In Austen-L today, Anielka Brigges wrote a post about her own Austen related research and theorizing which began as follows:
"Might writing in the style of four-fold Christian
exegesis explain and exculpate at the same time? Thus moral stories can
be told with three other layers to consider, just like the King James
bible. Those modern writers who are creative theorists who are
unfamiliar with this technique become embedded in one of the four levels
of interpretation and immured to the existence of the other three. Thus
they cannot reconcile an Austen with seemingly sexual references with
the writer of the superficial moral story. Nor can they reconcile the
historic allusions with the other layers or the anagogical, covert
Christian allegories with Austen's sharp and satirical wit. Yet all can
co-exist if the author intended the Anglican morality to be told in an
exegetic style. Exegesis is a form of authorial cookery. The ingredients
must be carefully planned and selected before cooking but the
experiences cook can compose a complex cake with layers of flavour at
some speed. The average eater will only taste the most blatant
ingredients. Only when challenged to taste beyond the over-arching
cinnamon topping can they perhaps distinguish the sharp taste of chilli,
(harsh, hidden truths) the bitter taste of nutmeg (history repeating
itself) or the mysterious flavour of star-anise (Christianity)."
END QUOTE
Anyone who's been reading along in this blog the past few years will immediately recognize the relevance of what she wrote to my own Austen related research and theorizing, and so I've just responded as follows, to clarify that relevance as I see it:
Anielka, you've constructed a very elegant model/structure with your
usual flair, but (as seems particularly aptly ironic for me to observe
in this instance) the devil is in the details! I.e., whether you've
got enough "fairy dust"--hard textual and allusive evidence---to
sprinkle on your model in order to bring it to life and convince
Janeites that your model fits what Jane Austen herself intended to do
as an author, I am skeptical....but interested. Based on everything
you've brought forward publicly of your own findings to date, I expect
you to be long on ingenuity and wit, but short on substance and actually
a little too ingenious, seeing connections that are not really there.
But time will tell.
I've taken a great deal of extra time---several years, in fact---on my own
research in order to gather--and equally important, to analyze and
understand the full significance of---the mountain of evidence I now
have in hand, even though my basic model has remained unchanged for many
years now. And time will also tell if I am correct in my assertion that
I have got the goods to prove my claims.
Obviously, what your model and mine have in common is the claim that
there is more going on in JA's six novels than what you call the
"cinnamon" layer (and which I call the "overt story"). I know from
nearly a decade of personal experience on the Internet and in private
communications with other Janeites that there is an extremely high bar
of probative evidence required in order to convince
enough knowledgeable Janeites that any extra layer--whatever its
authorial purpose----is real and not Memorex.
But otherwise, now that you've laid out your model, I am very glad to
confirm that there is great difference between your model and mine. I'm
more convinced than ever before that I have responded correctly to the
evidence that my research has yielded, and that I have formulated a
model of Jane Austen as a radical early feminist writing a female Torah
in order to teach her female readers some basic survival skills in a
world run by and for the benefit of men, which fits that evidence
extremely well.
That is a very different worldview from the one you've
articulated for Jane Austen the author. And one other important
structural difference. My work has focused mostly on what you call the
"chili layer" (and which I call the "shadow story"), and I have always
understood those two other concealed layers (which you call nutmeg and
star-anise) as being present, but indubitably subordinated to the shadow
story.
In a nutshell, then, from my point of view, you've got the tail wagging
the dog, and from what I gather of your model, you see mine as the
tail wagging the dog. Another epistemological irony Jane Austen would have appreciated
if she could have read our respective reactions to her writing.
And I am also very glad to see that your brief description.....
"The spicy secrets of illegitimacy, sexual liaisons, harsh satire and
hidden lies"
....of what I call the "shadow story" is so shallow and far off the
mark, in my opinion, as to what Jane Austen was about in creating it,
that there is a very clear choice between your model and mine even as to
that layer alone.
So, lots of fundamental differences between us, even though, ironically,
from the point of view of the ordinary Janeite, we seem very similar
simply because the one large point we do have in common, which is,
again, that we're both saying there is much more there beneath the
surface of these six novels than has met the eye of Janeites for two
centuries.
All in all, then, I am very glad that you've articulated a model which
is so clearly distinct from my own---it reminds me of what we are
hearing here in the States constantly during this latest electoral
campaign, about two visions of America that are utterly different in
several major aspects---so that Janeites who are interested in what Jane
Austen concealed in her novels will have the luxury of two new and very
different models to examine and consider vis a vis alleged concealed
layers of Jane Austen's writing. That's a very good thing, in my opinion.
I recognized very quickly in 2007 that you and I had far too divergent
an approach to Jane Austen's shadows to ever be able to reconcile our
theoretical stances, and I am glad to see that in the end of the day,
each of us will be making the case we each want to make.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Which Austen novel do Austen scholars (academics and lindependents) believe is the "greatest"?
Last week, I read an interview with JASNA Lifetime Member Patricia Meyer
Spacks...
http://thebrowser.com/interviews/patricia-meyer-spacks-on-jane-austen
....during which (on p.3 as you scroll through) Spacks made the following claim when asked which were considered, by Austen scholars, to be the _greatest_ Austen novels:
"...I think for most scholars it'’s poised between Persuasion and Emma. Earlier I thought Emma was the best, but I recently decided I think Persuasion is the best. I think most scholars would settle on one or the other." END QUOTE
It is not my intent in bringing this quotation forward to trigger a vigorous debate as to which Austen novel _is_ the greatest, although if anyone who responds to me wishes to express an opinion on that point (as I will do, below), you are welcome to do so.
What I was more curious about was whether those reading this post who have some familiarity with the opinions of Austen scholars (whether academics or independents) would agree with Spacks's above quoted comments that most Austen scholars would consider either Emma or Persuasion as Jane Austen's "greatest" novel.
Spacks's tabulation caught me up short because, while I have, over the past decade, heard or read a pretty large number of Janeite scholars, both academic and independent, who believe Emma is Austen's greatest novel, I cannot recall any (other than Spacks, as I just read in the above linked article) who believe Persuasion is Austen's greatest. I've read a _very)_ large sampling of scholarly writings about Jane Austen, and my recollection does not match Spacks's at all. Most scholars, I think, avoid the question altogether, but as to those who don't, aside from my recalling Emma getting the largest number of #1's overall---probably about half---my recollection is otherwise that the other half of those Austen scholars who have taken the plunge and rated the six novels according to greatness have been pretty much divided equally among P&P, S&S, MP and Persuasion, with each having its own special advocates--with only poor Northanger Abbey always being held to be in the shadow of the other 5.
So, my main question is, is Spacks correct and am I out of touch with a general Austen scholarly consensus which holds JA's last two completed novels (by dates of composition) as her greatest? Or has Spacks, perhaps, allowed her own preference for Persuasion to color her impression of what her colleagues think?
I should briefly state my own current personal answer on the "greatness" question, which has evolved considerably over the course of my intensive Austen studies during the past decade---I now mostly consider this a moot question, because I rate the difference in literary quality amongst the six novels to be extremely small and highly subjective, when stood up in comparison alongside the monumental greatness of each one of them. Now, had you asked me this same question 5 years ago, I would not have hesitated to place Emma at the top of the heap by a significant margin, and I would have shared the common Janeite belief that Northanger Abbey was not in a league with the others.
But now it's not that my respect for Emma has lessened, it's that my respect for the other 5 has grown. For example and most dramatically, my respect for Northanger Abbey has grown a hundredfold, as I've come to realize that part of what makes it so great is that JA deliberately masked its greatness beneath the veneer of a "mere parody" of the Gothic, deliberately leading the reader down the garden path of minimizing NA's value. Imagine a literary self confidence that could afford to write a work of genius and have part of that genius work so hard to make itself appear a light confection. That's a _lot_ of self confidence!
And...my respect for P&P has grown a hundredfold since then as well--because I've come to see that it is every bit as complex and great as Emma, but that JA hid that greatness beneath the veneer of a "too light bright and sparkling" veneer. And I believe that P&P should not suffer the ironic fate of being faulted for its unique status as the overwhelming _favorite_ or "beloved child" of Janeites, which is not the same thing, by a long shot, as the "greatest". I believe that P&P, like NA, was deliberately masked by JA as being somehow a lighter production than it actually is. Again, a manifestation of enormous authorial self confidence, and also a firm commitment to the philosophical underpinnings of all her writings, her obsession with the subjectivity of human perception and cognition.
And most of all I have come to see that because all six were published within a seven year period at the end of JA's life and just beyond, they are all in a very real sense part of _one_ prolonged ecstasy of publication, they are sextuplets from one giant artistic birth! So it is not at all surprising that I see them all as being so close to each other in literary quality--they were all, essentially, finished "at the same time", i.e., at the end of JA's all too short literary career, all finalized after she had been an accomplished writer for 20 years!
So, I will look forward to any and all replies that I prompt by the above questions and comments.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
http://thebrowser.com/interviews/patricia-meyer-spacks-on-jane-austen
....during which (on p.3 as you scroll through) Spacks made the following claim when asked which were considered, by Austen scholars, to be the _greatest_ Austen novels:
"...I think for most scholars it'’s poised between Persuasion and Emma. Earlier I thought Emma was the best, but I recently decided I think Persuasion is the best. I think most scholars would settle on one or the other." END QUOTE
It is not my intent in bringing this quotation forward to trigger a vigorous debate as to which Austen novel _is_ the greatest, although if anyone who responds to me wishes to express an opinion on that point (as I will do, below), you are welcome to do so.
What I was more curious about was whether those reading this post who have some familiarity with the opinions of Austen scholars (whether academics or independents) would agree with Spacks's above quoted comments that most Austen scholars would consider either Emma or Persuasion as Jane Austen's "greatest" novel.
Spacks's tabulation caught me up short because, while I have, over the past decade, heard or read a pretty large number of Janeite scholars, both academic and independent, who believe Emma is Austen's greatest novel, I cannot recall any (other than Spacks, as I just read in the above linked article) who believe Persuasion is Austen's greatest. I've read a _very)_ large sampling of scholarly writings about Jane Austen, and my recollection does not match Spacks's at all. Most scholars, I think, avoid the question altogether, but as to those who don't, aside from my recalling Emma getting the largest number of #1's overall---probably about half---my recollection is otherwise that the other half of those Austen scholars who have taken the plunge and rated the six novels according to greatness have been pretty much divided equally among P&P, S&S, MP and Persuasion, with each having its own special advocates--with only poor Northanger Abbey always being held to be in the shadow of the other 5.
So, my main question is, is Spacks correct and am I out of touch with a general Austen scholarly consensus which holds JA's last two completed novels (by dates of composition) as her greatest? Or has Spacks, perhaps, allowed her own preference for Persuasion to color her impression of what her colleagues think?
I should briefly state my own current personal answer on the "greatness" question, which has evolved considerably over the course of my intensive Austen studies during the past decade---I now mostly consider this a moot question, because I rate the difference in literary quality amongst the six novels to be extremely small and highly subjective, when stood up in comparison alongside the monumental greatness of each one of them. Now, had you asked me this same question 5 years ago, I would not have hesitated to place Emma at the top of the heap by a significant margin, and I would have shared the common Janeite belief that Northanger Abbey was not in a league with the others.
But now it's not that my respect for Emma has lessened, it's that my respect for the other 5 has grown. For example and most dramatically, my respect for Northanger Abbey has grown a hundredfold, as I've come to realize that part of what makes it so great is that JA deliberately masked its greatness beneath the veneer of a "mere parody" of the Gothic, deliberately leading the reader down the garden path of minimizing NA's value. Imagine a literary self confidence that could afford to write a work of genius and have part of that genius work so hard to make itself appear a light confection. That's a _lot_ of self confidence!
And...my respect for P&P has grown a hundredfold since then as well--because I've come to see that it is every bit as complex and great as Emma, but that JA hid that greatness beneath the veneer of a "too light bright and sparkling" veneer. And I believe that P&P should not suffer the ironic fate of being faulted for its unique status as the overwhelming _favorite_ or "beloved child" of Janeites, which is not the same thing, by a long shot, as the "greatest". I believe that P&P, like NA, was deliberately masked by JA as being somehow a lighter production than it actually is. Again, a manifestation of enormous authorial self confidence, and also a firm commitment to the philosophical underpinnings of all her writings, her obsession with the subjectivity of human perception and cognition.
And most of all I have come to see that because all six were published within a seven year period at the end of JA's life and just beyond, they are all in a very real sense part of _one_ prolonged ecstasy of publication, they are sextuplets from one giant artistic birth! So it is not at all surprising that I see them all as being so close to each other in literary quality--they were all, essentially, finished "at the same time", i.e., at the end of JA's all too short literary career, all finalized after she had been an accomplished writer for 20 years!
So, I will look forward to any and all replies that I prompt by the above questions and comments.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
Monday, September 24, 2012
Evangelical Cousin Edward Cooper's "Beauty & Courage"---NOT!
Last
week in Janeites & Austen L, Christy Somer posted the following link to a portrait of Jane Austen's
Evangelical cousin, Revd. Edward Cooper, which is now on display at the Jane
Austen House Museum:
http://janeaustenshousemuseumblog.com/2012/09/17/come-and-visit-edward-cooper-jane-austens-evangelical-cousin/
What is surprising to me is that, as far as I can tell from the article, the Museum, and those who have commented on that linked article, take no notice whatsoever of the ground breaking discovery a few years ago by Annette Upfal (working with her mentor and co-editor, Christine Alexander) that bears directly on that portrait of Edward Cooper now on display there.
I described Annette's discovery re Cousin Edward Cooper at the end of the following post last year at my own blog regarding miscellaneous passages in Jane Austen's Letter 33:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/search?q=Cooper+Upfal
Specifically, I wrote: "And the last item in my little potpourri of excerpts from Letter 33 is the following, yet _another_ "paean" to serial pregnancy and childbirth: "Caroline was only brought to bed on the 7th of this month, so that her recovery does seem pretty rapid. I have heard twice from Edward on the occasion, and his letters have each been exactly what they ought to be -- cheerful and amusing. He dares not write otherwise to _me_, but perhaps he might be obliged to purge himself from the guilt of writing nonsense by filling his shoes with whole peas for a week afterwards. Mrs. G. has left him 100l., his wife and son 500l. each." The "Edward" who writes to JA is cousin Edward Cooper, the clergyman whom (according to Annette Upfal, and I believe her to be 100% correct) JA and CEA mercilessly satirized in Jane's 1793 History of England, first using a portrait of Edward Cooper's own ugly face to represent Edward IV, and then describing Edward IV in a similarly unflattering way: http://www.janeausten.ac.uk/manuscripts/blvolsecond/158.html " END QUOTE
If you expand the size of the image of Cassandra's sketch of their cousin Edward Cooper, you can readily discern both the resemblance to the fancy full size portrait now on display at the Museum, and also also CEA's extremely unflattering and unsentimental depiction of the character of their cousin, which is, as I said, mirrored in the verbal description of Edward IV in The History of England text:
"This Monarch was famous only for his Beauty & his Courage, of which the Picture we have here given of him, & his undaunted Behaviour in marrying one Woman while he was engaged to another, are sufficient proofs. His Wife was Elizabeth Woodville, a Widow who poor Woman! was afterwards confined in a Convent by that Monster of Iniquity & Avarice Henry the 7th One of Edward's Mistresses was Jane Shore, who has had a play written about her, but it is a tragedy & therefore not worth reading. Having performed all these noble Actions, his Majesty died, & was succeeded by his Son."
When you look at CEA's sketch of Edward IV (aka Edward Cooper) and think about the text's specific reference to CEA's sketch as evidence of "his Beauty & his Courage", one realizes just how intentionally biting and personal this satire really was to both Austen sisters, since the word that would _least_ seem to fit with CEA's portrait of Cousin Cooper is "Beauty"--and the two wicked satirical girls wanted to make very sure that everyone really looked at CEA's sketch!
What makes the failure to take notice of Upfal's work in the Museum blog article (apparently written by Julie Wakefield) especially surprising is that Annette Upfal was actually one of the presenters at the July 2009 Chawton House Conference that I was privileged to present at as well, and Annette gave her talk about all the veiled Austen family portraits in Jane Austen's History of England right there, a short walk down the road from the House Museum. I.e., Upfal's discovery should be common knowledge among Austen scholars, most of all within the small confines of Chawton!
But then again, perhaps the silence about Upfal's work in that article has something to do with the embarrassing kibosh that Deirdre Le Faye attempted to put on the celebration of publication of Upfal's book at that Conference. As we discern from the article's quotation of Le Faye as seeing something of Cousin Cooper in Mr. Collins's cruel letters of condolence (actually, the honor of being the first Austen scholar to point out that parallel appears to belong to Robert Liddle _way_ back in his 1963 book about JA's novels), there is apparently an acceptably safe limit of satire that can be assimilated by mainstream scholarship, but when an Austen scholar like Upfal claims too sharp a personal satire, better to keep that sort of claim out of the spotlight.
So, to do my small part to remedy that omission, here is a link to the Amazon.com webpage for Upfal's book:
http://www.amazon.com/Austens-History-England-Cassandras-Portraits/dp/0733427804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348409672&sr=1-1&keywords=upfals+Austen+History
If you can't open my link for any reason, then go to Amazon.com and enter this data:
http://janeaustenshousemuseumblog.com/2012/09/17/come-and-visit-edward-cooper-jane-austens-evangelical-cousin/
What is surprising to me is that, as far as I can tell from the article, the Museum, and those who have commented on that linked article, take no notice whatsoever of the ground breaking discovery a few years ago by Annette Upfal (working with her mentor and co-editor, Christine Alexander) that bears directly on that portrait of Edward Cooper now on display there.
I described Annette's discovery re Cousin Edward Cooper at the end of the following post last year at my own blog regarding miscellaneous passages in Jane Austen's Letter 33:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/search?q=Cooper+Upfal
Specifically, I wrote: "And the last item in my little potpourri of excerpts from Letter 33 is the following, yet _another_ "paean" to serial pregnancy and childbirth: "Caroline was only brought to bed on the 7th of this month, so that her recovery does seem pretty rapid. I have heard twice from Edward on the occasion, and his letters have each been exactly what they ought to be -- cheerful and amusing. He dares not write otherwise to _me_, but perhaps he might be obliged to purge himself from the guilt of writing nonsense by filling his shoes with whole peas for a week afterwards. Mrs. G. has left him 100l., his wife and son 500l. each." The "Edward" who writes to JA is cousin Edward Cooper, the clergyman whom (according to Annette Upfal, and I believe her to be 100% correct) JA and CEA mercilessly satirized in Jane's 1793 History of England, first using a portrait of Edward Cooper's own ugly face to represent Edward IV, and then describing Edward IV in a similarly unflattering way: http://www.janeausten.ac.uk/manuscripts/blvolsecond/158.html " END QUOTE
If you expand the size of the image of Cassandra's sketch of their cousin Edward Cooper, you can readily discern both the resemblance to the fancy full size portrait now on display at the Museum, and also also CEA's extremely unflattering and unsentimental depiction of the character of their cousin, which is, as I said, mirrored in the verbal description of Edward IV in The History of England text:
"This Monarch was famous only for his Beauty & his Courage, of which the Picture we have here given of him, & his undaunted Behaviour in marrying one Woman while he was engaged to another, are sufficient proofs. His Wife was Elizabeth Woodville, a Widow who poor Woman! was afterwards confined in a Convent by that Monster of Iniquity & Avarice Henry the 7th One of Edward's Mistresses was Jane Shore, who has had a play written about her, but it is a tragedy & therefore not worth reading. Having performed all these noble Actions, his Majesty died, & was succeeded by his Son."
When you look at CEA's sketch of Edward IV (aka Edward Cooper) and think about the text's specific reference to CEA's sketch as evidence of "his Beauty & his Courage", one realizes just how intentionally biting and personal this satire really was to both Austen sisters, since the word that would _least_ seem to fit with CEA's portrait of Cousin Cooper is "Beauty"--and the two wicked satirical girls wanted to make very sure that everyone really looked at CEA's sketch!
What makes the failure to take notice of Upfal's work in the Museum blog article (apparently written by Julie Wakefield) especially surprising is that Annette Upfal was actually one of the presenters at the July 2009 Chawton House Conference that I was privileged to present at as well, and Annette gave her talk about all the veiled Austen family portraits in Jane Austen's History of England right there, a short walk down the road from the House Museum. I.e., Upfal's discovery should be common knowledge among Austen scholars, most of all within the small confines of Chawton!
But then again, perhaps the silence about Upfal's work in that article has something to do with the embarrassing kibosh that Deirdre Le Faye attempted to put on the celebration of publication of Upfal's book at that Conference. As we discern from the article's quotation of Le Faye as seeing something of Cousin Cooper in Mr. Collins's cruel letters of condolence (actually, the honor of being the first Austen scholar to point out that parallel appears to belong to Robert Liddle _way_ back in his 1963 book about JA's novels), there is apparently an acceptably safe limit of satire that can be assimilated by mainstream scholarship, but when an Austen scholar like Upfal claims too sharp a personal satire, better to keep that sort of claim out of the spotlight.
So, to do my small part to remedy that omission, here is a link to the Amazon.com webpage for Upfal's book:
http://www.amazon.com/Austens-History-England-Cassandras-Portraits/dp/0733427804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348409672&sr=1-1&keywords=upfals+Austen+History
If you can't open my link for any reason, then go to Amazon.com and enter this data:
ISBN-10:
0733427804
ISBN-13: 978-0733427800
There you will see that Edward Cooper was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of biting Austen family satire that some might wish to keep in obscurity.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
ISBN-13: 978-0733427800
There you will see that Edward Cooper was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of biting Austen family satire that some might wish to keep in obscurity.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
What did Lady Catherine stop herself from saying to Lizzy Bennet at Rosings?
As
Lady Catherine cross-examines Lizzy at Rosings about this and that, every
Janeite recalls the following exchange as part of it:
"Your father's estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think. For your sake," turning to Charlotte, "I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family. Do you play and sing, Miss Bennet?" "A little."
"Oh! then—some time or other we shall be happy to hear you. Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior to——You shall try it some day. Do your sisters play and sing?" "One of them does."
We all know this passage, and, aside from noting that Lady C, for all her unpleasant personality traits, is something of a proto-feminist when it comes to property rights, it is a passage that would seem to merit no special attention.
Well, if you read through this message to the end, perhaps you'll agree with me that it's an especially interesting passage. Why? Because, as I was just reading that exchange today for the umpteenth time, for the first time it occurred to me that Lady Catherine never finished _one_ sentence that she started there......and, upon examination and reflection, I think I know _why_ Lady C thought better of her originally intended completion of that sentence--and it's a reason you will want to hear about as well!
Before I go on, though, I will raise two possible answers I _don't_ agree with, and explain why:
First, someone is going to suggest that this is not an incomplete sentence at all, but simply is a reflection of Jane Austen's authorial compliance with the 18th-19th literary convention of not naming real-world names. And, indeed, in P&P itself, we read in several places about the "--Shire" militia, which would seem to support that interpretation.
Except that JA was very fond of reflecting half-completed spoken sentences in exactly the same format as we see in Lady C's speech---indeed, the majority of Miss Bate's spoken sentences are partial sentences, and there is a great deal of mystery as to what endings Miss Bates was so frequently leaving unspoken.....
So, at most, I believe that JA was deliberately playing with that literary convention of unnamed names--in this case, perhaps the name of a particular maker of pianofortes---as an ambiguous cover for a very very explosive completion of that sentence. Read on.....
Second, someone will acknowledge that it was an incomplete sentence, but will suggest that Lady C's original thought was:
"Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior to the instrument at _Longbourn_."
At first, that bland completion would seem to fit the circumstances. After all, Lady C has just been quizzing Lizzy about the _Longbourn_ entail, and Lady C (we learn a minute later) was laboring under the assumption (incorrect, as it turned out) that the Bennet household staff included a governess. So it would fit with that context and that assumption that since Lady C had established that Lizzy played and sang a little, it followed that there had to be a fairly decent pianoforte at Longbourn, and _that_ , therefore, was the very one to which Lady C was about to compare the Rosings pianoforte.
But, I claim, that interpretation crumbles under closer scrutiny and consideration. First of all, isn't it totally out of character for Lady Catherine to think twice about saying _anything_ that pops into her head, let alone to actually _change_, on a dime, what she was going to say? I can't recall any other speech of hers in the entire novel where we get the tiniest suggestion that this could ever occur--quite the contrary, Lady C. repeatedly takes a patent delight in saying _whatever_ she wants to say, to whomever she wants to say it, regardless of whether it might make that person uncomfortable. When we think about the great confrontation in the wilderness at Longbourn in particular, the very notion of Lady Catherine, 25 chapters earlier, being deferential to and solicitous of Lizzy Bennet's delicate class-based feelings--completely absurd!
And that's not all...isn't it also totally out of character for Lady Catherine to consider any valuable object associated with herself--a deity walking on earth---to be even remotely comparable to the same object associated with ordinary human beings?
In particular, is it plausible in any way to imagine that Lady Catherine would use the word "probably" before the word "superior" in that sentence, in describing a pianoforte at the Bennet household in relation to the pianoforte at Rosings?
No, that is even more absurd than Lady Catherine thinking twice. No, there is only one plausible ending to that sentence, it rings out to us from the depths of the text of the novel, like a thundering crescendo, and here it is:
"Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior to the instrument at _Pemberley_" !!!
Contrast that completion in stark contrast to the "straw man" pianoforte at Longbourn.
First, it is _readily_ imaginable that Lady Catherine would have been highly sensitive to delicate points of status superiority between her own estate, Rosings, and the great estate of her late sister Lady Darcy--Pemberley. Lady C would not have blithely dismissed the pianoforte at Pemberley---even she was not so narcissistic as to imagine Rosings to be a greater estate than Pemberley.
And second, we already know that Lady C had an especially generous dollop of personal vanity associated with music:
There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy?" Mr. Darcy spoke with affectionate praise of his sister's proficiency. "I am very glad to hear such a good account of her," said Lady Catherine; "and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel if she does not practice a good deal." "I assure you, madam," he replied, "that she does not need such advice. She practises very constantly."
And there we have Lady C. speaking implicitly about that same Pemberley pianoforte.
So....if I am correct, and Jane Austen wished her careful readers to ask the question of my Subject Line, and then to work through the analysis to get to the end point I have reached, the next question is significantly more explosive:
Why in the world would Lady C. have been about to carelessly let slip that she considered it totally _normal_ that Lizzy Bennet would know anything at all about the pianoforte at Pemberley, in order to assess Lady C's comparison?
And...the followup bombshell question rushes upon us---does this strange apparent belief of Lady Catherine regarding Lizzy Bennet being familiar with the Pemberley pianoforte have anything to do with the most famous crux in all of Jane Austen's novels---i.e., who fed Lady Catherine the false gossip about Lizzy and Darcy being engaged, which famously boomeranged into their becoming actually engaged?
I will briefly reopen Pandora's Box and provide the answer to that last question first provided by Kim Damstra in the late 1990's, and then later independently rediscovered by myself in 2004, with about an 80% correspondence between his and my textual clues that led us both to the same basic conclusion--that answer being _Charlotte_ _Lucas_.
But as neither Kim Damstra, myself, nor anyone else, has previously noticed Lady Catherine's incomplete sentence before I did so this evening, it adds a burst of fuel to the fire----here, in Chapter 29, almost half a novel earlier, we have evidence that Lady Catherine thinks better of revealing that she sees Lizzy Bennet in her mind's eye charming the shades of Pemberley with her singing and playing!
Is it possible that Aldous Huxley really was onto something when he, in the screenplay for P&P1, shows us a Lady Catherine who is actually a deliberate but covert matchmaker between Lizzy and Darcy?
I told you it was something you'd want to read to the end!
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
"Your father's estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think. For your sake," turning to Charlotte, "I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family. Do you play and sing, Miss Bennet?" "A little."
"Oh! then—some time or other we shall be happy to hear you. Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior to——You shall try it some day. Do your sisters play and sing?" "One of them does."
We all know this passage, and, aside from noting that Lady C, for all her unpleasant personality traits, is something of a proto-feminist when it comes to property rights, it is a passage that would seem to merit no special attention.
Well, if you read through this message to the end, perhaps you'll agree with me that it's an especially interesting passage. Why? Because, as I was just reading that exchange today for the umpteenth time, for the first time it occurred to me that Lady Catherine never finished _one_ sentence that she started there......and, upon examination and reflection, I think I know _why_ Lady C thought better of her originally intended completion of that sentence--and it's a reason you will want to hear about as well!
Before I go on, though, I will raise two possible answers I _don't_ agree with, and explain why:
First, someone is going to suggest that this is not an incomplete sentence at all, but simply is a reflection of Jane Austen's authorial compliance with the 18th-19th literary convention of not naming real-world names. And, indeed, in P&P itself, we read in several places about the "--Shire" militia, which would seem to support that interpretation.
Except that JA was very fond of reflecting half-completed spoken sentences in exactly the same format as we see in Lady C's speech---indeed, the majority of Miss Bate's spoken sentences are partial sentences, and there is a great deal of mystery as to what endings Miss Bates was so frequently leaving unspoken.....
So, at most, I believe that JA was deliberately playing with that literary convention of unnamed names--in this case, perhaps the name of a particular maker of pianofortes---as an ambiguous cover for a very very explosive completion of that sentence. Read on.....
Second, someone will acknowledge that it was an incomplete sentence, but will suggest that Lady C's original thought was:
"Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior to the instrument at _Longbourn_."
At first, that bland completion would seem to fit the circumstances. After all, Lady C has just been quizzing Lizzy about the _Longbourn_ entail, and Lady C (we learn a minute later) was laboring under the assumption (incorrect, as it turned out) that the Bennet household staff included a governess. So it would fit with that context and that assumption that since Lady C had established that Lizzy played and sang a little, it followed that there had to be a fairly decent pianoforte at Longbourn, and _that_ , therefore, was the very one to which Lady C was about to compare the Rosings pianoforte.
But, I claim, that interpretation crumbles under closer scrutiny and consideration. First of all, isn't it totally out of character for Lady Catherine to think twice about saying _anything_ that pops into her head, let alone to actually _change_, on a dime, what she was going to say? I can't recall any other speech of hers in the entire novel where we get the tiniest suggestion that this could ever occur--quite the contrary, Lady C. repeatedly takes a patent delight in saying _whatever_ she wants to say, to whomever she wants to say it, regardless of whether it might make that person uncomfortable. When we think about the great confrontation in the wilderness at Longbourn in particular, the very notion of Lady Catherine, 25 chapters earlier, being deferential to and solicitous of Lizzy Bennet's delicate class-based feelings--completely absurd!
And that's not all...isn't it also totally out of character for Lady Catherine to consider any valuable object associated with herself--a deity walking on earth---to be even remotely comparable to the same object associated with ordinary human beings?
In particular, is it plausible in any way to imagine that Lady Catherine would use the word "probably" before the word "superior" in that sentence, in describing a pianoforte at the Bennet household in relation to the pianoforte at Rosings?
No, that is even more absurd than Lady Catherine thinking twice. No, there is only one plausible ending to that sentence, it rings out to us from the depths of the text of the novel, like a thundering crescendo, and here it is:
"Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior to the instrument at _Pemberley_" !!!
Contrast that completion in stark contrast to the "straw man" pianoforte at Longbourn.
First, it is _readily_ imaginable that Lady Catherine would have been highly sensitive to delicate points of status superiority between her own estate, Rosings, and the great estate of her late sister Lady Darcy--Pemberley. Lady C would not have blithely dismissed the pianoforte at Pemberley---even she was not so narcissistic as to imagine Rosings to be a greater estate than Pemberley.
And second, we already know that Lady C had an especially generous dollop of personal vanity associated with music:
There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy?" Mr. Darcy spoke with affectionate praise of his sister's proficiency. "I am very glad to hear such a good account of her," said Lady Catherine; "and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel if she does not practice a good deal." "I assure you, madam," he replied, "that she does not need such advice. She practises very constantly."
And there we have Lady C. speaking implicitly about that same Pemberley pianoforte.
So....if I am correct, and Jane Austen wished her careful readers to ask the question of my Subject Line, and then to work through the analysis to get to the end point I have reached, the next question is significantly more explosive:
Why in the world would Lady C. have been about to carelessly let slip that she considered it totally _normal_ that Lizzy Bennet would know anything at all about the pianoforte at Pemberley, in order to assess Lady C's comparison?
And...the followup bombshell question rushes upon us---does this strange apparent belief of Lady Catherine regarding Lizzy Bennet being familiar with the Pemberley pianoforte have anything to do with the most famous crux in all of Jane Austen's novels---i.e., who fed Lady Catherine the false gossip about Lizzy and Darcy being engaged, which famously boomeranged into their becoming actually engaged?
I will briefly reopen Pandora's Box and provide the answer to that last question first provided by Kim Damstra in the late 1990's, and then later independently rediscovered by myself in 2004, with about an 80% correspondence between his and my textual clues that led us both to the same basic conclusion--that answer being _Charlotte_ _Lucas_.
But as neither Kim Damstra, myself, nor anyone else, has previously noticed Lady Catherine's incomplete sentence before I did so this evening, it adds a burst of fuel to the fire----here, in Chapter 29, almost half a novel earlier, we have evidence that Lady Catherine thinks better of revealing that she sees Lizzy Bennet in her mind's eye charming the shades of Pemberley with her singing and playing!
Is it possible that Aldous Huxley really was onto something when he, in the screenplay for P&P1, shows us a Lady Catherine who is actually a deliberate but covert matchmaker between Lizzy and Darcy?
I told you it was something you'd want to read to the end!
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
Sunday, September 23, 2012
A New Kind of Science
This
post might seem to be a departure from my usual subject matter, but it’s really
not. For the past 15 years, I’ve been developing my own outside-the-box
approach to the study of literature, with heavy reliance on literary sleuthing
out of covert textual clues left behind by the greatest authors like Austen,
Shakespeare, and Joyce. And for the past 15 years, my eldest son Ethan has been
developing his own outside-the-box approach to biology, informing his
theorizing with an evolutionary perspective. As we’ve each moved on our
separate paths, we have often noted the parallels between the study of
literature and the study of nature, and so, today’s post is in honor of my son,
who is putting on the following-linked crowdsourcing
event in NYC on Thursday evening October 4 at Dewey's Flatiron.
Ethan
is one of the new breed of scientists who are looking to break free of
longstanding models for the funding of basic science via traditional sources
like government (which seem in grave peril of drying up these days) or Big
Business (which does not always have the public's interest at heart, to put it
mildly).
The
research project he wishes to crowdfund is explained briefly in the link, and
is on a modest budget with reasonable expectations of fulfilling their specific
goal in demystifying the mechanism of the
amphetamine
class of drugs on people. Ethan is very Internet savvy, and his Twitter name is
@eperlste. He Tweets frequently, if you want to get a more specific sense of
what he is about as a scientist.
For
the past 5 years, after obtaining his Ph.D at Harvard, Ethan has been
developing a new evolutionary approach to pharmacology at his lab at the Sigler
Institute at Princeton. In this planned project, he will collaborate with David Sulzer, whose Columbia
Med School lab has for nearly 2 decades been a leader in psychopharmacology.
Members
of our family will of course be among his crowdfunding donors, not just because
he's our relative, but because we believe in his ability to use his ingenuity
and expertise to make this new kind of
science
happen, and be part of a growing wave for change, which will ultimately benefit
our society as a whole.
This
event will be in NYC, perhaps some of you (or anyone you know) who live in the
NYC area
might
want to attend and see if you want to find out more, and maybe decide to be a
donor too (we're not talking about big bucks here overall, and the idea is to
get lots of smaller donors!). Feel free, therefore, to circulate this post to
any prospective attendee or donee!! And of course if anyone has a question for
Ethan, let me know and I will put you in touch with him to answer it!
I've
been his non-scientist "muse" for 15 years now, from the days when he
managed to wangle himself an internship with a prominent immunologist at the
NIH while he was still in high school--and I can say
that
it has been a fantastic experience, as a layperson, to tag along with him on
his theoretical journey to the point he has reached now, where he has developed
an outside-the-box approach to pharmacology that really may bear rich fruit
during the next decade. So, if any of you are non scientists, and want a ring
side seat to watch how cutting edge science is done these days, this is your
chance! If this sort of thing catches on
among scientists worldwide, who knows, maybe one day there will be no depending
on the likes of Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney to decide if they want to fund science
that the world desperately needs!
Cheers,
ARNIE
Monday, September 17, 2012
"....a lucky source of regret..." and "...one ceaseless source of regret...": An unmistakable echo of Pride&Prejudice in Jane Austen's Letter 32
"[Brother Frank] kindly passes over the poignancy of his feelings in
quitting his Ship, his Officers & his Men.-What a pity it is that he
should not be in England at the time of this promotion, because he
certainly would have had an appointment!-so everybody says, & therefore
it must be right for me to say it too.-Had he been really here, the
certainty of the appointment I dare say would not have been half so
great-but as it could not be brought to the proof, his absence will be
always A LUCKY SOURCE OF REGRET...."
Last year in Austen L and Janeites, Diane Reynolds made the following insightful observations regarding the above quoted passage in Jane Austen's Letter 32 dated Jan. 21-22, 1801: "And then, so typically--I think at this point those of us who have been following the letters know her style in our sleep!--the characteristic commentary on how people lie, what Ellen would call the cant, what we might call the commonplace cliches, that JA sees through and just can't help commenting on--they must annoy/amuse/annoy her no end....The first part must be a parody what she hears people saying, as she says "so everybody says ..." Her opinion of it as nonsense is revealed in the second half of the quote."
Today, I was (surprisingly) brought back to Diane's sharp insight as I was reading along in Pride & Prejudice and came to the following bit of narration early in Chapter 42, as Elizabeth contemplates the disappointing stretch of life in front of her in Meryton during the lull between the departure of the Regiment for Brighton and of Jane for London, on the one hand, and the planned tour to the Lake Country, still off in the distance:
"Her tour to the Lakes was now the object of her happiest thoughts; it was her best consolation for all the uncomfortable hours which the discontentedness of her mother and Kitty made inevitable; and could she have included Jane in the scheme, every part of it would have been perfect. "But it is fortunate," thought she, "that I have something to wish for. Were the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain. But here, by carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my sister's absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of pleasure realised. A scheme of which every part promises delight can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation."
Both of these passages, as my Subject Line shows, refer to the sour grapes of a supposedly lucky source of regret.
In Letter 32, as Diane pointed out, JA is all about keeping it real, and not buying into fake pieties and consolation--the family must accept that Frank lacks an appointment, and not try to sugar coat the fact.
In P&P, we are seeing Lizzy at her worst. The mildly sour grapes of Chapter 27, when Lizzy cracks wise ("Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all") with Aunt Gardiner after Wickham drops Lizzy like a hot potato in favor of the Freckled Heiress Miss King, are as nothing in comparison with these super-sour (dare I say it? Lydiaesque) paranoid selfish ramblings about being stranded in Meryton while two other sisters are away on trips.
Notwithstanding the extreme emotional distress that Lizzy knows Jane has experienced as a result of Bingley's abrupt and then prolonged abandonment of Jane mid-courtship, it is now clear to me, as I carefully read the above passage in Chapter 42, that Lizzy feels abandoned by _Jane_ in what Lizzy evidently and narcissistically experiences as her _own_ hour of need.
Pretty darned selfish and unempathic of Lizzy, when you think about it. But I wager that most Janeites--like myself till today--have skimmed by that obscure passage without ever registering what is really going on in Lizzy's head.
As my 93 year old father tells people, based on his experience in reading P&P----with Jane Austen, you have to read every word, slowly, or else you will miss things--sometimes, important things.
And, in conclusion, the bonus of my connecting the dots between these parallel passages in Letter 32 and P&P is that it provides yet another clue (along with the other P&P echoes I have previously discerned in other JA letters) that JA's process of refining the text of P&P into pure literary gold over a period of years was an endless process--- whether she had thought of the conceit about Frank's promotion and then applied it to Lizzy's boredom, or vice versa, I think this is a particularly apt example of the fact that when she came up with a clever conceit, she enjoyed riffing on it again before putting it aside.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
Last year in Austen L and Janeites, Diane Reynolds made the following insightful observations regarding the above quoted passage in Jane Austen's Letter 32 dated Jan. 21-22, 1801: "And then, so typically--I think at this point those of us who have been following the letters know her style in our sleep!--the characteristic commentary on how people lie, what Ellen would call the cant, what we might call the commonplace cliches, that JA sees through and just can't help commenting on--they must annoy/amuse/annoy her no end....The first part must be a parody what she hears people saying, as she says "so everybody says ..." Her opinion of it as nonsense is revealed in the second half of the quote."
Today, I was (surprisingly) brought back to Diane's sharp insight as I was reading along in Pride & Prejudice and came to the following bit of narration early in Chapter 42, as Elizabeth contemplates the disappointing stretch of life in front of her in Meryton during the lull between the departure of the Regiment for Brighton and of Jane for London, on the one hand, and the planned tour to the Lake Country, still off in the distance:
"Her tour to the Lakes was now the object of her happiest thoughts; it was her best consolation for all the uncomfortable hours which the discontentedness of her mother and Kitty made inevitable; and could she have included Jane in the scheme, every part of it would have been perfect. "But it is fortunate," thought she, "that I have something to wish for. Were the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain. But here, by carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my sister's absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of pleasure realised. A scheme of which every part promises delight can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation."
Both of these passages, as my Subject Line shows, refer to the sour grapes of a supposedly lucky source of regret.
In Letter 32, as Diane pointed out, JA is all about keeping it real, and not buying into fake pieties and consolation--the family must accept that Frank lacks an appointment, and not try to sugar coat the fact.
In P&P, we are seeing Lizzy at her worst. The mildly sour grapes of Chapter 27, when Lizzy cracks wise ("Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all") with Aunt Gardiner after Wickham drops Lizzy like a hot potato in favor of the Freckled Heiress Miss King, are as nothing in comparison with these super-sour (dare I say it? Lydiaesque) paranoid selfish ramblings about being stranded in Meryton while two other sisters are away on trips.
Notwithstanding the extreme emotional distress that Lizzy knows Jane has experienced as a result of Bingley's abrupt and then prolonged abandonment of Jane mid-courtship, it is now clear to me, as I carefully read the above passage in Chapter 42, that Lizzy feels abandoned by _Jane_ in what Lizzy evidently and narcissistically experiences as her _own_ hour of need.
Pretty darned selfish and unempathic of Lizzy, when you think about it. But I wager that most Janeites--like myself till today--have skimmed by that obscure passage without ever registering what is really going on in Lizzy's head.
As my 93 year old father tells people, based on his experience in reading P&P----with Jane Austen, you have to read every word, slowly, or else you will miss things--sometimes, important things.
And, in conclusion, the bonus of my connecting the dots between these parallel passages in Letter 32 and P&P is that it provides yet another clue (along with the other P&P echoes I have previously discerned in other JA letters) that JA's process of refining the text of P&P into pure literary gold over a period of years was an endless process--- whether she had thought of the conceit about Frank's promotion and then applied it to Lizzy's boredom, or vice versa, I think this is a particularly apt example of the fact that when she came up with a clever conceit, she enjoyed riffing on it again before putting it aside.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Jane Austen: my first penetration story
One of the cool statistics that Google Blogs provides is a sampling of the search terms that new readers Googled which led them to my blog for the first time.
Those who've been reading along here for a while might recall the most unlikely example of a set of search terms leading to this blog, which I recounted here 7 months ago:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2012/02/august-wayne-booth-in-once-upon-time.html
Amazingly, there was a connection I had previously been totally unaware of between Jane Austen and the TV show Once Upon A Time (OUAT), focused on the mysterious character August Wayne Booth. And turns out that became the single most popular post I ever wrote in this blog, by a very long margin--so I became a permanent fan of blog statistics.
Well...I finally have another tale to tell of unlikely search terms that led to this blog, which is probably not going to generate thousands of new readers for this blog, but which I think most people who've been reading along here for a while will find both interesting and disturbing/funny/amazing.
The search terms that popped up today were:
MY FIRST PENETRATION STORY
Needless to say, that caught my eye, particularly because (also, I hope, needless to say) I never wrote any post even remotely resembling that title. Not the purpose of this blog.
But it didn't take me very long to realize that it must have had something to with the raciest part of (the SEVENTEEN year old) Jane Austen's History of England, and here are the two related posts that an unwitting Googler was led to:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2010/12/jane-austens-rearward-look-at-james-i.html
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2011/01/penetration-to-unified-whole-of-jane.html
If you (re)read those posts, you will notice the happy serendipity of the words "My first" referring BOTH to the story of a young person's first experience of a very personal kind, and also to the first syllable in the lubricious Sharade that the audacious young Jane Austen chose to put in her History.
And the most remarkable (and disturbing) part of this coincidence is that it is quite possible that in some way the Sharade on James the First's sexual proclivities was, in the young Jane Austen's characteristic veiled way, the "shadow story" of Jane Austen's own first experience of that kind.
So, in that sense, the infinite random wisdom of Google actually led the Googler to the right place after all.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
Those who've been reading along here for a while might recall the most unlikely example of a set of search terms leading to this blog, which I recounted here 7 months ago:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2012/02/august-wayne-booth-in-once-upon-time.html
Amazingly, there was a connection I had previously been totally unaware of between Jane Austen and the TV show Once Upon A Time (OUAT), focused on the mysterious character August Wayne Booth. And turns out that became the single most popular post I ever wrote in this blog, by a very long margin--so I became a permanent fan of blog statistics.
Well...I finally have another tale to tell of unlikely search terms that led to this blog, which is probably not going to generate thousands of new readers for this blog, but which I think most people who've been reading along here for a while will find both interesting and disturbing/funny/amazing.
The search terms that popped up today were:
MY FIRST PENETRATION STORY
Needless to say, that caught my eye, particularly because (also, I hope, needless to say) I never wrote any post even remotely resembling that title. Not the purpose of this blog.
But it didn't take me very long to realize that it must have had something to with the raciest part of (the SEVENTEEN year old) Jane Austen's History of England, and here are the two related posts that an unwitting Googler was led to:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2010/12/jane-austens-rearward-look-at-james-i.html
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2011/01/penetration-to-unified-whole-of-jane.html
If you (re)read those posts, you will notice the happy serendipity of the words "My first" referring BOTH to the story of a young person's first experience of a very personal kind, and also to the first syllable in the lubricious Sharade that the audacious young Jane Austen chose to put in her History.
And the most remarkable (and disturbing) part of this coincidence is that it is quite possible that in some way the Sharade on James the First's sexual proclivities was, in the young Jane Austen's characteristic veiled way, the "shadow story" of Jane Austen's own first experience of that kind.
So, in that sense, the infinite random wisdom of Google actually led the Googler to the right place after all.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
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