charles’s son and editor of his father’s letters, in 1917, in a book entitled _Rustic Sounds and Other Studies in Literature and Natural History_, wrote at P. 74, in his essay about Jane Austen, the following comments about Emma Watson, the heroine of The Watsons:
“The heroine, Emma Watson, has no resemblance to Emma Woodhouse…in character she seems to me to have none of the charm which has given Fanny Price …various admirers. It is perhaps characteristic of her creator’s truth, that her heroine who is made known to us just as she arrives at her new home in uncomfortable surroundings and among unknown sisters, should be reserved and a little prim, and that we should be made to feel that this was not her complete character….”
Second, James Edward Austen-Leigh, in his 1870 Memoir of his famous aunt, expressed the following opinion about Emma Watson, and why Jane Austen discontinued writing The Watsons:
“My own idea is, but it is only a guess, that the author became aware of the evil of having placed her heroine too low, in such a position of poverty and obscurity as, though not necessarily connected with vulgarity, has a sad tendency to degenerate into it; and therefore, like a singer who has begun on too low a note, she discontinued the strain.”
And third and last, JEAL's comments are highly ironic when read alongside the comments of the Victorian novelist (and huge Janeite) Anthony Trollope about that other Austenian Emma, Miss Woodhouse:
"Emma, the heroine, is treated almost mercilessly. In every passage of the book, she is in fault for some folly, some vanity, some ignorance—or indeed for some meanness …Nowadays we dare not make our heroines so little.”
So raise a million-pound toast to the forgotten _and_ the famous Emma, who were both too "little", in ways that were perhaps not so different after all!
Cheers, ARNIE
First, I bet you did not know that Sir Francis Darwin, Charles’s son and editor of his father’s letters, in 1917, in a book entitled _Rustic Sounds and Other Studies in Literature and Natural History_, wrote at P. 74, in his essay about Jane Austen, the following comments about Emma Watson, the heroine of The Watsons:
“The heroine, Emma Watson, has no resemblance to Emma Woodhouse…in character she seems to me to have none of the charm which has given Fanny Price …various admirers. It is perhaps characteristic of her creator’s truth, that her heroine who is made known to us just as she arrives at her new home in uncomfortable surroundings and among unknown sisters, should be reserved and a little prim, and that we should be made to feel that this was not her complete character….”
Second, James Edward Austen-Leigh, in his 1870 Memoir of his famous aunt, expressed the following opinion about Emma Watson, and why Jane Austen discontinued writing The Watsons:
“My own idea is, but it is only a guess, that the author became aware of the evil of having placed her heroine too low, in such a position of poverty and obscurity as, though not necessarily connected with vulgarity, has a sad tendency to degenerate into it; and therefore, like a singer who has begun on too low a note, she discontinued the strain.”
And third and last, JEAL's comments are highly ironic when read alongside the comments of the Victorian novelist (and huge Janeite) Anthony Trollope about that other Austenian Emma, Miss Woodhouse:
"Emma, the heroine, is treated almost mercilessly. In every passage of the book, she is in fault for some folly, some vanity, some ignorance—or indeed for some meanness …Nowadays we dare not make our heroines so little.”
So raise a million-pound toast to the forgotten _and_ the famous Emma, who were both too "little", in ways that were perhaps not so different after all!
Cheers, ARNIE
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Mrs. Oliphant and her "modern" take in 1870 on Pride and Prejudice and Jane Austen
One comment that is often made to me when I make one of my subversive interpretations of a Jane Austen irony, is that I am imposing a 21st century sensibility on a late 18th century writer.
The following is a strong example to the contrary. Margaret Oliphant, a critic, write a famous article in March, 1870, in response to publication of James Edward Austen Leigh's Memoir about Jane Austen, and Oliphant had the following interesting comments.
First, she quoted JA's famous comments in Letter 79 about Elizabeth Bennet being "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print", and then herself (Oliphant) referring to Mr. Collins as follows: "Whether it is not too cruel to make the wife of this delightful Mr. Collins share so completely in his creator's estimate of him is a different matter."
Oliphant then went on to rain on the romantic parade of Pride & Prejudice:
It was not so much that she thought Darcy deserved better than Lizzy, so much as it is of Oliphant thinking neither is special, they both deserve each other. Here are her exact words:
"....Elizabeth and Darcy, the one a young woman very much addicted to making speeches, very pert often, fond of having the last word, and prone to hasty judgments, with really nothing but her prettiness and a certain sharp smartness of talk to recommend her; and the other a very ordinary young man, quite like hosts of other young men, with that appearance of outward pride and /hauteur /which is so captivating to the youthful feminine imagination, though it must be admitted that he possesses an extraordinary amount of candour and real humility of mind under this exterior. It is curious to realise what a shock it must have given to the feelings of the young novelist when she found how little her favourite pair had to do with the success of their own story, and how entirely her secondary characters, in their various and vivid
originality, carried the day over her first."
That was a bit harsh on Lizzy, and yet it reflected an ability to read against the grain, and see Lizzy in a more objective way than is typical.
But then Oliphant was completely spot-on in what she says about James Stanier Clarke, the Prince Regent's librarian who corresponds with Jane Austen about _Emma_ and also makes suggestions for her next book's plot and characters.---Oliphant was way ahead of the curve way back in 1870 pointing out how Jane Austen dealt with the Mr. Collins-like Jame Stanier Clarke, I will let Oliphant say the rest herself:
"There is, however, one quaint instance of appreciation, recorded in the Memoir, which took place in her lifetime. The Prince-Regent admired Miss
Austen's novels much, and sent her word through her doctor that she might go and see Carlton House with all its riches—a permission which we cannot but think must have been more honourable than delightful. She took the trouble to do it, however, and there met a Mr. Clarke, librarian to his Royal Highness, who forthwith took her in hand. This gentleman, so far as can be judged by his letters, was a personage altogether after Miss Austen's heart, and who might have stepped out of one of her own books. He gives her permission unasked to dedicate one of her books to the Regent—a permission, by the way, which we do not clearly understand if she ever availed herself of; and, in addition, he
proposes to her a subject for a book. "I also, dear madam," writes this ingenious gentleman, "wished to be allowed to ask you to delineate in some future work the habits of life and character and enthusiasm of a clergyman who should pass his time between the metropolis and the country, who should be something like Beattie's minstrel—'Silent when glad, affectionate though shy. And in bis looks was most demurely sad; And now he laughed aloud, though none knew why.'
Neither Goldsmith, nor La Fontaine in his 'Tableau de Famille,' have, in my mind, quite delineated an English clergyman, at least of the present day — fond of and entirely engaged in literature, no man's enemy but his own. Pray, dear madam, think of these things."
This tempting, not to say solemn' suggestion did not move the novelist, which must have seemed a strange fact to Mr. Clarke. She answers him with admirable gravity, demurely setting herself forth as "the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress," and consequently quite incapable of "drawing such a clergyman as you gave the sketch of. . . . Such a man's conversation," she adds, "must at times be on subjects of science and philosophy, of which I know nothing, or at least be occasionally abundant in quotations and allusions which a woman who, like me, knows only her own mother tongue, and has read little in that, would be totally without the power of giving.''......
[And here's the best part]
...How Miss Austen must have chuckled secretly over this wonderful suggestion! how deeply tempted she must have been to transfer the librarian himself, if not his "enthusiastic clergyman," to her canvas! But even this answer does not discourage Mr. Clarke. Some time after he was appointed English secretary to Prince Leopold, who was then about to be married to the Princess Charlotte; and he does not lose a moment apparently in venturing a new suggestion, which was that "an historical romance illustrative of the august house of Cobourg would just now be very interesting." Mr. Collins himself could not have done better. His clever correspondent exults over him; she gives him the gravest answers, and draws her victim out . She is quite inferior to the undertaking, she tells him with comic composure. Mr. Austen Leigh, however, does not seem
to see the fun, but gravely comments upon it, observing that Mr. Clarke should have recollected the warning of the wise man, "Force not the current of the river," a conclusion scarcely less amusing than the preceding narrative. It appears, however, that this was by no means a singular occurrence...."
So even though Oliphant deserves a small black star for her failure to see any
immortality of the battle of the sexes between Lizzy and Darcy, I think she is at least partially redeemed by so beautifully skewering the completely cluelessness of both James Stanier Clarke _and_ JEAL--and perhaps that is not surprising, given how well Oliphant "got" Mr. Collins!
But...what never occurred to Oliphant is the possibility that Mr. Clarke _did_ make an unheralded appearance in JA's novels after all.
Cheers, ARNIE
The following is a strong example to the contrary. Margaret Oliphant, a critic, write a famous article in March, 1870, in response to publication of James Edward Austen Leigh's Memoir about Jane Austen, and Oliphant had the following interesting comments.
First, she quoted JA's famous comments in Letter 79 about Elizabeth Bennet being "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print", and then herself (Oliphant) referring to Mr. Collins as follows: "Whether it is not too cruel to make the wife of this delightful Mr. Collins share so completely in his creator's estimate of him is a different matter."
Oliphant then went on to rain on the romantic parade of Pride & Prejudice:
It was not so much that she thought Darcy deserved better than Lizzy, so much as it is of Oliphant thinking neither is special, they both deserve each other. Here are her exact words:
"....Elizabeth and Darcy, the one a young woman very much addicted to making speeches, very pert often, fond of having the last word, and prone to hasty judgments, with really nothing but her prettiness and a certain sharp smartness of talk to recommend her; and the other a very ordinary young man, quite like hosts of other young men, with that appearance of outward pride and /hauteur /which is so captivating to the youthful feminine imagination, though it must be admitted that he possesses an extraordinary amount of candour and real humility of mind under this exterior. It is curious to realise what a shock it must have given to the feelings of the young novelist when she found how little her favourite pair had to do with the success of their own story, and how entirely her secondary characters, in their various and vivid
originality, carried the day over her first."
That was a bit harsh on Lizzy, and yet it reflected an ability to read against the grain, and see Lizzy in a more objective way than is typical.
But then Oliphant was completely spot-on in what she says about James Stanier Clarke, the Prince Regent's librarian who corresponds with Jane Austen about _Emma_ and also makes suggestions for her next book's plot and characters.---Oliphant was way ahead of the curve way back in 1870 pointing out how Jane Austen dealt with the Mr. Collins-like Jame Stanier Clarke, I will let Oliphant say the rest herself:
"There is, however, one quaint instance of appreciation, recorded in the Memoir, which took place in her lifetime. The Prince-Regent admired Miss
Austen's novels much, and sent her word through her doctor that she might go and see Carlton House with all its riches—a permission which we cannot but think must have been more honourable than delightful. She took the trouble to do it, however, and there met a Mr. Clarke, librarian to his Royal Highness, who forthwith took her in hand. This gentleman, so far as can be judged by his letters, was a personage altogether after Miss Austen's heart, and who might have stepped out of one of her own books. He gives her permission unasked to dedicate one of her books to the Regent—a permission, by the way, which we do not clearly understand if she ever availed herself of; and, in addition, he
proposes to her a subject for a book. "I also, dear madam," writes this ingenious gentleman, "wished to be allowed to ask you to delineate in some future work the habits of life and character and enthusiasm of a clergyman who should pass his time between the metropolis and the country, who should be something like Beattie's minstrel—'Silent when glad, affectionate though shy. And in bis looks was most demurely sad; And now he laughed aloud, though none knew why.'
Neither Goldsmith, nor La Fontaine in his 'Tableau de Famille,' have, in my mind, quite delineated an English clergyman, at least of the present day — fond of and entirely engaged in literature, no man's enemy but his own. Pray, dear madam, think of these things."
This tempting, not to say solemn' suggestion did not move the novelist, which must have seemed a strange fact to Mr. Clarke. She answers him with admirable gravity, demurely setting herself forth as "the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress," and consequently quite incapable of "drawing such a clergyman as you gave the sketch of. . . . Such a man's conversation," she adds, "must at times be on subjects of science and philosophy, of which I know nothing, or at least be occasionally abundant in quotations and allusions which a woman who, like me, knows only her own mother tongue, and has read little in that, would be totally without the power of giving.''......
[And here's the best part]
...How Miss Austen must have chuckled secretly over this wonderful suggestion! how deeply tempted she must have been to transfer the librarian himself, if not his "enthusiastic clergyman," to her canvas! But even this answer does not discourage Mr. Clarke. Some time after he was appointed English secretary to Prince Leopold, who was then about to be married to the Princess Charlotte; and he does not lose a moment apparently in venturing a new suggestion, which was that "an historical romance illustrative of the august house of Cobourg would just now be very interesting." Mr. Collins himself could not have done better. His clever correspondent exults over him; she gives him the gravest answers, and draws her victim out . She is quite inferior to the undertaking, she tells him with comic composure. Mr. Austen Leigh, however, does not seem
to see the fun, but gravely comments upon it, observing that Mr. Clarke should have recollected the warning of the wise man, "Force not the current of the river," a conclusion scarcely less amusing than the preceding narrative. It appears, however, that this was by no means a singular occurrence...."
So even though Oliphant deserves a small black star for her failure to see any
immortality of the battle of the sexes between Lizzy and Darcy, I think she is at least partially redeemed by so beautifully skewering the completely cluelessness of both James Stanier Clarke _and_ JEAL--and perhaps that is not surprising, given how well Oliphant "got" Mr. Collins!
But...what never occurred to Oliphant is the possibility that Mr. Clarke _did_ make an unheralded appearance in JA's novels after all.
Cheers, ARNIE
The "real truth" in Pride and Prejudice
As part of my recent meanderings through Pride and Prejudice, locating passages which are ambiguous in interesting ways, I just stumbled across the _mother_ (or perhaps I should say rather, the _aunt_) of all ambiguous passages in the novel, this one being in Chapter 46. It is directly connected to the others I have been discussing, all having to do, in some way or another, with Mrs. Gardiner's perceptions and conjectures regarding Lizzy and Darcy.
Here it is, it is very short, it occurs right after the Gardiners have been hastily recalled to the Lambton Inn where Lizzy has been reduced to emotional rubble by the one-two punch of reading Jane's letters, and then being unable to avoid blurting out the whole Lydia nightmare to Darcy. Aunt Gardiner is also shocked, and then we read:
"But what is to be done about Pemberley?" cried Mrs. Gardiner. "John told us Mr. Darcy was here when you sent for us; was it so?"
"Yes; and I told him we should not be able to keep our engagement. /That/ is all settled."
"What is all settled?" repeated the other, as she ran into her room to prepare. "And are they upon such terms as for her to disclose the real truth? Oh, that I knew how it was!"
But wishes were vain, or at least could only serve to amuse her in the hurry and confusion of the following hour."
Can you see the humongous, stupefyingly gargantuan ambiguity in this passage?
Hint--think about what Mrs. Gardiner means about Lizzy disclosing "the real truth"? And why does she ask what is "all settled"? Once you come up with _one_ answer, keep thinking about it till you come up with a _second_ answer!
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I believe that almost all Janeites who have read this passage and thought about what Mrs. Gardiner means, have concluded that Mrs. Gardiner is wondering whether Lizzy has disclosed _to Darcy_ the real truth about Lydia's elopement with Wickham, and they are not incorrect, as that is an eminently plausible, indeed compelling interpretation---there would seem to be no reason to look beyond it.
Except....that another interpretation invaded my brain as I reread that passage earlier this evening, while sitting in a medical waiting room killing time on my IPhone, and it was even more compelling--which is that Mrs. Gardiner can, with equal if not greater plausibility, also be read as wondering whether Lizzy is upon such terms with Darcy as to disclose the real truth _to Mrs. Gardiner_, which is the "real truth" of Lizzy and Darcy's (conjectured by Mrs. Gardiner, but not real) _engagement_ ....to be married!
I urge you to go back now and reread the passage a few times, and while doing so keep in mind that both before and after that passage, Mrs. Gardiner explicitly wonders about the nature of Lizzy and Darcy's relationship. In particular, think about Mrs. Gardiner's letter to Lizzy written a few chapters later, in which she quite explicitly expresses her puzzlement to Lizzy as to Lizzy's being in the dark about the resolution of the Lydia-Wickham fracas. And most of all keep in mind the climactic scene of the novel, the confrontation between Lizzy and Lady Catherine, which arises precisely because Lady Catherine believes (as Mrs. Gardiner also believes) that Lizzy and Darcy are........ _engaged_!
Jane Austen is such a mistress of hiding things in plain sight, that she herself, as an author, can get away with "disclosing" the word "engagement" in a sentence concerning Lizzy and Darcy, with all that context, and yet have practically no Janeites for 200 years ever notice the double meaning of "engagement" in regard to them!
By the way, I wrote "practically no Janeites' because, after a diligent search in all my usual nooks and crannies on the Internet, I found no scholarly interpretations to the effect of what I came up with, above, but I did manage to find _one_ non-scholarly but very sharp Janeite who saw the double meaning of "engagement" in Lizzy's words, just as I did, in another discussion group several years ago, so she has priority and I have duly noted this.
So, what do you think?
Cheers, ARNIE
sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com
P.S.:
There is one last wonderful irony in the alternative interpretation I have presented, which is that we can upon next _rereading_ of P&P now see a whole new significance in the following passage from Chapter 26:
"In short, my dear aunt, I should be very sorry to be the means of making any of you unhappy; but since we see every day that where there is affection, young people are seldom withheld by immediate want of fortune from entering into _engagements_ with each other, how can I promise to be wiser than so many of my fellow-creatures if I am tempted, or how am I even to know that it would be wisdom to resist? All that I can promise you, therefore, is not to be in a hurry. I will not be in a hurry to believe myself his first object. When I am in company with him, I will not be wishing. In short, I will do my best."
Lizzy was talking about Wickham in Chapter 26, but Aunt Gardiner thought Lizzy was talking about _Darcy_ in Chapter 46!
Here it is, it is very short, it occurs right after the Gardiners have been hastily recalled to the Lambton Inn where Lizzy has been reduced to emotional rubble by the one-two punch of reading Jane's letters, and then being unable to avoid blurting out the whole Lydia nightmare to Darcy. Aunt Gardiner is also shocked, and then we read:
"But what is to be done about Pemberley?" cried Mrs. Gardiner. "John told us Mr. Darcy was here when you sent for us; was it so?"
"Yes; and I told him we should not be able to keep our engagement. /That/ is all settled."
"What is all settled?" repeated the other, as she ran into her room to prepare. "And are they upon such terms as for her to disclose the real truth? Oh, that I knew how it was!"
But wishes were vain, or at least could only serve to amuse her in the hurry and confusion of the following hour."
Can you see the humongous, stupefyingly gargantuan ambiguity in this passage?
Hint--think about what Mrs. Gardiner means about Lizzy disclosing "the real truth"? And why does she ask what is "all settled"? Once you come up with _one_ answer, keep thinking about it till you come up with a _second_ answer!
(scroll down)
(scroll down)
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I believe that almost all Janeites who have read this passage and thought about what Mrs. Gardiner means, have concluded that Mrs. Gardiner is wondering whether Lizzy has disclosed _to Darcy_ the real truth about Lydia's elopement with Wickham, and they are not incorrect, as that is an eminently plausible, indeed compelling interpretation---there would seem to be no reason to look beyond it.
Except....that another interpretation invaded my brain as I reread that passage earlier this evening, while sitting in a medical waiting room killing time on my IPhone, and it was even more compelling--which is that Mrs. Gardiner can, with equal if not greater plausibility, also be read as wondering whether Lizzy is upon such terms with Darcy as to disclose the real truth _to Mrs. Gardiner_, which is the "real truth" of Lizzy and Darcy's (conjectured by Mrs. Gardiner, but not real) _engagement_ ....to be married!
I urge you to go back now and reread the passage a few times, and while doing so keep in mind that both before and after that passage, Mrs. Gardiner explicitly wonders about the nature of Lizzy and Darcy's relationship. In particular, think about Mrs. Gardiner's letter to Lizzy written a few chapters later, in which she quite explicitly expresses her puzzlement to Lizzy as to Lizzy's being in the dark about the resolution of the Lydia-Wickham fracas. And most of all keep in mind the climactic scene of the novel, the confrontation between Lizzy and Lady Catherine, which arises precisely because Lady Catherine believes (as Mrs. Gardiner also believes) that Lizzy and Darcy are........ _engaged_!
Jane Austen is such a mistress of hiding things in plain sight, that she herself, as an author, can get away with "disclosing" the word "engagement" in a sentence concerning Lizzy and Darcy, with all that context, and yet have practically no Janeites for 200 years ever notice the double meaning of "engagement" in regard to them!
By the way, I wrote "practically no Janeites' because, after a diligent search in all my usual nooks and crannies on the Internet, I found no scholarly interpretations to the effect of what I came up with, above, but I did manage to find _one_ non-scholarly but very sharp Janeite who saw the double meaning of "engagement" in Lizzy's words, just as I did, in another discussion group several years ago, so she has priority and I have duly noted this.
So, what do you think?
Cheers, ARNIE
sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com
P.S.:
There is one last wonderful irony in the alternative interpretation I have presented, which is that we can upon next _rereading_ of P&P now see a whole new significance in the following passage from Chapter 26:
"In short, my dear aunt, I should be very sorry to be the means of making any of you unhappy; but since we see every day that where there is affection, young people are seldom withheld by immediate want of fortune from entering into _engagements_ with each other, how can I promise to be wiser than so many of my fellow-creatures if I am tempted, or how am I even to know that it would be wisdom to resist? All that I can promise you, therefore, is not to be in a hurry. I will not be in a hurry to believe myself his first object. When I am in company with him, I will not be wishing. In short, I will do my best."
Lizzy was talking about Wickham in Chapter 26, but Aunt Gardiner thought Lizzy was talking about _Darcy_ in Chapter 46!
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