I just realized something this morning, which I thought might be a good subject for a little quiz, which is:
Which 2 out of the 6 Austen novels have the greatest frequency of the word "real" (or a variant of the word such as, e.g., "really")?
Hint--the 2 novels with the greatest frequency consist of one of the three shorter novels (NA, P&P, and Persuasion), and one of the three longer novels (S&S, MP, and Emma).
Hint #2: The difference in frequency is very dramatic between these 2 novels and the other 4, i.e., pretty much twice as frequently.
Any guesses? If you do guess, it would also be fun if you speculate as to WHY those 2 novels would have double the frequency of that word as the other 4.
I will give the answer tomorrow morning EST, unless someone guesses both correct answers sooner, and I will also give my own speculation as to why those 2 novels were given this special treatment by JA.
Cheers, ARNIE
Friday, July 29, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
"The other Mary" in Letters 49 & 50....even though Lord Brabourne and Deirdre Le Faye would not want you to connect those two dots
Not to go out of order in our group read of JA's letters, but I happened to come across two passages in Letters 49 & 50 today, which fits perfectly with the notion that JA did not think very highly of Mary Lloyd Austen....and how!
First here is the relevant passage in Letter 49:
"Alphonsine" did not do. We were disgusted in twenty pages, as, independent of a bad translation, it has indelicacies which disgrace a pen hitherto so pure; and we changed it for the "Female Quixotte," which now makes our evening amusement; to me a very high one, as I find the work quite equal to what I remembered it. Mrs. F. A., to whom it is new, enjoys it as one could wish; the other Mary, I believe, has little pleasure from that or any other book."
The standard interpretation of the first part of that quotation is that JA and the other two ladies in her ad hoc reading group, her sisters in law Mrs. Frank Austen and Mrs. James Austen, were all disgusted at the theme of adultery depicted in de Genlis's Alphonsine, and that is why the book was put aside for another. I have never found that argument convincing, and have always believed that JA here is doing what she does so often in her letters, i.e., assuming the voice of another person for purposes of satire and irony--and in this instance, I believe that other person is none other than Mary Lloyd Austen!
Why would JA do this in this case? Because we can see the reason in what JA writes at the end of that same paragraph---"the other Mary, I believe, has little pleasure from that or any other book."
It seems clear to me that Frank's wife Mary is not the problem here, it is James's wife Mary, a prig, who puts the kibosh on reading any further in de Genlis. Here's how i reconstruct the background on this---first, I believe it was JA who brought Alphonsine forward in the first place--after all, it is well known that JA was very interested in de Genlis's fiction. And it could not have been Frank's wife Mary who brought it forward, she was all of _seventeen_ in 1807 (she married Frank at age 16 a year earlier!), and she was hardly going to be bringing forward risque literature for her two much older and more mature sisters in law to read.
So...the barely concealed subtext of this passage is a little power struggle between Jane Austen and James's wife Mary, and the "turf" being contested between them is JA's "home field", i.e., literature.
When Alphonsine is tossed aside at Mary Lloyd Austen's insistence, I see JA as the one who then comes forward with _another_ subversive feminist-tinged text, The Female Quixote, by Charlotte Lennox. And of course Mary Lloyd Austen has little pleasure in it either, which is what prompts JA's openly derisive barb at her Bowdlerizing sister in law.
And which also, I believe, finds its way into Pride and Prejudice, in the mouth of the equally unpleasant Caroline Bingley:
"Miss Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, "despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else."
"I deserve neither such praise nor such censure," cried Elizabeth; "I am NOT a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things."
Now _that_ is a sweet revenge on JA's part, to paint Mary Lloyd Austen as Caroline Bingley, getting her comeuppance from JA's most attractive and witty heroine, Lizzy Bennet!
And...what seals the deal on this interpretation, I claim, is the following passage in Letter 50, written exactly one month after Letter 49:
"I should not be surprised if we were to be visited by James again this week; he gave us reason to expect him soon, and if they go to Eversley he cannot come next week. I am sorry & angry that his Visits should not give us more pleasure; the company of so good & so clever a Man ought to be gratifying in itself; – but his Chat seems all forced, his Opinions on many points too much copied from his Wife’s, & his time here is spent I think in walking about the House & banging the doors, or ringing the Bell for a glass of Water."
First, what is noteworthy is that Lord Brabourne, that unashamed Bowlderizer, in his 1884 edition of the letters, deleted everything in that paragraph after the words "he cannot come next week." Of course he does this, because this is an additional unmasked attack by JA on James Austen, and that just won't do to let Janeites see JA being so severe in her judgment on both her elder brother James and his wife.
But note in particular the reference to "his Opinions on many points too much copied from his Wife's", and think about it in connection with JA's assuming the voice of Mary Lloyd Austen in rendering a harsh judgment on de Genlis's Alphonsine. That is surely one of the opinions which James has been forced to mouth in support of his wife!
And finally, why do I suggest in my Subject Line that Deirdre Le Faye does not want us to connect these passages in Letters 49 & 50? After all, she never connects the dots between passages in different letters, whether or not they are controversial passages or not. And she does not delete any of the text of the letters as Brabourne did.
No, what she did was much sneakier, and really is her M.O., always doing her censorious work in the shadows---very simply, Le Faye fails to include a reference to the above passage in Letter 49 in Mary Lloyd Austen's index entry! Therefore, a reader who was not able to deduce who the "other Mary" was, would not be able to connect these passages in these two letters, and realize their full mutual implications when read together!
As they might have said regarding the recently concluded British Open, "Par for the course".
Cheers, ARNIE
First here is the relevant passage in Letter 49:
"Alphonsine" did not do. We were disgusted in twenty pages, as, independent of a bad translation, it has indelicacies which disgrace a pen hitherto so pure; and we changed it for the "Female Quixotte," which now makes our evening amusement; to me a very high one, as I find the work quite equal to what I remembered it. Mrs. F. A., to whom it is new, enjoys it as one could wish; the other Mary, I believe, has little pleasure from that or any other book."
The standard interpretation of the first part of that quotation is that JA and the other two ladies in her ad hoc reading group, her sisters in law Mrs. Frank Austen and Mrs. James Austen, were all disgusted at the theme of adultery depicted in de Genlis's Alphonsine, and that is why the book was put aside for another. I have never found that argument convincing, and have always believed that JA here is doing what she does so often in her letters, i.e., assuming the voice of another person for purposes of satire and irony--and in this instance, I believe that other person is none other than Mary Lloyd Austen!
Why would JA do this in this case? Because we can see the reason in what JA writes at the end of that same paragraph---"the other Mary, I believe, has little pleasure from that or any other book."
It seems clear to me that Frank's wife Mary is not the problem here, it is James's wife Mary, a prig, who puts the kibosh on reading any further in de Genlis. Here's how i reconstruct the background on this---first, I believe it was JA who brought Alphonsine forward in the first place--after all, it is well known that JA was very interested in de Genlis's fiction. And it could not have been Frank's wife Mary who brought it forward, she was all of _seventeen_ in 1807 (she married Frank at age 16 a year earlier!), and she was hardly going to be bringing forward risque literature for her two much older and more mature sisters in law to read.
So...the barely concealed subtext of this passage is a little power struggle between Jane Austen and James's wife Mary, and the "turf" being contested between them is JA's "home field", i.e., literature.
When Alphonsine is tossed aside at Mary Lloyd Austen's insistence, I see JA as the one who then comes forward with _another_ subversive feminist-tinged text, The Female Quixote, by Charlotte Lennox. And of course Mary Lloyd Austen has little pleasure in it either, which is what prompts JA's openly derisive barb at her Bowdlerizing sister in law.
And which also, I believe, finds its way into Pride and Prejudice, in the mouth of the equally unpleasant Caroline Bingley:
"Miss Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, "despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else."
"I deserve neither such praise nor such censure," cried Elizabeth; "I am NOT a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things."
Now _that_ is a sweet revenge on JA's part, to paint Mary Lloyd Austen as Caroline Bingley, getting her comeuppance from JA's most attractive and witty heroine, Lizzy Bennet!
And...what seals the deal on this interpretation, I claim, is the following passage in Letter 50, written exactly one month after Letter 49:
"I should not be surprised if we were to be visited by James again this week; he gave us reason to expect him soon, and if they go to Eversley he cannot come next week. I am sorry & angry that his Visits should not give us more pleasure; the company of so good & so clever a Man ought to be gratifying in itself; – but his Chat seems all forced, his Opinions on many points too much copied from his Wife’s, & his time here is spent I think in walking about the House & banging the doors, or ringing the Bell for a glass of Water."
First, what is noteworthy is that Lord Brabourne, that unashamed Bowlderizer, in his 1884 edition of the letters, deleted everything in that paragraph after the words "he cannot come next week." Of course he does this, because this is an additional unmasked attack by JA on James Austen, and that just won't do to let Janeites see JA being so severe in her judgment on both her elder brother James and his wife.
But note in particular the reference to "his Opinions on many points too much copied from his Wife's", and think about it in connection with JA's assuming the voice of Mary Lloyd Austen in rendering a harsh judgment on de Genlis's Alphonsine. That is surely one of the opinions which James has been forced to mouth in support of his wife!
And finally, why do I suggest in my Subject Line that Deirdre Le Faye does not want us to connect these passages in Letters 49 & 50? After all, she never connects the dots between passages in different letters, whether or not they are controversial passages or not. And she does not delete any of the text of the letters as Brabourne did.
No, what she did was much sneakier, and really is her M.O., always doing her censorious work in the shadows---very simply, Le Faye fails to include a reference to the above passage in Letter 49 in Mary Lloyd Austen's index entry! Therefore, a reader who was not able to deduce who the "other Mary" was, would not be able to connect these passages in these two letters, and realize their full mutual implications when read together!
As they might have said regarding the recently concluded British Open, "Par for the course".
Cheers, ARNIE
Barbara Karolina Seeber's article "Nature, Animals, and Gender in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park & Emma"
After rereading (yesterday) Barbara Karolina Seeber's pioneering analysis of the relationship between Sir Thomas and Fanny in her 2000 book _General Consent in JA: A Study in Dialogism_, I became curious to know what else Seeber might have written about JA, and I quickly found another article which is very similar in its intelligent use of textual examples to illustrate her arguments:
"Nature, Animals, and Gender in JA's MP and Emma" in Literature, Interpretation, Theory, 13, 269-285 (2002).
Here is an abbreviated version of Seeber's introductory paragraph:
"The late 18th and early 19th century saw an increase in moral concern for animals and advocacy of vegetarianism. This history...is intertwined with the radical politics of the period. The debate over 'rights'...explored connections among gender, class, race, and species...[Various contemporary books] all argue for vegetarianism. In the light of these texts and ecofeminist theories, representations of nature and animals in JA's MP (1814) and Emma (1816) invite investigation...MP draws structural parallels between patriarchy, imperialism, and the domination of nature: tree-cutting, hunting, and the domesticating and eating of animals. In Emma, food consumption demarcates class and gender lines."
In case any of you are worried about the "jargon" factor--and I am always jargon-averse---less than 10% of the article is theoretical, it consists almost entirely of textual examples and clearly argued analysis of same. And in several instances Seeber specifically (and to my mind persuasively) rebuts Maggie Lane's rose-colored interpretations of food in Austen novels.
My personal favorite from among Seeber's examples is the following:
"Jane Fairfax 'had yet her bread to earn' (165). Comparing the governess trade to the 'sale [...] of human flesh' (300), she demonstrates an astute awareness of the political ramifications of food. Throughout, her consumption of food is minimal: she 'really eats nothing.' (237). Emma is 'tire[d]" of listening to Miss Bates's description of 'exactly how little bread and butter [...] [Jane] ate for breakfast, and how small a slice of mutton for dinner' (168). While Emma is the 'complete picture of grown-up health' (39), Jane's poor health, like Fanny Price's, reflects her marginal social position....."
I love the subtle echo of "bread to earn" in "how little bread and butter", which is classic Austen subliminal textual connectivity. I had noticed that latter quoted passage before, in terms of Jane's not getting enough to eat, but I had not taken full note of Emma's incredibly clueless disregard for Jane's health. Here is the fuller excerpt:
"Jane had spent an evening at Hartfield with her grandmother and aunt, and every thing was relapsing much into its usual state. Former provocations reappeared. The aunt was as tiresome as ever; more tiresome, because anxiety for her health was now added to admiration of her powers; and they had to listen to the description of exactly how little bread and butter she ate for breakfast, and how small a slice of mutton for dinner...."
Emma experiences Miss Bates's anxiety for Jane's health as a "provocation", because, I would suggest, Emma is _not_ entirely callous and lacking in empathy, as might at first be inferred from the above passage. Rather, JA masterfully shows us that on a subconscious level, Emma _does_ have a conscience and _does_ hear what Miss Bates is saying--and Emma s genuinely upset by it. But Emma tries to stuff down this very uncomfortable and destabilizing empathy, and instead her mind turns right back to Emma's multiple jealousies of Jane's accomplishments, and Jane's frustrating unwillingness to satisfy Emma's intrusive nosiness.
In any event, I strongly recommend Seeber's article, it is filled with similar insights and fresh perspectives on JA.
Cheers, ARNIE
[Amended to add the following exchange between me and Diane Reynolds]
"Thanks for the heads up on the Seeber article. I will take a look at that."
You are welcome, Diane, I am sure you will find it as interesting and enlightening as I did.
"To switch gears, I have been thinking about your comments about Sir Thomas and Fanny. I have long found Sir Thomas a mystery, largely because the terror and dread Fanny and the Bertram children seem to experience toward Sir Thomas is not born out by action by him that we see in the text. "
Read the chapter in Seeber's book about this very subject, and then add my gloss from yesterday vis a vis that specific line in MP that I focused on yesterday, and you will have a very good start, but of course, go ahead and reread the rest of the novel in that light as well!
We have the same sort of question here in MP as in Hamlet--the _degree_ of the emotion of the character (Fanny in MP, Hamlet in Hamlet) seems extreme and out of proportion in response to the (apparent) cause----Eliot's famous "objective correlative".
Are we dealing with an oversensitive character, or a normal character responding to an extreme cause? _That_ is the question (or, at least, one of the important questions) in _both_ of those great works of literature. Speaking of "terror" and "horror", words which describe Fanny's feelings at several points in MP, think about Hamlet and his hair standing on end!
And there's another character in MP whose emotion seems extreme and out of proportion in response to the (apparent) cause--Sir Thomas himself, in his book-burning, razed-earth response to the production of Lovers Vows---are we dealing with an overreactive character, a character with a strong moral aversion to licentious drama.....or a character feeling guilty about wrongs _he_ has committed previously?
Ay, there's the rub--a connection between Hamlet and Mansfield Park which I have previously written about:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2011/02/sir-thomas-as-ghost-of-king-hamlet-and.html
"Nature, Animals, and Gender in JA's MP and Emma" in Literature, Interpretation, Theory, 13, 269-285 (2002).
Here is an abbreviated version of Seeber's introductory paragraph:
"The late 18th and early 19th century saw an increase in moral concern for animals and advocacy of vegetarianism. This history...is intertwined with the radical politics of the period. The debate over 'rights'...explored connections among gender, class, race, and species...[Various contemporary books] all argue for vegetarianism. In the light of these texts and ecofeminist theories, representations of nature and animals in JA's MP (1814) and Emma (1816) invite investigation...MP draws structural parallels between patriarchy, imperialism, and the domination of nature: tree-cutting, hunting, and the domesticating and eating of animals. In Emma, food consumption demarcates class and gender lines."
In case any of you are worried about the "jargon" factor--and I am always jargon-averse---less than 10% of the article is theoretical, it consists almost entirely of textual examples and clearly argued analysis of same. And in several instances Seeber specifically (and to my mind persuasively) rebuts Maggie Lane's rose-colored interpretations of food in Austen novels.
My personal favorite from among Seeber's examples is the following:
"Jane Fairfax 'had yet her bread to earn' (165). Comparing the governess trade to the 'sale [...] of human flesh' (300), she demonstrates an astute awareness of the political ramifications of food. Throughout, her consumption of food is minimal: she 'really eats nothing.' (237). Emma is 'tire[d]" of listening to Miss Bates's description of 'exactly how little bread and butter [...] [Jane] ate for breakfast, and how small a slice of mutton for dinner' (168). While Emma is the 'complete picture of grown-up health' (39), Jane's poor health, like Fanny Price's, reflects her marginal social position....."
I love the subtle echo of "bread to earn" in "how little bread and butter", which is classic Austen subliminal textual connectivity. I had noticed that latter quoted passage before, in terms of Jane's not getting enough to eat, but I had not taken full note of Emma's incredibly clueless disregard for Jane's health. Here is the fuller excerpt:
"Jane had spent an evening at Hartfield with her grandmother and aunt, and every thing was relapsing much into its usual state. Former provocations reappeared. The aunt was as tiresome as ever; more tiresome, because anxiety for her health was now added to admiration of her powers; and they had to listen to the description of exactly how little bread and butter she ate for breakfast, and how small a slice of mutton for dinner...."
Emma experiences Miss Bates's anxiety for Jane's health as a "provocation", because, I would suggest, Emma is _not_ entirely callous and lacking in empathy, as might at first be inferred from the above passage. Rather, JA masterfully shows us that on a subconscious level, Emma _does_ have a conscience and _does_ hear what Miss Bates is saying--and Emma s genuinely upset by it. But Emma tries to stuff down this very uncomfortable and destabilizing empathy, and instead her mind turns right back to Emma's multiple jealousies of Jane's accomplishments, and Jane's frustrating unwillingness to satisfy Emma's intrusive nosiness.
In any event, I strongly recommend Seeber's article, it is filled with similar insights and fresh perspectives on JA.
Cheers, ARNIE
[Amended to add the following exchange between me and Diane Reynolds]
"Thanks for the heads up on the Seeber article. I will take a look at that."
You are welcome, Diane, I am sure you will find it as interesting and enlightening as I did.
"To switch gears, I have been thinking about your comments about Sir Thomas and Fanny. I have long found Sir Thomas a mystery, largely because the terror and dread Fanny and the Bertram children seem to experience toward Sir Thomas is not born out by action by him that we see in the text. "
Read the chapter in Seeber's book about this very subject, and then add my gloss from yesterday vis a vis that specific line in MP that I focused on yesterday, and you will have a very good start, but of course, go ahead and reread the rest of the novel in that light as well!
We have the same sort of question here in MP as in Hamlet--the _degree_ of the emotion of the character (Fanny in MP, Hamlet in Hamlet) seems extreme and out of proportion in response to the (apparent) cause----Eliot's famous "objective correlative".
Are we dealing with an oversensitive character, or a normal character responding to an extreme cause? _That_ is the question (or, at least, one of the important questions) in _both_ of those great works of literature. Speaking of "terror" and "horror", words which describe Fanny's feelings at several points in MP, think about Hamlet and his hair standing on end!
And there's another character in MP whose emotion seems extreme and out of proportion in response to the (apparent) cause--Sir Thomas himself, in his book-burning, razed-earth response to the production of Lovers Vows---are we dealing with an overreactive character, a character with a strong moral aversion to licentious drama.....or a character feeling guilty about wrongs _he_ has committed previously?
Ay, there's the rub--a connection between Hamlet and Mansfield Park which I have previously written about:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2011/02/sir-thomas-as-ghost-of-king-hamlet-and.html
P.S. re Sir Thomas and DSK
For those who might be interested and have not already taken the trouble to browse the Net on this subject, the following is just a sampler of responsible journalists and intelligent bloggers who have all written about Strauss-Kahn's pattern of behavior toward women over many years, and who have also written about the political, legal and journalistic culture of France which has shaped a very different response to same than would ever have occurred in the United States:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/french-reaction-to-strauss-kahn-case-marks-cultural-shift/2011/07/02/AGZubZvH_story.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/dominique-strausskahn-whats-in-a-reputation-2284965.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/dominique-strauss-kahn-ladies-man-sexual-predator/story?id=13612519
http://www.economist.com/node/18712833
http://youngfeministtaskforce.blogspot.com/2011/07/dominique-strauss-kahn-so-much-for-us.html
http://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/dominique-strauss-kahn-and-whos-really-being-set-up-here/
The part that I believe would have been of greatest interest to Jane Austen is the hypocrisy, the accommodation to the exertion of male power over women.
Cheers, ARNIE
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/french-reaction-to-strauss-kahn-case-marks-cultural-shift/2011/07/02/AGZubZvH_story.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/dominique-strausskahn-whats-in-a-reputation-2284965.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/dominique-strauss-kahn-ladies-man-sexual-predator/story?id=13612519
http://www.economist.com/node/18712833
http://youngfeministtaskforce.blogspot.com/2011/07/dominique-strauss-kahn-so-much-for-us.html
http://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/dominique-strauss-kahn-and-whos-really-being-set-up-here/
The part that I believe would have been of greatest interest to Jane Austen is the hypocrisy, the accommodation to the exertion of male power over women.
Cheers, ARNIE
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Edmund, Edward & Mr. Elton: The Three Oxfordians
You know the way Alfred Hitchcock always worked himself into a little cameo in every one of his films? And even though I can't recall at the moment, I am sure there are a number of novels and plays in which the author embedded an in-joke, by having characters from one of their novels slip into the background of another of their novels in which they do not belong, like actors inadvertently stumbling into the wrong play.
These thoughts all arose in my mind as I was reading the following passage in Ch. 46 of MP:
"Just before their setting out from Oxford, while Susan was stationed at a window, in eager observation of the departure of a large family from the inn, the other two [Fanny and Edmund] were standing by the fire..."
Today, I noticed that large family for the first time, and I wondered if there might be any way of knowing _which_ large family that might have been that Susan observed departing from the inn where Fanny, Susan and Edmund spent the evening en route back to Mansfield Park from Portsmouth? I then took that wild thought one giant step further, and wondered if there might there be some sly connection to a large family that we already know from one of JA's _other_ novels? Or was it just, as that passage has always been read when it has been noticed at all, just background detail?
Given JA's precise hidden calendars for all her novels, and putting aside for the moment the question of particular years, I made the assumption that if JA _were_ to play a trick like this, she would make sure that there was a close alignment of both date _and_ location, between two different novels.
So, in MP, I quickly verified that Edmund and the two Price sisters spent that evening at the inn in early May. Then I turned to the other novels to see if any _other_ characters were in Oxford in early May. And it turns out there is one other character--Edward Ferrars, who spends several weeks in Oxford during the spring, and then leaves Oxford in early May, on pretty much the same date when Edmund et al pass through Oxford! So I realized I had enough smoke here to justify some more digging to see if there really might be fire.....
I then noted another parallelism, in terms of the action that occurs at that moment in both MP and S&S. In S&S, Edward leaves Oxford in early May because he has just received Lucy's letter informing him of her marriage to Robert, and then, being free of Lucy, he immediately goes to Devonshire to propose to Elinor. And is it then just a coincidence that it is more or less the same date that Edmund leaves Oxford to take Fanny to Northamptonshire, and then not long afterwards proposes to Fanny?!
And there's more to the parallels, of course. Edmund and Edward are, as I have noted in several messages over the past few years, very similar characters in the Austen oeuvre: they are far and away the two _least_ romantic heroes of the six: they are both phlegmatic, not very romantic, not-very-dashing country clergymen who both wind up with Austen's most serious-minded heroines!
And so I wonder.....is it possible that the large family that departs from the inn in Oxford might have been.....Lucy Steele's Holborn cousins and/or the Richardsons mentioned in Ch. 38 of S&S?:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/search?q=HOlborn
Perhaps their travel through Oxford was for the purpose of attending Lucy's wedding with Robert, prior to the happy couple's decampment to their Dawlish cottage? Perhaps Lucy used some of the money she borrowed from sister Ann to pay for a few frills at her wedding to Robert, to compensate for not having the large wedding that she would have had, had Mrs. Ferrars known and approved of the match.
Yes, it's very speculative, but I find this a very intriguing.
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S. : I almost forgot to mention the following question posed by Harriet to Emma:
"Will Mr. Frank Churchill pass through Bath as well as Oxford?"—was a question, however, which did not augur much."
It may not have augured much to the clueless Emma, but might this comment by Harriet have anything to do with the likelihood that not long before then _Mr. Elton_--like Edmund and Edward, also a country clergyman--would have passed through Oxford on _his_ way to get married to Miss Hawkins in Bath after a _very_ short engagement?
These thoughts all arose in my mind as I was reading the following passage in Ch. 46 of MP:
"Just before their setting out from Oxford, while Susan was stationed at a window, in eager observation of the departure of a large family from the inn, the other two [Fanny and Edmund] were standing by the fire..."
Today, I noticed that large family for the first time, and I wondered if there might be any way of knowing _which_ large family that might have been that Susan observed departing from the inn where Fanny, Susan and Edmund spent the evening en route back to Mansfield Park from Portsmouth? I then took that wild thought one giant step further, and wondered if there might there be some sly connection to a large family that we already know from one of JA's _other_ novels? Or was it just, as that passage has always been read when it has been noticed at all, just background detail?
Given JA's precise hidden calendars for all her novels, and putting aside for the moment the question of particular years, I made the assumption that if JA _were_ to play a trick like this, she would make sure that there was a close alignment of both date _and_ location, between two different novels.
So, in MP, I quickly verified that Edmund and the two Price sisters spent that evening at the inn in early May. Then I turned to the other novels to see if any _other_ characters were in Oxford in early May. And it turns out there is one other character--Edward Ferrars, who spends several weeks in Oxford during the spring, and then leaves Oxford in early May, on pretty much the same date when Edmund et al pass through Oxford! So I realized I had enough smoke here to justify some more digging to see if there really might be fire.....
I then noted another parallelism, in terms of the action that occurs at that moment in both MP and S&S. In S&S, Edward leaves Oxford in early May because he has just received Lucy's letter informing him of her marriage to Robert, and then, being free of Lucy, he immediately goes to Devonshire to propose to Elinor. And is it then just a coincidence that it is more or less the same date that Edmund leaves Oxford to take Fanny to Northamptonshire, and then not long afterwards proposes to Fanny?!
And there's more to the parallels, of course. Edmund and Edward are, as I have noted in several messages over the past few years, very similar characters in the Austen oeuvre: they are far and away the two _least_ romantic heroes of the six: they are both phlegmatic, not very romantic, not-very-dashing country clergymen who both wind up with Austen's most serious-minded heroines!
And so I wonder.....is it possible that the large family that departs from the inn in Oxford might have been.....Lucy Steele's Holborn cousins and/or the Richardsons mentioned in Ch. 38 of S&S?:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/search?q=HOlborn
Perhaps their travel through Oxford was for the purpose of attending Lucy's wedding with Robert, prior to the happy couple's decampment to their Dawlish cottage? Perhaps Lucy used some of the money she borrowed from sister Ann to pay for a few frills at her wedding to Robert, to compensate for not having the large wedding that she would have had, had Mrs. Ferrars known and approved of the match.
Yes, it's very speculative, but I find this a very intriguing.
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S. : I almost forgot to mention the following question posed by Harriet to Emma:
"Will Mr. Frank Churchill pass through Bath as well as Oxford?"—was a question, however, which did not augur much."
It may not have augured much to the clueless Emma, but might this comment by Harriet have anything to do with the likelihood that not long before then _Mr. Elton_--like Edmund and Edward, also a country clergyman--would have passed through Oxford on _his_ way to get married to Miss Hawkins in Bath after a _very_ short engagement?
Jane Austen had Strauss-Kahn’s Number 200 Years Ago
In hindsight, I am disappointed in myself that it took me over two months to realize that there are numerous disturbing parallels between the real-life Strauss-Kahn rape allegations in NYC and also in France, and the strong hints (in the subtext of Jane Austen’s 1814 novel, Mansfield Park) that Sir Thomas Bertram has sexually abused his powerless little niece Fanny Price during her childhood.
In both instances, we have a very powerful man-- a “Master of the Universe” in Tom Wolfe’s terms---who clearly feels he has the “droit du seigneur”, the privilege of free access to the bodies of powerless women in his vicinity—a vicious, appalling combination of unfettered narcissism and primitive misogyny, which bursts out with impunity when opportunity arises.
But there are more specific, coincidental parallels which make the linkage almost uncanny (although even I, in singing Jane Austen’s praises, do not claim she had precognition in addition to literary genius!):
Strauss-Kahn is of course French, and so there is an eerie resonance of his nationality to the following line from Mansfield Park, in which the narration describes Fanny Price’s feelings as she hears the heavy footstep of her uncle approaching the door to her refuge, the East Room:
“The terror of his former occasional visits to that room seemed all renewed, and she felt as if he were going to examine her again IN FRENCH and English. “
In the normative reading of this passage, Fanny, who is then 18, is having a flashback to her earlier teen years, when Sir Thomas would visit her room and quiz her on her knowledge of French language, which she was being taught by the family governess, Miss Lee. And she is also trembling with fear that Sir Thomas will summon her to face Henry Crawford, at which point she will have to endure the necessity of turning down his marriage proposal, even though strong punishment will likely rain down on her head as a result.
But when you look at this line of narration from slightly off-center, you realize with a sickening jolt that there is a horrible alternative interpretation, in which the “examination” is physical, not academic, and in which “in French” refers not to the French tongue as a language (the French word for language being the same as the French word for a person’s actual tongue) but to an actual tongue---more horribly still, Sir Thomas’s tongue---and you realize further that in 1814, and still even today, the sexual slang meaning, for Brits, of anything sexual that is “in French” is unmistakable—e.g., “the French way”.
Jane Austen was an inveterate punster, as I have demonstrated a thousand times in this blog, and almost always her puns are NOT gratuitous or merely salacious, but conceal substantive moral content. I am inclined to think this pun among her very best, in the savage anger concealed in her wit in this instance. The phrase “in French and English” carries with it the idea that Sir Thomas’s abuse of Fanny will not cease with one form of physical violation, but will also include an additional one for good measure.
No wonder that Patricia Rozema, in her 1999 film adaptation of Mansfield Park, and Barbara Karolina Seeber, in her 2000 book, have depicted Sir Thomas Bertram as a depraved sexually abusive monster!
And the uncanniness of the parallel to Strauss-Kahn’s case goes even further. His accuser, an African immigrant working in the US, is a maid in a luxury hotel, a modern version of the servants in Jane Austen’s era. Like some of those servants, she is black, which of course also corresponds to the slavery subtext of Mansfield Park, in which Sir Thomas ogles Fanny upon his return from an extended trip to his slave plantation in Antigua. That is why Rozema’s Tom Bertram has been driven to alcoholism and dissolution by the trauma of having witnessed his father’s raping African slaves.
And finally, and perhaps most disgusting, we have the predictable massive attack—even from Strauss-Kahn’s own wife, who must know what sort of man he is--on the character and credibility of the victim, Strauss-Kahn’s accuser. We can only imagine the even more vicious and perhaps even violent consequences which would have fallen on Fanny Price’s head had she dared to break the silence and expose Sir Thomas’s sexual abuses of her to the rest of the Bertram family.
Jane Austen knew what that reaction would be too, and she shows it to us in the following scene:
[Cousin Edmund Bertram speaking to Fanny Price] “… (smiling). "Do you want to be told that you are only unlike other people in being more wise and discreet? But when did you, or anybody, ever get a compliment from me, Fanny? Go to my father if you want to be complimented. He will satisfy you. Ask your uncle what he thinks, and you will hear compliments enough: and though they may be chiefly on your person, you must put up with it, and trust to his seeing as much beauty of mind in time."
Such language was so new to Fanny that it quite embarrassed her.
"Your uncle thinks you very pretty, dear Fanny—and that is the long and the short of the matter. Anybody but myself would have made something more of it, and anybody but you would resent that you had not been thought very pretty before; but the truth is, that your uncle never did admire you till now—and now he does. Your complexion is so improved!—and you have gained so much countenance!—and your figure—nay, Fanny, do not turn away about it—it is but an uncle. If you cannot bear an uncle's admiration, what is to become of you? You must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking at. You must try not to mind growing up into a pretty woman."
"Oh! don't talk so, don't talk so," cried Fanny, distressed by more feelings than he was aware of; but seeing that she was distressed, he had done with the subject….” END OF QUOTED EXCERPT
Let’s take a quick tally: “He will satisfy you….they may be chiefly on your person, you must put up with it…the long and the short of the matter…your figure---nay, Fanny, do not turn away about it…harden yourself…”
Is it any wonder that Fanny is “quite embarrassed” and was “distressed by more feelings than he was aware of”? This scene is one of many which long ago soured me on Edmund Bertram, who, despite his good intentions, always wusses out in the moment of truth—and this is the ultimate moment of truth, when Fanny is most in need of his protection, and he—the definitive representation of the Anglican clergy in Jane Austen’s novels-- just goes AWOL, morally speaking.
So, as I said, Jane Austen had Strauss-Kahn’s number 200 years ago, because this is the oldest story in the world, going back to the Stone Age—where it ought to have been left!---the sexual abuse of powerless women by powerful men. Somewhere Jane Austen is watching Strauss-Kahn’s case, and is hoping that times have changed just enough so that at least one Master of the Universe will be properly punished, and the silence of the Bertrams will no longer be perpetuated.
Cheers, ARNIE
In both instances, we have a very powerful man-- a “Master of the Universe” in Tom Wolfe’s terms---who clearly feels he has the “droit du seigneur”, the privilege of free access to the bodies of powerless women in his vicinity—a vicious, appalling combination of unfettered narcissism and primitive misogyny, which bursts out with impunity when opportunity arises.
But there are more specific, coincidental parallels which make the linkage almost uncanny (although even I, in singing Jane Austen’s praises, do not claim she had precognition in addition to literary genius!):
Strauss-Kahn is of course French, and so there is an eerie resonance of his nationality to the following line from Mansfield Park, in which the narration describes Fanny Price’s feelings as she hears the heavy footstep of her uncle approaching the door to her refuge, the East Room:
“The terror of his former occasional visits to that room seemed all renewed, and she felt as if he were going to examine her again IN FRENCH and English. “
In the normative reading of this passage, Fanny, who is then 18, is having a flashback to her earlier teen years, when Sir Thomas would visit her room and quiz her on her knowledge of French language, which she was being taught by the family governess, Miss Lee. And she is also trembling with fear that Sir Thomas will summon her to face Henry Crawford, at which point she will have to endure the necessity of turning down his marriage proposal, even though strong punishment will likely rain down on her head as a result.
But when you look at this line of narration from slightly off-center, you realize with a sickening jolt that there is a horrible alternative interpretation, in which the “examination” is physical, not academic, and in which “in French” refers not to the French tongue as a language (the French word for language being the same as the French word for a person’s actual tongue) but to an actual tongue---more horribly still, Sir Thomas’s tongue---and you realize further that in 1814, and still even today, the sexual slang meaning, for Brits, of anything sexual that is “in French” is unmistakable—e.g., “the French way”.
Jane Austen was an inveterate punster, as I have demonstrated a thousand times in this blog, and almost always her puns are NOT gratuitous or merely salacious, but conceal substantive moral content. I am inclined to think this pun among her very best, in the savage anger concealed in her wit in this instance. The phrase “in French and English” carries with it the idea that Sir Thomas’s abuse of Fanny will not cease with one form of physical violation, but will also include an additional one for good measure.
No wonder that Patricia Rozema, in her 1999 film adaptation of Mansfield Park, and Barbara Karolina Seeber, in her 2000 book, have depicted Sir Thomas Bertram as a depraved sexually abusive monster!
And the uncanniness of the parallel to Strauss-Kahn’s case goes even further. His accuser, an African immigrant working in the US, is a maid in a luxury hotel, a modern version of the servants in Jane Austen’s era. Like some of those servants, she is black, which of course also corresponds to the slavery subtext of Mansfield Park, in which Sir Thomas ogles Fanny upon his return from an extended trip to his slave plantation in Antigua. That is why Rozema’s Tom Bertram has been driven to alcoholism and dissolution by the trauma of having witnessed his father’s raping African slaves.
And finally, and perhaps most disgusting, we have the predictable massive attack—even from Strauss-Kahn’s own wife, who must know what sort of man he is--on the character and credibility of the victim, Strauss-Kahn’s accuser. We can only imagine the even more vicious and perhaps even violent consequences which would have fallen on Fanny Price’s head had she dared to break the silence and expose Sir Thomas’s sexual abuses of her to the rest of the Bertram family.
Jane Austen knew what that reaction would be too, and she shows it to us in the following scene:
[Cousin Edmund Bertram speaking to Fanny Price] “… (smiling). "Do you want to be told that you are only unlike other people in being more wise and discreet? But when did you, or anybody, ever get a compliment from me, Fanny? Go to my father if you want to be complimented. He will satisfy you. Ask your uncle what he thinks, and you will hear compliments enough: and though they may be chiefly on your person, you must put up with it, and trust to his seeing as much beauty of mind in time."
Such language was so new to Fanny that it quite embarrassed her.
"Your uncle thinks you very pretty, dear Fanny—and that is the long and the short of the matter. Anybody but myself would have made something more of it, and anybody but you would resent that you had not been thought very pretty before; but the truth is, that your uncle never did admire you till now—and now he does. Your complexion is so improved!—and you have gained so much countenance!—and your figure—nay, Fanny, do not turn away about it—it is but an uncle. If you cannot bear an uncle's admiration, what is to become of you? You must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking at. You must try not to mind growing up into a pretty woman."
"Oh! don't talk so, don't talk so," cried Fanny, distressed by more feelings than he was aware of; but seeing that she was distressed, he had done with the subject….” END OF QUOTED EXCERPT
Let’s take a quick tally: “He will satisfy you….they may be chiefly on your person, you must put up with it…the long and the short of the matter…your figure---nay, Fanny, do not turn away about it…harden yourself…”
Is it any wonder that Fanny is “quite embarrassed” and was “distressed by more feelings than he was aware of”? This scene is one of many which long ago soured me on Edmund Bertram, who, despite his good intentions, always wusses out in the moment of truth—and this is the ultimate moment of truth, when Fanny is most in need of his protection, and he—the definitive representation of the Anglican clergy in Jane Austen’s novels-- just goes AWOL, morally speaking.
So, as I said, Jane Austen had Strauss-Kahn’s number 200 years ago, because this is the oldest story in the world, going back to the Stone Age—where it ought to have been left!---the sexual abuse of powerless women by powerful men. Somewhere Jane Austen is watching Strauss-Kahn’s case, and is hoping that times have changed just enough so that at least one Master of the Universe will be properly punished, and the silence of the Bertrams will no longer be perpetuated.
Cheers, ARNIE
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
"....they are very far from being what I know English gentlemen often are….."
Christy Somer wrote in Janeites: "There is a recollection from a Mrs. Ann Barrett (who lived at Alton during 1813-1816) this is what she records about JA's thoughts on two of her heroes:
"...To the question `which of your characters do you like best?' she once answered, "Edmund Bertram and Mr. Knightley; but they are very far from being what I know English gentlemen often are….."
I replied as follows:
That quotation comes from the same portion of JEAL's Memoir in which he also wrote the following whopper:
"Her own relations never recognised any individual in her characters..."
Which, in my opinion, is the most extreme example of protesting too much (and too falsely) in the history of biographies.
But putting that aside, I am willing to assume for argument's sake that _ JEAL has accurately quoted Mrs. Barrett _and_ that Mrs. Barrett has accurately quoted JA, but let's take a closer look at the above quotation as to the characters whom JA liked best:
"Edmund Bertram and Mr. Knightley; but they are very far from being what I know English gentlemen often are….."
That sentence can plausibly be construed in two completely _opposite_ ways, i.e., as their being very far _above_ the typical English gentleman, or very far _below_ the typical English gentleman. And the word "but" is part of that ambiguity---it could mean "I like them _but_ men of that high quality are rare", or it could mean "I like them _but_ they are not really the best of gentlemen."
And Kishor Kale, if he is out there reading along at this moment, would chime in that the above sentence is in exactly the same ambiguous vein as the following sentences he discussed in his excellent paper about ambiguous sentences in P&P:
Mrs. Bennet: "My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of their father and mother" (29).
Mr. Collins: "She is the sort of woman whom one cannot regard with too much deference" (157).
Wickham: "Exceedingly well. I should have considered [making sermons] part of my duty, and the exertion would soon have been nothing "(328).
Mr Bennet: "If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy" (377).
Perhaps JA was treating Mrs. Barrett the same way she treated James Stanier Clarke, turning her into an unwitting conveyor of a veiled negative judgment on two of her literary creations.
Cheers, ARNIE
sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com
"...To the question `which of your characters do you like best?' she once answered, "Edmund Bertram and Mr. Knightley; but they are very far from being what I know English gentlemen often are….."
I replied as follows:
That quotation comes from the same portion of JEAL's Memoir in which he also wrote the following whopper:
"Her own relations never recognised any individual in her characters..."
Which, in my opinion, is the most extreme example of protesting too much (and too falsely) in the history of biographies.
But putting that aside, I am willing to assume for argument's sake that _ JEAL has accurately quoted Mrs. Barrett _and_ that Mrs. Barrett has accurately quoted JA, but let's take a closer look at the above quotation as to the characters whom JA liked best:
"Edmund Bertram and Mr. Knightley; but they are very far from being what I know English gentlemen often are….."
That sentence can plausibly be construed in two completely _opposite_ ways, i.e., as their being very far _above_ the typical English gentleman, or very far _below_ the typical English gentleman. And the word "but" is part of that ambiguity---it could mean "I like them _but_ men of that high quality are rare", or it could mean "I like them _but_ they are not really the best of gentlemen."
And Kishor Kale, if he is out there reading along at this moment, would chime in that the above sentence is in exactly the same ambiguous vein as the following sentences he discussed in his excellent paper about ambiguous sentences in P&P:
Mrs. Bennet: "My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of their father and mother" (29).
Mr. Collins: "She is the sort of woman whom one cannot regard with too much deference" (157).
Wickham: "Exceedingly well. I should have considered [making sermons] part of my duty, and the exertion would soon have been nothing "(328).
Mr Bennet: "If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy" (377).
Perhaps JA was treating Mrs. Barrett the same way she treated James Stanier Clarke, turning her into an unwitting conveyor of a veiled negative judgment on two of her literary creations.
Cheers, ARNIE
sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com
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