I will now give summary answers to the questions I posed yesterday, leaving a more detailed analysis and interpretation for a later date.
“What _two_ famous works of English literature, separated by about a century (I will call them Work #2 and Work #3), _both_ contain a female character who is connected to all three of the following textual elements: Highbury; Richmond (where she is undone); and also the quotation
“When lovely woman stoops to folly”?”
My Answers:
Work #2 is Jane Austen’s _Emma_.
Work #3 is TS Eliot’s “The Waste Land”.
“Hint: the female character is named in Work #2, but is not named in Work #3. “
My Answers:
The female character in _Emma_ is Mrs. Churchill, who is constantly writing to Frank Churchill when he is Highbury demanding that he return to her, who goes to Richmond for medical care and then suddenly dies there (i.e., she is “undone” there), and as to whose death Jane Austen’s explicitly quotes
from Goldsmith’s poem.
The female character in “The Waste Land” is the unnamed typist who appears in the section of “The Waste Land” entitled “The Fire Sermon”, and here are the exact quotations from that section of Eliot’s poem:
“When lovely woman stoops to folly” at line 253
“Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew undid me.” at lines 293-4
It was the latter line that first caught my attention yesterday, because of the obvious connections of “Highbury” and “Richmond” to _Emma_. However, it was line 253 that made me realize that Mrs. Chuchill was being subliminally suggested by all three references.
“Second Hint: you will probably need to use Google to ascertain the identity of the later work, unless you have a very good memory for cryptic poetry.”
If you Google “Highbury” “Richmond” “when lovely woman stoops to folly” together, most of the hits are for “The Waste Land”, one is for _Emma_, and that’s all you get. From another angle: I suspect that if you took a poll of Eliot scholars, they’d all guess “The Waste Land”, and if you took a poll of Austen scholars, they’d all guess _Emma_. Apparently, I am the first person to think of both.
“Third hint: There is a _third_ famous work of literature (Work #1), written about ¾ of a century prior to Work #2, which is explicitly alluded to in Work #2 (and also in another work by the author of Work #2), and which is also covertly alluded to in both the title and the literary style of Work #3. “
My answer:
Work #1 is Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Two lines from Gray’s Elegy are quoted in _Emma_, and the same two lines are quoted in _Northanger Abbey_:
'Full many a flower is born to blush
unseen,
And WASTE its fragrance on the desert air.
Actually, JA leaves out the word “Full” in her NA quotation, and she changes Gray’s “sweetness” to “fragrance”, but I think those are beside the point. What I find most notable vis a vis TS Eliot’s poem is that JA’s quotations both include the word “waste”, and I claim that this was noted by TS Eliot,
and is alluded to in the title “The Waste Land”.
And, more important than that, it turns out that it is well known among Eliot scholars (from Eliot’s private writings) that Gray’s Elegy was a text that particularly interested Eliot as he was working on “The Waste Land”, and further, according to the Eliot scholar Patrick Deane ,
there are sixty three lines of quatrains in “The Fire Sermon” which are actually covertly modeled on, and are highly reminiscent of, Gray’s Elegy, in both style and content.
So this is yet another striking parallelism between _Emma_ (and NA) on the one hand, and the Fire Sermon portion of “The Waste Land”, that they both veiledly point to Gray’s Elegy.
I claim that this was how Eliot, in a riddling way, was giving conclusive evidence to a reader who might have noticed the parallelism of the above-listed three elements (Highbury, Richmond, and the Goldsmith quote) in _Emma_ and “The Waste Land”, but was not sure if it was all just a very freakish coincidence.
I.e., I am suggesting that Eliot was making clear his intention to allude to both Gray’s Elegy and _Emma_, by flagging the explicit allusion in _Emma_ (and in NA) to Gray’s Elegy. That is the final “wink” that tells you it’s real and not Memorex.
“Last hint: the title of this message points, indirectly, to all three of these Works: #1, 2 _and_ 3!”
My answer:
“An easy step to silence” is the end of the following paragraph in _Northanger Abbey_:
"In the present instance, she confessed and lamented her want of knowledge, declared that she would give anything in the world to be able to draw; and a lecture on the picturesque immediately followed, in which his instructions were so clear that she soon began to see beauty in everything admired by him,
and her attention was so earnest that he became perfectly satisfied of her having a great deal of natural taste. He talked of foregrounds, distances, and second distances — side–screens and perspectives — lights and shades; and Catherine was so hopeful a scholar that when they gained the top of Beechen Cliff,
she voluntarily rejected the whole city of Bath as unworthy to make part of a landscape. Delighted with her progress, and fearful of wearying her with too much wisdom at once, Henry suffered the subject to decline, and by an easy transition from a piece of rocky fragment and the withered oak which he had
placed near its summit, to oaks in general, to forests, the enclosure of them, WASTE LANDS, crown lands and government, he shortly found himself arrived at politics; and from politics, it was an easy step to silence.”
I claim that Eliot also alluded to the above passage in NA in two ways—first, his poem’s title is almost identical to the phrase “waste lands”, and second because this passage is the most vivid passage in all of JA’s fiction, in terms of pointing toward the importance of perspective in how one understands art—
which is exactly the sort of intellectual/aesthetic game that both Austen and Eliot played, in concealing layers of meaning beneath the surface, concealed meanings which are discernible only when the reader shifts his or her assumptions. The “silence” to which it was an easy step in both, was the author’s refusal
to make his or her meaning explicit, and putting a burden on the reader to puzzle out meanings.
As tangential evidence to the above, please also note that Eliot’s private writing show that he was very familiar with Austen’s fiction, particularly _Emma_, and also that his friend, Ezra Pound, who played a major role in the editing down of “The Waste Land” from Eliot’s original, much longer version,
was also a major fan of _Jane Austen_ . In that regard, it is very sad that Pound, in later years, infamously besmirched his own name by his virulent anti Semitic and other fascist/Naziphilic public pronouncements and writings.
So it would make perfect sense that the team of Eliot and Pound would submerge an allusion to Jane Austen’s writings in “The Waste Land”.
Having laid out the above evidence for the existence of an intentional, complex allusion by Eliot to Austen’s fiction, particularly _Emma_, and especially Mrs.Churchill, the important question to answer then becomes, “What was Eliot trying to say, obliquely, about Mrs. Churchill in particular, and JA in general?”
I am working on a full answer to that difficult question, but for starters, it is noteworthy that Eliot seems to focus on Mrs. Churchill’s _death_, and also places his veiled allusions to her in close proximity, in The Fire Sermon section of his poem, to an apparent instance of coerced , emotionally dissociated sex.
That is disturbing. Plus, it also seems to suggest that Mrs. Churchill was _born_ in Highbury (which would mean that both Mr. Weston and she came from Highbury and both of them married the Churchill siblings), and it also seems to reiterate what we already know, which is that Richmond “undid” Mrs. Churchill,
i.e., she died there. Is the verb “undid”, which suggests an active agency, a suggestion that her death was _not_ naturally caused, which would correspond to Leland Monk’s 1990 article suggesting that Frank murdered her?
And if those were the kinds of things Eliot was pointing to in Austen, that would fit very well with his tagging the above quoted passage in NA about perspective, and would indicate that Eliot had some awareness of that portion of what I call the shadow story of _Emma_
And there, I think, is precisely the right moment for me to stop.
Cheers, ARNIE
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
An Easy Step to Silence
What _two_ famous works of English literature, separated by about a century (I will call them Work #2 and Work #3), _both_ contain a female character who is connected to all three of the following textual elements:
Highbury; Richmond (where she is undone); and also the quotation “When lovely woman stoops to folly”?
Hint: the female character is named in Work #2, but is not named in Work #3.
Second Hint: you will probably need to use Google to ascertain the identity of the later work, unless you have a very good memory for cryptic poetry.
Third hint: There is a _third_ famous work of literature (Work #1), written about ¾ of a century prior to Work #2, which is explicitly alluded to in Work #2 (and also in another work by the author of Work #2), and which is also covertly alluded to in both the title and the literary style of Work #3.
I claim that this was the way the author of Work #3, in a riddling way, was giving conclusive evidence to a reader who might have noticed the parallelism of the above-listed three elements in Works 2 & 3, but was not sure if it was all just a very freakish coincidence. I.e., I am suggesting that the author of Work #3 was making clear an intention to allude to both Work #1 and Work #2, by flagging the explicit allusion in Work #2 to Work #1. That is the final “wink” that tells you it’s real and not Memorex.
Last hint: the title of this message points, indirectly, to all three of these Works: #1, 2 _and_ 3!
Once you figure out the identity of Works #1, 2 & 3, perhaps the more important question to answer is “What was the author of Work #3 trying to say, obliquely, about Works #1 &2?” The answer, vis a vis Work #$2, might be troubling to some reading this message.
Cheers, ARNIE
Highbury; Richmond (where she is undone); and also the quotation “When lovely woman stoops to folly”?
Hint: the female character is named in Work #2, but is not named in Work #3.
Second Hint: you will probably need to use Google to ascertain the identity of the later work, unless you have a very good memory for cryptic poetry.
Third hint: There is a _third_ famous work of literature (Work #1), written about ¾ of a century prior to Work #2, which is explicitly alluded to in Work #2 (and also in another work by the author of Work #2), and which is also covertly alluded to in both the title and the literary style of Work #3.
I claim that this was the way the author of Work #3, in a riddling way, was giving conclusive evidence to a reader who might have noticed the parallelism of the above-listed three elements in Works 2 & 3, but was not sure if it was all just a very freakish coincidence. I.e., I am suggesting that the author of Work #3 was making clear an intention to allude to both Work #1 and Work #2, by flagging the explicit allusion in Work #2 to Work #1. That is the final “wink” that tells you it’s real and not Memorex.
Last hint: the title of this message points, indirectly, to all three of these Works: #1, 2 _and_ 3!
Once you figure out the identity of Works #1, 2 & 3, perhaps the more important question to answer is “What was the author of Work #3 trying to say, obliquely, about Works #1 &2?” The answer, vis a vis Work #$2, might be troubling to some reading this message.
Cheers, ARNIE
The Prince Regent and Mr. Knightley as St. George to the rescue in _Emma_
In my immediately preceding post, I entered the subtext of _Emma_ via a "wormhole"---the description of Emma's sketch of her baby nephew George in Chapter 6---wound up with the claim that the Prince Regent was represented in _Emma_ by that same baby nephew George, and that the Prince Regent had many good reasons for choosing the name "George IV" when he ascended to the British throne in 1820.
In followup, I will now take you on a further Alice & Wonderland-like excursion into the subtext of _Emma_, leading to the conclusions I have stated in the title of this post.
First, it occurred to me that a factor in the Prince Regent keeping the
name George could have been that St. George just happens to be a saint
with special status in England for nearly 600 years in 1820. And look at
the following very curious factoid in that specific regard, reported by
Lloyd in his contemporary Memoir of George IV:
"This year [1817], the celebration of the regent's birth was altered
from the 12th of August, the natal day, to the 23rd of April, the
anniversary of St. George."
Think about that one---it surely suggests that the Prince Regent had a
desire to associate himself with St. George, and what better way to do
that during his own reign than to keep the name George?
Then I took note of two coincidental events which further that linkage:
When the PR became King George IV in 1820, he wore the golden spurs of St. George. I don't know if that was an innovation of his (the accounts of his coronation show that he spent a humongous amount of money on it, and that he took a minute interest in all details of the event) or if this was a custom that he merely followed. If it was a custom, then JA might have heard of it.
When King George IV died in 1830, he was buried in St. George's Chapel at Windsor. That is also where both his parents were buried, as well as Charles I, Henry VIII and Jane Seymour.
However, those two bits are just interesting trivia, vis a vis Jane Austen and _Emma_.
The rest of this post is about something _else_ I found after writing the above, about the circumstances surrounding the Prince Regent's choice of George IV as his royal name.
I mentioned that in 1817, the Prince Regent made the interesting decision to change the celebration of his own birthday to St. George's Day, April 23, clearly wishing to connect himself to the legendary St. George.
It occurred to me to check the calendar for _Emma_ (produced some time ago, as some of you know, by Ellen Moody), to see what happened in the action of _Emma_ around that time. What I found was quite interesting---during the early part of May, according to Ellen, is when two significant events occur in the novel----the Crown Inn ball, and then, the next morning, the fracas of Harriet and the Gypsies.
And that got me thinking about George Knightley swooping in to "rescue" the poor "maiden" Harriet at the ball; and Frank Churchill swooping in to "rescue" the poor "maiden" Harriet from the Gipsies--and of course, several chapters later, when Harriet starts to tell Emma about the man she really wants to marry, Emma guesses that Harriet is talking about Frank, when Harriet really means Mr. Knightley--a confusion based on their both being "rescues" of a poor "maiden".
Of course I am talking about the legend of St. George and the Dragon!:
[Wikipedia] "In the fully developed Western version..., a dragon or Crocodile makes its nest at the spring that provides water for the city of "Silene" (perhaps modern Cyrene) in Libya or the city of Lydda in the Holy Land, depending on the source). Consequently, the citizens have to dislodge the dragon from its nest for a time, to collect water. To do so, each day they offer the dragon at first a sheep, and if no sheep can be found, then a maiden must go instead of the sheep. The victim is chosen by drawing lots. One day, this happens to be the princess. The monarch begs for her life to be spared, but to no avail. She is offered to the dragon, but there appears Saint George on his travels. He faces the dragon, protects himself with the sign of the cross, slays the dragon, and rescues the princess..."
I think the legend of St. George and the Dragon is exactly what JA was pointing to with both "rescues"! In the case of the Crown Inn ball, the "Dragon" is Mrs. Elton (don't you just love the symbolism of Mrs. Elton as a dragon to be slain?), who has, I think it is implied, ordered her husband _not_ to dance with Harriet. In the case of the incident with the Gypsies, the "Dragon" is the Gypsies, which fits perfectly with the way they are demonized in Harriet's telling of the story, treated as dangerous almost non-human creatures.
And this fits perfectly with my previous assertions that the story of being rescued from Gypsies is a fairy tale that Harriet makes up in order to conceal a far less maidenly explanation for why she would be outside town alone with Frank, and would then come back in sartorial disarray. And by the way I just noticed _another_ incriminating inconsistency in Harriet's fable---if it was really true that "[s]he had suffered very much from cramp after dancing" the night before, and if it was also really true that she was still sufficiently incapacitated by cramp the next morning as to be unable to walk up the bank and escape, then why in the world was she out for a walk with Miss Bickerton the next morning??? And not just a Mr. Woodhousean micro-stroll! No, it was a long walk, and what's more, a long walk on a particularly secluded road far outside Highbury. Hmmm.......the story takes on, as Big Daddy might have said, an even stronger aroma of mendacity!
But back to the idea of Mr. Knightley as St. George (a connection, by the way, that U. C. Knoepflmacher first made in 1967, but it was Joseph Kestner in his article “Jane Austen: Revolutionizing Masculinities” Persuasions 16 (1994), 147-60 who _first_ specifically referred to Knightley's St. George-like rescue of Harriet at the Crown Inn ball) also fits with the rhapsodic praises Harriet showers on _George_ Knightley when she reveals the truth of her matrimonial ambitions to Emma's horror.
So how characteristically sly of JA to _covertly_ connect all these dots into one coherent whole, and then to include in that little covert matrix a strong connection to George IV and _his_ St. George fixation!
But... those who've read closely, above, might question the exact timing of all this--if St. George's Day was on April 23, and JA wanted to covertly point to it, why would JA have these two "rescues" occur over two weeks later? It seems a little too long a space.
Well....I don't think the following explanation in Wikipedia is just a coincidence:
"The date of St George's day changes when it is too close to Easter. According to the Church of England's calendar, when St George's Day falls between Palm Sunday and the Second Sunday of Easter inclusive, it is moved to the Monday after the Second Sunday of Easter. "
While Jo Modert and Ellen both claim that the Crown Inn ball and the Gypsies incident take place in May, 1814 when Easter fell on April 10, I have just learned that in 1813, Easter fell on April 18, so then St. George’s Day 1813 was April 26; and, in 1810, Easter fell on April 22, and St. George's Day 1810 was April 30.
So either of those dates brings us significantly closer to the beginning of May---close enough, I suggest, in light of all of the above, to fit nicely.
So it turns out that JA's "bet" on the Prince Regent taking the name George IV was one in which she had a lot at risk--and I am therefore very glad she "won" her bet, even though she did not live to see her own victory!
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S. (added at 12:58 pm EST)
When I searched "dragon" in all the usual Austen websites, I found the following interesting tidbit written by Anielka on 3/22/10, in the midst of a longer discussion of Biblical allusions in _Emma_ connected to the "Leviathan" solution Anielka Briggs found in September 2009:
"Harriet knows the answer Leviathan and DECEIVES the audience like Satan. "So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world". Note that Satan was overcome with the blood of the LAMB."
So it is very interesting to think about that Biblical allusion to a "dragon" arising in Chapter 9, in conjunction with the allusion to the legend of St. George and the Dragon, arising in Chapter 39--_both_ of them involve Harriet, and both of them involve Harriet deceiving Emma, making herself seem foolish, but actually knowing exactly what she is doing.
Very interesting.....as Arte Johnson used to say!
In followup, I will now take you on a further Alice & Wonderland-like excursion into the subtext of _Emma_, leading to the conclusions I have stated in the title of this post.
First, it occurred to me that a factor in the Prince Regent keeping the
name George could have been that St. George just happens to be a saint
with special status in England for nearly 600 years in 1820. And look at
the following very curious factoid in that specific regard, reported by
Lloyd in his contemporary Memoir of George IV:
"This year [1817], the celebration of the regent's birth was altered
from the 12th of August, the natal day, to the 23rd of April, the
anniversary of St. George."
Think about that one---it surely suggests that the Prince Regent had a
desire to associate himself with St. George, and what better way to do
that during his own reign than to keep the name George?
Then I took note of two coincidental events which further that linkage:
When the PR became King George IV in 1820, he wore the golden spurs of St. George. I don't know if that was an innovation of his (the accounts of his coronation show that he spent a humongous amount of money on it, and that he took a minute interest in all details of the event) or if this was a custom that he merely followed. If it was a custom, then JA might have heard of it.
When King George IV died in 1830, he was buried in St. George's Chapel at Windsor. That is also where both his parents were buried, as well as Charles I, Henry VIII and Jane Seymour.
However, those two bits are just interesting trivia, vis a vis Jane Austen and _Emma_.
The rest of this post is about something _else_ I found after writing the above, about the circumstances surrounding the Prince Regent's choice of George IV as his royal name.
I mentioned that in 1817, the Prince Regent made the interesting decision to change the celebration of his own birthday to St. George's Day, April 23, clearly wishing to connect himself to the legendary St. George.
It occurred to me to check the calendar for _Emma_ (produced some time ago, as some of you know, by Ellen Moody), to see what happened in the action of _Emma_ around that time. What I found was quite interesting---during the early part of May, according to Ellen, is when two significant events occur in the novel----the Crown Inn ball, and then, the next morning, the fracas of Harriet and the Gypsies.
And that got me thinking about George Knightley swooping in to "rescue" the poor "maiden" Harriet at the ball; and Frank Churchill swooping in to "rescue" the poor "maiden" Harriet from the Gipsies--and of course, several chapters later, when Harriet starts to tell Emma about the man she really wants to marry, Emma guesses that Harriet is talking about Frank, when Harriet really means Mr. Knightley--a confusion based on their both being "rescues" of a poor "maiden".
Of course I am talking about the legend of St. George and the Dragon!:
[Wikipedia] "In the fully developed Western version..., a dragon or Crocodile makes its nest at the spring that provides water for the city of "Silene" (perhaps modern Cyrene) in Libya or the city of Lydda in the Holy Land, depending on the source). Consequently, the citizens have to dislodge the dragon from its nest for a time, to collect water. To do so, each day they offer the dragon at first a sheep, and if no sheep can be found, then a maiden must go instead of the sheep. The victim is chosen by drawing lots. One day, this happens to be the princess. The monarch begs for her life to be spared, but to no avail. She is offered to the dragon, but there appears Saint George on his travels. He faces the dragon, protects himself with the sign of the cross, slays the dragon, and rescues the princess..."
I think the legend of St. George and the Dragon is exactly what JA was pointing to with both "rescues"! In the case of the Crown Inn ball, the "Dragon" is Mrs. Elton (don't you just love the symbolism of Mrs. Elton as a dragon to be slain?), who has, I think it is implied, ordered her husband _not_ to dance with Harriet. In the case of the incident with the Gypsies, the "Dragon" is the Gypsies, which fits perfectly with the way they are demonized in Harriet's telling of the story, treated as dangerous almost non-human creatures.
And this fits perfectly with my previous assertions that the story of being rescued from Gypsies is a fairy tale that Harriet makes up in order to conceal a far less maidenly explanation for why she would be outside town alone with Frank, and would then come back in sartorial disarray. And by the way I just noticed _another_ incriminating inconsistency in Harriet's fable---if it was really true that "[s]he had suffered very much from cramp after dancing" the night before, and if it was also really true that she was still sufficiently incapacitated by cramp the next morning as to be unable to walk up the bank and escape, then why in the world was she out for a walk with Miss Bickerton the next morning??? And not just a Mr. Woodhousean micro-stroll! No, it was a long walk, and what's more, a long walk on a particularly secluded road far outside Highbury. Hmmm.......the story takes on, as Big Daddy might have said, an even stronger aroma of mendacity!
But back to the idea of Mr. Knightley as St. George (a connection, by the way, that U. C. Knoepflmacher first made in 1967, but it was Joseph Kestner in his article “Jane Austen: Revolutionizing Masculinities” Persuasions 16 (1994), 147-60 who _first_ specifically referred to Knightley's St. George-like rescue of Harriet at the Crown Inn ball) also fits with the rhapsodic praises Harriet showers on _George_ Knightley when she reveals the truth of her matrimonial ambitions to Emma's horror.
So how characteristically sly of JA to _covertly_ connect all these dots into one coherent whole, and then to include in that little covert matrix a strong connection to George IV and _his_ St. George fixation!
But... those who've read closely, above, might question the exact timing of all this--if St. George's Day was on April 23, and JA wanted to covertly point to it, why would JA have these two "rescues" occur over two weeks later? It seems a little too long a space.
Well....I don't think the following explanation in Wikipedia is just a coincidence:
"The date of St George's day changes when it is too close to Easter. According to the Church of England's calendar, when St George's Day falls between Palm Sunday and the Second Sunday of Easter inclusive, it is moved to the Monday after the Second Sunday of Easter. "
While Jo Modert and Ellen both claim that the Crown Inn ball and the Gypsies incident take place in May, 1814 when Easter fell on April 10, I have just learned that in 1813, Easter fell on April 18, so then St. George’s Day 1813 was April 26; and, in 1810, Easter fell on April 22, and St. George's Day 1810 was April 30.
So either of those dates brings us significantly closer to the beginning of May---close enough, I suggest, in light of all of the above, to fit nicely.
So it turns out that JA's "bet" on the Prince Regent taking the name George IV was one in which she had a lot at risk--and I am therefore very glad she "won" her bet, even though she did not live to see her own victory!
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S. (added at 12:58 pm EST)
When I searched "dragon" in all the usual Austen websites, I found the following interesting tidbit written by Anielka on 3/22/10, in the midst of a longer discussion of Biblical allusions in _Emma_ connected to the "Leviathan" solution Anielka Briggs found in September 2009:
"Harriet knows the answer Leviathan and DECEIVES the audience like Satan. "So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world". Note that Satan was overcome with the blood of the LAMB."
So it is very interesting to think about that Biblical allusion to a "dragon" arising in Chapter 9, in conjunction with the allusion to the legend of St. George and the Dragon, arising in Chapter 39--_both_ of them involve Harriet, and both of them involve Harriet deceiving Emma, making herself seem foolish, but actually knowing exactly what she is doing.
Very interesting.....as Arte Johnson used to say!
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Little Henry's Succession and Littler George's Cockade
In _Emma, Chapter 6, Emma shows Harriet and Mr. Elton her collection of family sketches:
"There is my sister; and really quite her own little elegant figure! and the face not unlike. I should have made a good likeness of her, if she would have sat longer, but she was in such a hurry to have me draw her four children that she would not be quiet. Then, here come all my attempts at three of those four children; -- there they are, Henry and John and Bella, from one end of the sheet to the other, and any one of them might do for any one of the rest. She was so eager to have them drawn that I could not refuse; but there is no making children of three or four years old stand still you know; nor can it be very easy to take any likeness of them, beyond the air and complexion, unless they are coarser featured than any mama's children ever were. Here is my sketch of THE FOURTH, who was a baby. I took him, as he was sleeping on the sofa, and it is as strong a likeness of his cockade as you would wish to see. He had nestled down his head most conveniently. That's very like. I am rather proud of little George."
I've quoted the above passage because, in the aftermath of watching, last night, a fantastic filmed version of a performance of Henry IV Part One from The Globe in London, and also in light of my realization the other day that the character of Miss Bates was in part drawn from Shakespeare's Falstaff, I became curious to see if there might be any _other_ covert wordplay allusions to Henry IV in _Emma_. So I searched the phrase "the fourth" in _Emma_, and I was brought to the above passage.
Now I acknowledge it is a stretch to suggest that little Henry Knightley was a representation of any of England's kings named Henry, let alone Henry IV in particular. Emma _does obsess_ on several occasions later in the novel about little Henry not being cheated out of inheriting Donwell Abbey by Mr. Knightley being married (an event which, by the way, Emma, by marrying Mr. Knightley, actually and ironically makes possible and even likely). And in Henry IV Part One, Henry IV fears that Mortimer will succeed him as King, instead of Prince Hal. And I do have a strong sense of Mr. Woodhouse (whose Christian name, he informs us indirectly, is also Henry) as a representation of Henry the _Eighth_. But those connections, without more, do not rise to a satisfying level of probability that JA intended the above quoted passage to allude specifically to Henry IV.
However....as it turns out, the serendipity of my search is that as I read the passage through, I realized that JA had snuck a clever and, to my mind, very probable allusion to _another_ British royal into that passage---the real life Prince Regent!
But how? Here's how. JA knew, in 1816, that it was only a matter of time (actually 4 years, as it turned out) before the failing King George the Third would be succeeded as king by his eldest son, who would upon his coronation be known to the world as George the Fourth. And Austen makes it very clear in the above quoted passage that little George is the _fourth_ Knightley child to be sketched by Aunt Emma (would they have ever called her Auntie Em?). So that makes little George Knightley, in a literal sense, George the Fourth!
And there are two more strands of evidence that support my claim of the intentionality of that bit of wordplay.
First, in Chapter 9 of _Emma_---where we once again have onstage the same trio of characters-- Emma, Mr. Elton and Harriet----we know, thanks to Colleen Sheehan, that JA hid a massive allusion to the future George the Fourth right under our noses, by making "the Prince of Whales" a secret answer to the charade:
http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol27no1/sheehan.htm
So it would be very consistent with that later allusion to the Prince of Whales, for JA to slyly insert a covert reference to him, in his capacity as the future George the Fourth, into _Emma_. Chapter 9 then becomes a kind of "bookend" to Chapter 6 in this regard, the completion of the allusion that Chapter 6 starts.
But here's what cinches it for me. The above passage in Chapter 6 is a discussion of _portraits_. And I already knew that JA was very familiar with one "portrait" of the Prince Regent in particular, the one I brought to Colleen's attention in 2006 after she first told me her "Prince of Whales" answer to the charade, based on her discovery of Charles Lamb's "Triumph of the Whale"---an image which I use as the masthead of my blog:
sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com
There is no question in my mind that such Cruikshank caricature of the Prince of Whales was alluded to by the Chapter 9 charade. But now I believe that JA is telling us, in the above passage from Chapter 6, to look for _another_ portrait of the Prince Regent. Why? Because Emma tells us that little George was sketched wearing a "cockade" and while "sleeping on the sofa". And E.A. Smith, in his biography of George IV, tells us how during the 1784 election campaign, the Prince supported his friend Charles James Fox's electoral campaign, which support included "The Prince [wearing] the Whig COCKADE// of the fox's brush with the blue and buff Whig colours." And I quickly found via Google Images a couple of portraits of George IV in which he appears to me to be wearing a cockade on his lapel, so apparently it was the kind of adornment he enjoyed wearing, or, at least, posing in:
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=%22Prince+Regent%22+caricature+cockade&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1920&bih=879&tbm=isch&tbnid=4bQbsmS1wuBdUM:&imgrefurl=http://www.skreb.co.uk/portrait.php&docid=WXmIwktoMuqpOM&w=712&h=915&ei=1004TovNKMHZgAeH4_D_AQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=406&page=1&tbnh=142&tbnw=115&start=0&ndsp=60&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0&tx=74&ty=76
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=%22Prince+Regent%22+caricature+cockade&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1920&bih=879&tbm=isch&tbnid=RgaGGVYZuxssHM:&imgrefurl=http://www.skreb.co.uk/portrait.php&docid=WXmIwktoMuqpOM&w=414&h=544&ei=1004TovNKMHZgAeH4_D_AQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1016&vpy=64&dur=10651&hovh=257&hovw=196&tx=103&ty=164&page=1&tbnh=142&tbnw=111&start=0&ndsp=60&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0
But those portraits do not depict him as reclining on a sofa, and JA would not, I feel, have given us those extra details without a reason. So I have a funny feeling that sometime prior to JA's writing _Emma_, there was at least one _other_ caricature of the Prince Regent, one in which he was depicted wearing a cockade _and_ reclining on a sofa, which in some way is not flattering to him. Although I could not find such an image via a quick search on the Net, I believe, and predict, that it will turn up sooner or later!
So there you have a brief "sketch" of the cockaded, sopha-ed Prince of Whales.
Cheers, ARNIE
"There is my sister; and really quite her own little elegant figure! and the face not unlike. I should have made a good likeness of her, if she would have sat longer, but she was in such a hurry to have me draw her four children that she would not be quiet. Then, here come all my attempts at three of those four children; -- there they are, Henry and John and Bella, from one end of the sheet to the other, and any one of them might do for any one of the rest. She was so eager to have them drawn that I could not refuse; but there is no making children of three or four years old stand still you know; nor can it be very easy to take any likeness of them, beyond the air and complexion, unless they are coarser featured than any mama's children ever were. Here is my sketch of THE FOURTH, who was a baby. I took him, as he was sleeping on the sofa, and it is as strong a likeness of his cockade as you would wish to see. He had nestled down his head most conveniently. That's very like. I am rather proud of little George."
I've quoted the above passage because, in the aftermath of watching, last night, a fantastic filmed version of a performance of Henry IV Part One from The Globe in London, and also in light of my realization the other day that the character of Miss Bates was in part drawn from Shakespeare's Falstaff, I became curious to see if there might be any _other_ covert wordplay allusions to Henry IV in _Emma_. So I searched the phrase "the fourth" in _Emma_, and I was brought to the above passage.
Now I acknowledge it is a stretch to suggest that little Henry Knightley was a representation of any of England's kings named Henry, let alone Henry IV in particular. Emma _does obsess_ on several occasions later in the novel about little Henry not being cheated out of inheriting Donwell Abbey by Mr. Knightley being married (an event which, by the way, Emma, by marrying Mr. Knightley, actually and ironically makes possible and even likely). And in Henry IV Part One, Henry IV fears that Mortimer will succeed him as King, instead of Prince Hal. And I do have a strong sense of Mr. Woodhouse (whose Christian name, he informs us indirectly, is also Henry) as a representation of Henry the _Eighth_. But those connections, without more, do not rise to a satisfying level of probability that JA intended the above quoted passage to allude specifically to Henry IV.
However....as it turns out, the serendipity of my search is that as I read the passage through, I realized that JA had snuck a clever and, to my mind, very probable allusion to _another_ British royal into that passage---the real life Prince Regent!
But how? Here's how. JA knew, in 1816, that it was only a matter of time (actually 4 years, as it turned out) before the failing King George the Third would be succeeded as king by his eldest son, who would upon his coronation be known to the world as George the Fourth. And Austen makes it very clear in the above quoted passage that little George is the _fourth_ Knightley child to be sketched by Aunt Emma (would they have ever called her Auntie Em?). So that makes little George Knightley, in a literal sense, George the Fourth!
And there are two more strands of evidence that support my claim of the intentionality of that bit of wordplay.
First, in Chapter 9 of _Emma_---where we once again have onstage the same trio of characters-- Emma, Mr. Elton and Harriet----we know, thanks to Colleen Sheehan, that JA hid a massive allusion to the future George the Fourth right under our noses, by making "the Prince of Whales" a secret answer to the charade:
http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol27no1/sheehan.htm
So it would be very consistent with that later allusion to the Prince of Whales, for JA to slyly insert a covert reference to him, in his capacity as the future George the Fourth, into _Emma_. Chapter 9 then becomes a kind of "bookend" to Chapter 6 in this regard, the completion of the allusion that Chapter 6 starts.
But here's what cinches it for me. The above passage in Chapter 6 is a discussion of _portraits_. And I already knew that JA was very familiar with one "portrait" of the Prince Regent in particular, the one I brought to Colleen's attention in 2006 after she first told me her "Prince of Whales" answer to the charade, based on her discovery of Charles Lamb's "Triumph of the Whale"---an image which I use as the masthead of my blog:
sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com
There is no question in my mind that such Cruikshank caricature of the Prince of Whales was alluded to by the Chapter 9 charade. But now I believe that JA is telling us, in the above passage from Chapter 6, to look for _another_ portrait of the Prince Regent. Why? Because Emma tells us that little George was sketched wearing a "cockade" and while "sleeping on the sofa". And E.A. Smith, in his biography of George IV, tells us how during the 1784 election campaign, the Prince supported his friend Charles James Fox's electoral campaign, which support included "The Prince [wearing] the Whig COCKADE// of the fox's brush with the blue and buff Whig colours." And I quickly found via Google Images a couple of portraits of George IV in which he appears to me to be wearing a cockade on his lapel, so apparently it was the kind of adornment he enjoyed wearing, or, at least, posing in:
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=%22Prince+Regent%22+caricature+cockade&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1920&bih=879&tbm=isch&tbnid=4bQbsmS1wuBdUM:&imgrefurl=http://www.skreb.co.uk/portrait.php&docid=WXmIwktoMuqpOM&w=712&h=915&ei=1004TovNKMHZgAeH4_D_AQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=406&page=1&tbnh=142&tbnw=115&start=0&ndsp=60&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0&tx=74&ty=76
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=%22Prince+Regent%22+caricature+cockade&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1920&bih=879&tbm=isch&tbnid=RgaGGVYZuxssHM:&imgrefurl=http://www.skreb.co.uk/portrait.php&docid=WXmIwktoMuqpOM&w=414&h=544&ei=1004TovNKMHZgAeH4_D_AQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1016&vpy=64&dur=10651&hovh=257&hovw=196&tx=103&ty=164&page=1&tbnh=142&tbnw=111&start=0&ndsp=60&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0
But those portraits do not depict him as reclining on a sofa, and JA would not, I feel, have given us those extra details without a reason. So I have a funny feeling that sometime prior to JA's writing _Emma_, there was at least one _other_ caricature of the Prince Regent, one in which he was depicted wearing a cockade _and_ reclining on a sofa, which in some way is not flattering to him. Although I could not find such an image via a quick search on the Net, I believe, and predict, that it will turn up sooner or later!
So there you have a brief "sketch" of the cockaded, sopha-ed Prince of Whales.
Cheers, ARNIE
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Mrs. Stent, Miss Bates……and Sir John Falstaff!
You will recall that we first made the acquaintance of Mrs. Stent (companion to Mrs. Lloyd) in the following immortal lines in JA’s Letter 26 to Martha Lloyd:
"With such a provision on my part, if you will do your's by repeating the French Grammar, & Mrs. Stent will now & then ejaculate some wonder about the Cocks & Hens, what can we want?”
And we will be encountering her twice more in coming months:
In Letter 44 to CEA: "Poor Mrs. Stent! it has been her lot to always be in the way; but we must me merciful, for perhaps in time we may become Mrs. Stents ourselves...
And she makes her curtain call in Letter 77, this one written to Martha Lloyd three weeks before Mrs. Stent died: “Poor Mrs. Stent I hope will not be much longer a distress to anybody.”
It has been obvious to me ever since I first read JA’s letters that Mrs. Stent is an important allusive source for the character of Miss Bates. But only today did I become curious to know who was the first Janeite to detect this allusion, and here’s what I found. WAY back in 1893, Agnes Repplier did everything but take the final step of saying that Jane Austen intentionally alluded in this way when she wrote….
http://essays.quotidiana.org/repplier/ennui/
“…If we knew [Austen’s bores], we should probably feel precisely as did Emma Woodhouse and Maria Bertram and Elizabeth Bennet, — vastly weary of their company. In fact, only their brief appearances make the two gentlemen bores so diverting, even in fiction; and Miss Bates, I must confess, taxes my patience sorely. ….Miss Austen was far from enjoying the dull people whom she knew in life. We have the testimony of her letters to this effect. Has not Mrs. Stent, otherwise lost to fame, been crowned with direful immortality as the woman who bored Jane Austen ?" We may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves," she writes, with facile self - reproach at her impatience, "unequal to anything, and unwelcome to anybody " an apprehension manifestly manufactured out of nothingness to strengthen some wavering purpose of amendment. Stupidity is acknowledged to be the one natural gift which cannot be cultivated, and Miss Austen well knew it lay beyond her grasp. With as much sincerity could Emma Woodhouse have said, "I may come in time to be a second Miss Bates."
But then, less than a decade later, in 1902, Henry Houston Bonnell nailed it:
"Poor Mrs. Stent ! " writes Miss Austen to her sister. "It has been her lot to be always in the way; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves, unequal to anything, and unwelcome to everybody." Here we see Miss Bates in posse….”
I have given the above Brief History of Mrs. Stent because of something _else_ I realized earlier today, as I was rereading another “History”---the History of Henry IV, Part One by Shakespeare--- in eager anticipation of going to the multiplex tomorrow night for a rare treat—watching a filmed performance of a Shakespeare play performed at the Globe!—and by the way, I believe it is playing at select Regal theaters all around the US (and perhaps Canada too?) at the same time, and this will be the case during upcoming months for several other Shakespeare plays—check for local listings where you live if you are interested.
Anyway, what I realized as soon as I read the first scene where Falstaff takes center stage, is that Falstaff reminded me _a lot_ of Miss Bates! And when, in Act 2, I came to the famous scene when Prince Hal humiliates Falstaff with his elaborate, and rather cruel, trick, in robbing the robber at Gad’s Hill, I knew instantly that this was _the_ scene that JA intentionally alluded to when she wrote the Box Hill scene in Emma! There are just too many obvious similarities---it is a public humiliation in front of the victim’s closest companions, it takes place on a “Hill”, and, most telling of all, it is a humiliation in which the victim is allowed to first hang him/her self with his/her own words, before being verbally pounced on by the much younger person who once looked up to that older person. An ultimate betrayal of love and trust.
So I checked to see who else has spotted this parallel before in print, and I found, to my surprise, that no critic (accessible online) has claimed that there was an intentional allusion by JA, although a couple have come very close:
First, John Bayley, in a 1974 article entitled “Character and Consciousness”:
“We must really want to be cruel to Miss Bates, as Jane Austen wants to, before we can see that it will not do; we must be seduced by Falstaff before we can really feel why the Prince has to throw him over…”
Then a few years later, Bayley expanded on that same line of thinking, but again, without speaking in terms of an intentional allusion:
“…one of the secrets of JA’s art is to deprive humor of the superiority of those who are continually aware of it. As with Falstaff, her sense of humor is the reason why the same sense is in others. It makes her modest rather than exclusive….Miss Bates is a famous figure. With educated people, at least, she leads, like Mr. Collins again, a quasi proverbial existence outside the book comparable to that of Falstaff—though not so grand. She is paradigmatic to the novel in being so known as the bore who entertains. “
And in 1979, Julia Prewitt Brown wrote: “There is something particularly moving and frightening about the rejection of the comic figure in art, such as the rejection of Falstaff or of the clown in a Charlie Chaplin film.”
And then skip ahead to 2003 when Bharat Tandon (who by the way also picked up on the Mrs. Stent- Miss Bates parallel) wrote the following:
“The Box Hill incident is just such a moment: “Oh! very well,” exclaimed Miss Bates, “then I need not be uneasy. 'Three things very dull indeed.' That will just do for me, …(looking round with the most good humoured dependence on every body’s assent)…...’You know’, ‘shan’t I’, ‘Do not you all think’; as if these prompts were not enough, Austen inserts the extraordinary bracketed stage direction in the middle of Miss Bates’s speech, one which, given Austen’s relative lack of adverbial qualifications, is all the more prominent. Miss Bates may be no Falstaff ('I am not only witty in my self, but the cause that wit is in other men’) but the stage direction…suggests she is at least partly aware of the ridiculous figure she makes, and that she has, therefore, partly pre-empted Emma’s joke at her expense, which makes it all the more embarrassing that Emma can then so completely misunderstand her cue. “
And now I will tie all of the above together with a neat shiny bow by pointing you to _another_ mention of Mrs. Stent in JA’s letters, Letter 28, which we discussed nearly two months ago, and which I intentionally held back for my finale:
"I have been here ever since a quarter after three on thursday last, by the Shrewsbury Clock, which I am fortunately enabled absolutely to ascertain, because Mrs. Stent once lived at Shrewsbury, or at least at Tewksbury.-"
So here we JA explicitly associating Mrs. Stent with Falstaff! The allusion is to Henry IV, Part One, Act 5, Scene, 4, in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Shrewsbury, when Falstaff boasts to Prince Hal that he has slain Percy, and the Prince then wryly points out to Falstaff that he (the Prince) _himself_ killed Percy. Caught in this barefaced lie, the resourceful Falstaff thinks fast:
"Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were alive and would deny it, 'zounds, I would make him eat a piece of my sword. "
This scene is the bookend to the scene of humiliation at Gad’s Hill—once again, Falstaff is bragging about heroics he has not actually performed, and has been caught in his lie once more by Hal.
So isn’t it curious to think about JA writing the character of Miss Bates, and the Box Hill scene in particular, with _both of those Falstaffian humiliations in mind, as well as poor Mrs. Stent?
And I then take this one final step by repeating my mantra that Miss Bates is a self-portrait of Jane Austen herself. And that of course fits perfectly with everything I have written, above, including Emma Woodhouse’s fear of becoming a second Miss Bates, just as JA writes to CEA of her fear lest the two impecunious Austen spinsters both eventually become Mrs. Stents themselves!
All of which is, I claim, a remarkable matrix of allusion that demonstrates how JA’s letters echo her novels, and how JA’s own life was mirrored in her novels, and what a liar Henry Austen, JEAL and all the other biographers were who claimed that JA did not write fiction based on real people!
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S.: I hope at least some of you will also go see Henry IV Part One tomorrow evening, and then we can share our reactions!
"With such a provision on my part, if you will do your's by repeating the French Grammar, & Mrs. Stent will now & then ejaculate some wonder about the Cocks & Hens, what can we want?”
And we will be encountering her twice more in coming months:
In Letter 44 to CEA: "Poor Mrs. Stent! it has been her lot to always be in the way; but we must me merciful, for perhaps in time we may become Mrs. Stents ourselves...
And she makes her curtain call in Letter 77, this one written to Martha Lloyd three weeks before Mrs. Stent died: “Poor Mrs. Stent I hope will not be much longer a distress to anybody.”
It has been obvious to me ever since I first read JA’s letters that Mrs. Stent is an important allusive source for the character of Miss Bates. But only today did I become curious to know who was the first Janeite to detect this allusion, and here’s what I found. WAY back in 1893, Agnes Repplier did everything but take the final step of saying that Jane Austen intentionally alluded in this way when she wrote….
http://essays.quotidiana.org/repplier/ennui/
“…If we knew [Austen’s bores], we should probably feel precisely as did Emma Woodhouse and Maria Bertram and Elizabeth Bennet, — vastly weary of their company. In fact, only their brief appearances make the two gentlemen bores so diverting, even in fiction; and Miss Bates, I must confess, taxes my patience sorely. ….Miss Austen was far from enjoying the dull people whom she knew in life. We have the testimony of her letters to this effect. Has not Mrs. Stent, otherwise lost to fame, been crowned with direful immortality as the woman who bored Jane Austen ?" We may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves," she writes, with facile self - reproach at her impatience, "unequal to anything, and unwelcome to anybody " an apprehension manifestly manufactured out of nothingness to strengthen some wavering purpose of amendment. Stupidity is acknowledged to be the one natural gift which cannot be cultivated, and Miss Austen well knew it lay beyond her grasp. With as much sincerity could Emma Woodhouse have said, "I may come in time to be a second Miss Bates."
But then, less than a decade later, in 1902, Henry Houston Bonnell nailed it:
"Poor Mrs. Stent ! " writes Miss Austen to her sister. "It has been her lot to be always in the way; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves, unequal to anything, and unwelcome to everybody." Here we see Miss Bates in posse….”
I have given the above Brief History of Mrs. Stent because of something _else_ I realized earlier today, as I was rereading another “History”---the History of Henry IV, Part One by Shakespeare--- in eager anticipation of going to the multiplex tomorrow night for a rare treat—watching a filmed performance of a Shakespeare play performed at the Globe!—and by the way, I believe it is playing at select Regal theaters all around the US (and perhaps Canada too?) at the same time, and this will be the case during upcoming months for several other Shakespeare plays—check for local listings where you live if you are interested.
Anyway, what I realized as soon as I read the first scene where Falstaff takes center stage, is that Falstaff reminded me _a lot_ of Miss Bates! And when, in Act 2, I came to the famous scene when Prince Hal humiliates Falstaff with his elaborate, and rather cruel, trick, in robbing the robber at Gad’s Hill, I knew instantly that this was _the_ scene that JA intentionally alluded to when she wrote the Box Hill scene in Emma! There are just too many obvious similarities---it is a public humiliation in front of the victim’s closest companions, it takes place on a “Hill”, and, most telling of all, it is a humiliation in which the victim is allowed to first hang him/her self with his/her own words, before being verbally pounced on by the much younger person who once looked up to that older person. An ultimate betrayal of love and trust.
So I checked to see who else has spotted this parallel before in print, and I found, to my surprise, that no critic (accessible online) has claimed that there was an intentional allusion by JA, although a couple have come very close:
First, John Bayley, in a 1974 article entitled “Character and Consciousness”:
“We must really want to be cruel to Miss Bates, as Jane Austen wants to, before we can see that it will not do; we must be seduced by Falstaff before we can really feel why the Prince has to throw him over…”
Then a few years later, Bayley expanded on that same line of thinking, but again, without speaking in terms of an intentional allusion:
“…one of the secrets of JA’s art is to deprive humor of the superiority of those who are continually aware of it. As with Falstaff, her sense of humor is the reason why the same sense is in others. It makes her modest rather than exclusive….Miss Bates is a famous figure. With educated people, at least, she leads, like Mr. Collins again, a quasi proverbial existence outside the book comparable to that of Falstaff—though not so grand. She is paradigmatic to the novel in being so known as the bore who entertains. “
And in 1979, Julia Prewitt Brown wrote: “There is something particularly moving and frightening about the rejection of the comic figure in art, such as the rejection of Falstaff or of the clown in a Charlie Chaplin film.”
And then skip ahead to 2003 when Bharat Tandon (who by the way also picked up on the Mrs. Stent- Miss Bates parallel) wrote the following:
“The Box Hill incident is just such a moment: “Oh! very well,” exclaimed Miss Bates, “then I need not be uneasy. 'Three things very dull indeed.' That will just do for me, …(looking round with the most good humoured dependence on every body’s assent)…...’You know’, ‘shan’t I’, ‘Do not you all think’; as if these prompts were not enough, Austen inserts the extraordinary bracketed stage direction in the middle of Miss Bates’s speech, one which, given Austen’s relative lack of adverbial qualifications, is all the more prominent. Miss Bates may be no Falstaff ('I am not only witty in my self, but the cause that wit is in other men’) but the stage direction…suggests she is at least partly aware of the ridiculous figure she makes, and that she has, therefore, partly pre-empted Emma’s joke at her expense, which makes it all the more embarrassing that Emma can then so completely misunderstand her cue. “
And now I will tie all of the above together with a neat shiny bow by pointing you to _another_ mention of Mrs. Stent in JA’s letters, Letter 28, which we discussed nearly two months ago, and which I intentionally held back for my finale:
"I have been here ever since a quarter after three on thursday last, by the Shrewsbury Clock, which I am fortunately enabled absolutely to ascertain, because Mrs. Stent once lived at Shrewsbury, or at least at Tewksbury.-"
So here we JA explicitly associating Mrs. Stent with Falstaff! The allusion is to Henry IV, Part One, Act 5, Scene, 4, in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Shrewsbury, when Falstaff boasts to Prince Hal that he has slain Percy, and the Prince then wryly points out to Falstaff that he (the Prince) _himself_ killed Percy. Caught in this barefaced lie, the resourceful Falstaff thinks fast:
"Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were alive and would deny it, 'zounds, I would make him eat a piece of my sword. "
This scene is the bookend to the scene of humiliation at Gad’s Hill—once again, Falstaff is bragging about heroics he has not actually performed, and has been caught in his lie once more by Hal.
So isn’t it curious to think about JA writing the character of Miss Bates, and the Box Hill scene in particular, with _both of those Falstaffian humiliations in mind, as well as poor Mrs. Stent?
And I then take this one final step by repeating my mantra that Miss Bates is a self-portrait of Jane Austen herself. And that of course fits perfectly with everything I have written, above, including Emma Woodhouse’s fear of becoming a second Miss Bates, just as JA writes to CEA of her fear lest the two impecunious Austen spinsters both eventually become Mrs. Stents themselves!
All of which is, I claim, a remarkable matrix of allusion that demonstrates how JA’s letters echo her novels, and how JA’s own life was mirrored in her novels, and what a liar Henry Austen, JEAL and all the other biographers were who claimed that JA did not write fiction based on real people!
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S.: I hope at least some of you will also go see Henry IV Part One tomorrow evening, and then we can share our reactions!
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Jane Austen's Letter 36: Two More Scenes from The Human Comedy
"I then got Mr. Evelyn to talk to, & Miss Twisleton to look at; and I am proud to say that I have a very good eye at an Adultress, for tho' repeatedly assured that another in the same party was the She, I fixed upon the right one from the first.-A resemblance to Mrs. Leigh was my guide. She is not so pretty as I expected; her face has the same defect of baldness as her sister's, & her features not so handsome;-she was highly rouged, & looked rather quietly & contentedly silly than anything else.
-Mrs. Badcock & two young Women were of the same party, except when Mrs. Badcock thought herself obliged to leave them to run round the room after her drunken Husband.-His avoidance, & her pursuit, with the probable intoxication of both, was an amusing scene."
Is there another short passage in one of JA's letters which more conclusively stamps the author of these letters as one of history's most acute _and_ profound observers of the human comedy?
First we have the snapshot of Miss Twisleton, and if we were to guided by conventional Austen biography as to the significance of same, we would think this was proof that JA was an unforgiving sanctimonious prig who was appalled by Miss Twisleton's adulterous sins.
But a fair reading of this passage reveals a much subtler sort of portraiture. JA, it seems to me, is mocking the conventional reaction to Miss Twisleton, seeing an "Adulteress" and nothing more. Whereas JA sees much more. First, she draws an experimentally precise portrait of this woman's appearance, capturing the essence of both her genetic inheritance and also her behavior and mentality. From start to finish, we can savor JA's quintessential, deflating irony., for all the melodramatic anticipation that would for most of JA's female peers accompany seeing (gasp!), in the flesh, a real life Adulteress-- like one of the wild beasts at Exeter Exchange or Astley's---JA notices this rather sad woman's visual flaws, and also the apparently vacuous mind behind the heavily rouged face.
That is, I suggest, the really negative part of JA's judgment of this woman, more significant than her adultery, which I would guess was Lydia Bennet-esque in its thoughtlessness.
And as a bonus, we have the added piquant spice that Miss Twisleton was a Leigh by birth and her sister was married to a Leigh cousin, so there was a double family connection to the Austen family.
And then, with the tale of the Badcocks, we have still more theatre of the absurd to delight the piquant taste of JA, who, like Mr. Bennet, could not fail to enjoy such a spectacle. And yet I get the feeling that JA is not entirely amused, she also is revealing what must be, in the real world, a very sad story of Mrs. Badcock, whose husband is so out of control that she must somehow try to intervene, to prevent even greater public humiliation than has already occurred.
There was enough information there for CEA, the accomplished visual artist, to conjure up a couple of sketches, although they would perhaps not be appropriate for hanging on the walls of a respectable residence, but only for the private enjoyment of JA.
Cheers, ARNIE
-Mrs. Badcock & two young Women were of the same party, except when Mrs. Badcock thought herself obliged to leave them to run round the room after her drunken Husband.-His avoidance, & her pursuit, with the probable intoxication of both, was an amusing scene."
Is there another short passage in one of JA's letters which more conclusively stamps the author of these letters as one of history's most acute _and_ profound observers of the human comedy?
First we have the snapshot of Miss Twisleton, and if we were to guided by conventional Austen biography as to the significance of same, we would think this was proof that JA was an unforgiving sanctimonious prig who was appalled by Miss Twisleton's adulterous sins.
But a fair reading of this passage reveals a much subtler sort of portraiture. JA, it seems to me, is mocking the conventional reaction to Miss Twisleton, seeing an "Adulteress" and nothing more. Whereas JA sees much more. First, she draws an experimentally precise portrait of this woman's appearance, capturing the essence of both her genetic inheritance and also her behavior and mentality. From start to finish, we can savor JA's quintessential, deflating irony., for all the melodramatic anticipation that would for most of JA's female peers accompany seeing (gasp!), in the flesh, a real life Adulteress-- like one of the wild beasts at Exeter Exchange or Astley's---JA notices this rather sad woman's visual flaws, and also the apparently vacuous mind behind the heavily rouged face.
That is, I suggest, the really negative part of JA's judgment of this woman, more significant than her adultery, which I would guess was Lydia Bennet-esque in its thoughtlessness.
And as a bonus, we have the added piquant spice that Miss Twisleton was a Leigh by birth and her sister was married to a Leigh cousin, so there was a double family connection to the Austen family.
And then, with the tale of the Badcocks, we have still more theatre of the absurd to delight the piquant taste of JA, who, like Mr. Bennet, could not fail to enjoy such a spectacle. And yet I get the feeling that JA is not entirely amused, she also is revealing what must be, in the real world, a very sad story of Mrs. Badcock, whose husband is so out of control that she must somehow try to intervene, to prevent even greater public humiliation than has already occurred.
There was enough information there for CEA, the accomplished visual artist, to conjure up a couple of sketches, although they would perhaps not be appropriate for hanging on the walls of a respectable residence, but only for the private enjoyment of JA.
Cheers, ARNIE
Jane Austen's Letter 36: "...I am more anxious to know the amount of my books..."
"...James I dare say has been over to Ibthrop by this time to enquire particularly after Mrs. Lloyd's health, & forestall whatever intelligence of the sale I might attempt to give.-Sixty-one guineas & a half for the three cows gives one some support under the blow of only Eleven Guineas for the Tables. Eight for my Pianoforte, is about what I really expected to get; I am more anxious to know the amount of my books, especially as they are said to have sold well...."
Last week, I included the beginning of the above excerpt in a gathering together of disparate digs that JA sends in the direction of brother James, especially during and in the aftermath of JA's exile to Bath. However, I did not take note till this morning of the full import of the _end_ of this excerpt, "I am more anxious to know the amount of my books..."
The way I see it, what is unspoken but strongly implied is the awfulness of the sale of JA's books as a traumatic event in JA's life. Did she have a _large_ collection of books? If so, then what a devastation to her as a writer, to be suddenly torn away from a large collection of books which she has collected over more than a decade! Or did she have a _small_ collection of books? If so, then why did any of them have to be sold at all, for whatever pitifully small proceeds as could be garnered for them?
Large or small, therefore, such collection must have been lovingly assembled by JA over that long period of time. And if anyone reading this has any doubt about my claim, looking solely at her letters, look at how JA correctively rewrites this particularly ugly part of Austen family history in S&S, in the description of the dislocation of the Dashwood women to Devonshire:
"The furniture was all sent around by water. It chiefly consisted of household linen, plate, china, AND BOOKS, with A HANDSOME PIANOFORTE of Marianne's. Mrs. John Dashwood saw the packages depart with a sigh: she could not help feeling it hard that as Mrs. Dashwood's income would be so trifling in comparison with their own, she should have any handsome article of furniture."
So, even though the Dashwood women get screwed, inheritance-wise, nonetheless Marianne (JA's alter ego) gets to keep her books and her pianoforte, a luxury that JA herself did _not_ enjoy!
And look at how the importance of art-related possessions is emphasized and reinforced when they move into Barton Cottage:
"...each of them was busy in arranging their particular concerns, and endeavoring, by placing around them BOOKS and other possessions, to form
themselves a home. Marianne's PIANOFORTE was unpacked and properly disposed of; and Elinor's DRAWINGS were affixed to the walls of their sitting room."
And finally the following paean to books not long afterwards in S&S:
"I wish," said Margaret, striking out a novel thought, "that somebody would give us all a large fortune apiece!"
"Oh that they would!" cried Marianne, her eyes sparkling with animation, and her cheeks glowing with the delight of such imaginary happiness.
"We are all unanimous in that wish, I suppose," said Elinor, "in spite of the insufficiency of wealth."
"Oh dear!" cried Margaret, "how happy I should be! I wonder what I should do with it!"
Marianne looked as if she had no doubt on that point.
"I should be puzzled to spend so large a fortune myself," said Mrs. Dashwood, "if my children were all to be rich my help."
"You must begin your improvements on this house," observed Elinor, "and your difficulties will soon vanish."
"What magnificent orders would travel from this family to London," said Edward, "in such an event! What a happy day for BOOKsellers, music-sellers, and print-shops! You, Miss Dashwood, would give a general commission for every new print of merit to be sent you—and as for Marianne, I know her greatness of soul, there would not be music enough in London to content her. And BOOKS!—Thomson, Cowper, Scott—she would buy them all over and over again: she would buy up every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands; and she would have every book that tells her how to admire an old twisted tree. Should not you, Marianne? Forgive me, if I am very saucy. But I was willing to shew you that I had not forgot our old disputes."
"I love to be reminded of the past, Edward—whether it be melancholy or gay, I love to recall it—and you will never offend me by talking of former times. You are very right in supposing how my money would be spent—some of it, at least—my loose cash would certainly be employed in improving my collection of music and BOOKS."
I think JA has made it clear in her first published novel what importance she ascribes to the necessity of a home to contain many books, in order for it to be a proper home to an intelligent young woman like Marianne Dashwood....or Jane Austen!
So, whether she had a large or a small collection of books at Steventon,
either way, their being sold was a reflection of how little JA's writing really meant in the Austen family, when push came to shove. James Austen's
being set up in as advantageous a position as possible---VERY important.
Jane Austen's writing--of no importance whatsoever.
Money talks, as JA understood very well. Regardless of whatever may have been expressed verbally to JA encouraging her writing, these were empty words, because when it came down to shillings and pence, no real value was ascribed to JA's writing, and her need for a library of books to support her writing.
And now we see, in fuller context, why JA would make that crack about "the
other Mary" and her lack of interesting in reading books.
No wonder she was so resentful of James and Mary Austen--wouldn't anybody be under such circumstances?
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S.: A final thought occurred to me as I was posting this: the one member of the Austen family who could not possibly please ignorance of the importance of books to JA would have to be James--the literary brother, the one who was the moving force behind the Loiterer, the one who wrote plaintive poetry all his life.
What a particularly awful betrayal it would have been in JA's eyes for _him_ of all the members of her family to benefit, even if indirectly, from the sale of JA's book collection!
Last week, I included the beginning of the above excerpt in a gathering together of disparate digs that JA sends in the direction of brother James, especially during and in the aftermath of JA's exile to Bath. However, I did not take note till this morning of the full import of the _end_ of this excerpt, "I am more anxious to know the amount of my books..."
The way I see it, what is unspoken but strongly implied is the awfulness of the sale of JA's books as a traumatic event in JA's life. Did she have a _large_ collection of books? If so, then what a devastation to her as a writer, to be suddenly torn away from a large collection of books which she has collected over more than a decade! Or did she have a _small_ collection of books? If so, then why did any of them have to be sold at all, for whatever pitifully small proceeds as could be garnered for them?
Large or small, therefore, such collection must have been lovingly assembled by JA over that long period of time. And if anyone reading this has any doubt about my claim, looking solely at her letters, look at how JA correctively rewrites this particularly ugly part of Austen family history in S&S, in the description of the dislocation of the Dashwood women to Devonshire:
"The furniture was all sent around by water. It chiefly consisted of household linen, plate, china, AND BOOKS, with A HANDSOME PIANOFORTE of Marianne's. Mrs. John Dashwood saw the packages depart with a sigh: she could not help feeling it hard that as Mrs. Dashwood's income would be so trifling in comparison with their own, she should have any handsome article of furniture."
So, even though the Dashwood women get screwed, inheritance-wise, nonetheless Marianne (JA's alter ego) gets to keep her books and her pianoforte, a luxury that JA herself did _not_ enjoy!
And look at how the importance of art-related possessions is emphasized and reinforced when they move into Barton Cottage:
"...each of them was busy in arranging their particular concerns, and endeavoring, by placing around them BOOKS and other possessions, to form
themselves a home. Marianne's PIANOFORTE was unpacked and properly disposed of; and Elinor's DRAWINGS were affixed to the walls of their sitting room."
And finally the following paean to books not long afterwards in S&S:
"I wish," said Margaret, striking out a novel thought, "that somebody would give us all a large fortune apiece!"
"Oh that they would!" cried Marianne, her eyes sparkling with animation, and her cheeks glowing with the delight of such imaginary happiness.
"We are all unanimous in that wish, I suppose," said Elinor, "in spite of the insufficiency of wealth."
"Oh dear!" cried Margaret, "how happy I should be! I wonder what I should do with it!"
Marianne looked as if she had no doubt on that point.
"I should be puzzled to spend so large a fortune myself," said Mrs. Dashwood, "if my children were all to be rich my help."
"You must begin your improvements on this house," observed Elinor, "and your difficulties will soon vanish."
"What magnificent orders would travel from this family to London," said Edward, "in such an event! What a happy day for BOOKsellers, music-sellers, and print-shops! You, Miss Dashwood, would give a general commission for every new print of merit to be sent you—and as for Marianne, I know her greatness of soul, there would not be music enough in London to content her. And BOOKS!—Thomson, Cowper, Scott—she would buy them all over and over again: she would buy up every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands; and she would have every book that tells her how to admire an old twisted tree. Should not you, Marianne? Forgive me, if I am very saucy. But I was willing to shew you that I had not forgot our old disputes."
"I love to be reminded of the past, Edward—whether it be melancholy or gay, I love to recall it—and you will never offend me by talking of former times. You are very right in supposing how my money would be spent—some of it, at least—my loose cash would certainly be employed in improving my collection of music and BOOKS."
I think JA has made it clear in her first published novel what importance she ascribes to the necessity of a home to contain many books, in order for it to be a proper home to an intelligent young woman like Marianne Dashwood....or Jane Austen!
So, whether she had a large or a small collection of books at Steventon,
either way, their being sold was a reflection of how little JA's writing really meant in the Austen family, when push came to shove. James Austen's
being set up in as advantageous a position as possible---VERY important.
Jane Austen's writing--of no importance whatsoever.
Money talks, as JA understood very well. Regardless of whatever may have been expressed verbally to JA encouraging her writing, these were empty words, because when it came down to shillings and pence, no real value was ascribed to JA's writing, and her need for a library of books to support her writing.
And now we see, in fuller context, why JA would make that crack about "the
other Mary" and her lack of interesting in reading books.
No wonder she was so resentful of James and Mary Austen--wouldn't anybody be under such circumstances?
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S.: A final thought occurred to me as I was posting this: the one member of the Austen family who could not possibly please ignorance of the importance of books to JA would have to be James--the literary brother, the one who was the moving force behind the Loiterer, the one who wrote plaintive poetry all his life.
What a particularly awful betrayal it would have been in JA's eyes for _him_ of all the members of her family to benefit, even if indirectly, from the sale of JA's book collection!
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