Another little literary quiz

[Revised at 6:36 pm PST, to add a few more clues]

Okay, I'm thinking of a famous novel, as to which ALL of the following statements are true:

ONE: It was written by a very famous English female author quite a while ago.

TWO: Her novels are all famous and are as popular today as they have ever been.

THREE: The entire arc of action in the novel is triggered by an announcement of something surprising and intriguing coming to the small country town, that gets all the local gossips speculating about it.

FOUR: It has a character named Charlotte, who turns out to be the mastermind who subtly manipulates many other characters into doing what she wants, without its being traced back to her, and who is believed to have schemed for an inheritance.

FIVE: It has a character named Mrs. Lucas.

SIX: It shows a member of the Lucas family as repeatedly associated with poultry in a home garden.

SEVEN: It has been adapted into film several times between 1940 and 2005.

EIGHT: In a film made in the 21^st century, one of the main characters from this novel is shown or stated to be lesbian, and that character is notably associated in the novel itself with pigs.

NINE: There was widespread shock and dismay expressed by many of the numerous lovers of this author and her novels, when a film adaptation depicted a lesbian relationship.

So, what is the title of the novel, and what is the name of its author?

HINT: Given my love of charades, riddles, and novels which have more than one "answer", you might want to think about whether there is more than one answer to this quiz....

Cheers, ARNIE

Feminist Nuns, Jesus, & Jane Austen's Feminist Christianity

Three years ago, almost to the day, I posted…

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2012/04/jane-austen-jimmy-carter-feminist-nuns.html

..about “Jane Austen, Jimmy Carter, feminist nuns & Jesus” in the aftermath of the Vatican crackdown on American Catholic nuns who had the temerity to want to live Jesus’s true message of altruism, nonjudgment, and care for the poor and helpless, and in particular for oppressed women, and to expect the Catholic Church not to expel them.

I suggested that Jane Austen would have been 1000% on the side of these heroic nuns, who stood their ground in the face of an attack by perhaps the most ancient powerful patriarchal institution in the world.

By chance today, as I was browsing through blog posts of mine from when I first started blogging actively nearly 5 years ago, I came across the above linked 2012 post, and so imagine my surprise and delight that when I went to Tweet a link to it, I came across Tweets from the last two weeks that linked to articles, such as this one in The Guardian…

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/16/vatican-ends-crackdown-us-nuns-radical-feminism

…which heralded some really really good news. Pope Francis apparently has done it again, “it” being doing something to really shake up his mammoth bureaucratic apparatus, and to get back to its roots in the selfless, loving message of Jesus that ought to have been the message all along, but got lost a long time ago in many ways.

And I was reminded once again of the quotation in Northanger Abbey, Henry Tilney’s rant at Catherine Morland, that for me is the epicenter of Jane Austen’s true Christian message, i.e., that when the Church (whether it be Anglican, Catholic, or any other) loses sight of its moral center, it is up to ordinary “heroines” on the street to step up and demand a return to goodness and charity.

So somewhere Jane Austen is cheering these brave and resourceful nuns on, as they do their good works. In particular, women must keep pressing hard to force the Churches to be Christian in the best sense of that word.

Cheers, ARNIE

@JaneAustenCode on Twitter

“I will go get her picture”: Beatrice & Benedick as the source for Lizzy & Darcy’s picturesque repartee

At the end of the first post of this ongoing series about Pride & Prejudice and Much Ado About Nothing, after I spelled out the elaborate eavesdropping/portraiture motif in Chapters 10 & 11 of P&P, I ended with this comment:

“And there I will stop for today, but give you assurance that in my coming posts I will show not only how Jane Austen was inspired by Much Ado (and that earlier literary work I haven’t yet named), but how she studied and penetrated to the subtext of those works as well, better than any scholar of her era, and in some ways better than those earlier works have ever been penetrated!”

Today, I am ready to land that first plane. I begin with Act 2 Scene 3 of Much Ado, when Benedick soliloquizes about his ideal woman, just before he is gulled by Don Pedro et al into thinking of Beatrice as that woman:

“One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha! the prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour.”

And then, right after he has been gulled (during which the tricksters, who seem to have overheard his soliloquy, tout Beatrice as specifically fulfilling Benedick’s checklist), he revisits it with new eyes after Beatrice grudgingly comes to him:

Enter BEATRICE

BEATRICE        AGAINST MY WILL I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.

BENEDICK  Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.

BEATRICE  I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come.

BENEDICK  You take pleasure then in the message?

BEATRICE  Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior: fare you well.   Exit

BENEDICK  Ha! 'AGAINST MY WILL I am sent to bid you come in to dinner;' THERE’S A DOUBLE MEANING IN THAT 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' that's as much as to say, Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture.  Exit

It was ten years ago that I first recognized two distinct echoes of these passages in P&P:

First, Darcy’s laundry list for his impossibly ideal woman in Chapter 8 eerily parallels Benedick’s:

"Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished."

"Nor I, I am sure," said Miss Bingley.

"Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman."

"Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it."

"Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved."

"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

"I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any."

"Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all this?"

"I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe united."

And second, Beatrice’s sour “Against my will” is tracked by the famous words of Eliza Bennet giving Darcy what-for re his churlish “against my will” during his disastrous first proposal in Ch. 34 of P&P:

"I might as well inquire…why with so evident a desire of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me AGAINST YOUR WILL, against your reason, and even against your character?”

But it was only last week that I first noticed a much larger textual jewel/crux in Much Ado that Jane Austen must have noticed, decoded, and then alluded to in P&P, in particular in Chapters 10 & 11 of P&P. As my Subject Line has alerted you, Benedick concludes his session of deluded romantic doublethink with this cryptic assertion: “I will go get her PICTURE”.

Think about that word ‘picture”. Could it possibly be a coincidence that the shrubbery scene in Much Ado which Jane Austen tracked so carefully in her own shrubbery scene in P&P, just happens to end with a line of dialog which could serve as a subtitle for P&P, given all the textual evidence scattered through twenty chapters in P&P, which I laid out in the second previous post? It is obviously not a coincidence, or a coinage of my overheated imagination!

And that would be remarkable enough, if that were all there was to Jane Austen’s allusion to Much Ado in P&P. But it turns out that this cryptic line spoken by Benedick has its own complex subtext, which, I will now suggest, Jane Austen the scholar also penetrated deeply into, and wove into the complex fabric of her light bright and sparkling “darling child”, Pride & Prejudice. Let me explain.

Shakespeare scholars have long debated exactly what Benedick means by “her picture”, given that Benedick does not otherwise mention any picture of Beatrice (or any other woman), either before or after he says that. Here is a brief yet thorough sampling of intelligent speculation regarding same from the Shaksper scholarly online group discussion of this topic six years ago:

Skip Nicholson: “Schmidt's glossary lists the use of "picture" in this line as literal, that Benedick is going to get an image or likeness of her”

Ron Severdia: “The idea is that he's going to get a picture of Beatrice to gaze upon it as typical young lovers do -- so it's literal. However, the actor might play the juxtaposition of building the speech up to that point, as if he was going to profess his love for her, but chickens out and goes for the picture instead”

Bill Godshalk: “I'd suggest a painted miniature of the loved one that could be worn about the neck by a chain. See Hamlet…3.4.53 who discusses "this picture." Jenkins cites A. C. Sprague's Shakespeare and the Actors…where the case for miniatures is "well put." “

Marilyn Bonomi: “I've always viewed that line as meaning he is going to go sketch her.”

David Evett: “…the likeliest explanation is that he means to track down a portrait miniature...It occurs to me that he might possibly have acquired one during the earlier phase of their relationship, a notion that would indicate that that earlier relationship was as serious as Beatrice's comments on it seem to suggest, while indicating Benedick's own continuing interest in her.”

Jim Ryan: “Overhearing that he is loved, Benedick first takes off in a flight of imagination, torturing Beatrice's invitation to dinner & desiring her picture, her idealized image...He then becomes, embodies, the fashionable image of a lover: he shaves and spruces himself up. He has a real or feigned toothache as the socially accepted means of explaining his lovesickness. The lovesick Beatrice, similarly touched to imaginative excess, soliloquizes in a one-quatrain-short sonnet...She then appears in the scene mirroring Benedick's lovesickness "stuffed" …with a cold, with Margaret's punning on the word suggesting a psychosomatic preparation for requiting Benedick's love. In both lovers the word stimulates the imagination toward an artful construct -- a picture, a  sonnet -- and then alters them physically.”

Thomas Krause: “I agree that Benedick was probably thinking about a miniature….Long ago [1875], Frank Marshall suggested that "picture in little" might refer to coins bearing Claudius's picture…And I've always felt that use of coins in the queen's closet scene (a la Michael Redgrave) breathed wit into the queen's "this is the very coinage of your brain" line….”

I think it would be a mistake to try to choose one from among all these ingenious and plausible explanations as “the” meaning of it, as Shakespeare clearly loved to create multiple plausible interpretations. And I believe Jane Austen picked up on pretty much all of them – as the examples I catalogued in my previous post in this series, we have Elizabeth observing Wickham’s and Darcy’s miniatures, and Darcy’s portrait, at Pemberley. And Jim Ryan’s well-argued explanation for the way idealized images in Much Ado reflect changes in the way Benedick and Beatrice feel about each other rings truer than true with the transformation in Eliza’s feelings for Darcy while she is at Pemberley gazing at his idealized image suspended on the wall before her. And speaking of sonnets, Darcy is the one who, Benedick-like, defends poetry as the food of love, to which Eliza, Beatrice-like, replies that a bad poem will starve love away!

But perhaps the most interesting interpretation of all is that last one mentioned by Thomas Krause harking back to Marshall’s 1875 interpretation of Hamlet’s reference to Claudius’ “picture in little” as a pun on the image of a ruler on a coin. The reason I believe this works best of all for Benedick’s cryptic comment about going to get Beatrice’s (or maybe, Queen Elizabeth’s?) ‘picture’, is that it is in exactly the same vein as Benedick’s pun on British coins which occurs earlier in that very same scene 2.3, during Benedick’s wish list:

“RICH she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never CHEAPEN her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; NOBLE, or not I for an ANGEL…”

It turns out that a “noble” was the name of a British coin that had 2/3 of the value of another British coin, known as an “angel” (worth 10 shillings)! And so it would make perfect sense that Benedick, after revisiting the fulfilment of his wish list in the person of Beatrice, would then end his paean to Beatrice with yet another coin pun---in effect, turning her into his “queen”, whose face would appear on the coin that measures the value of his love!

Plus, a search of the word “noble” and other names of Elizabeth-era coins in the text of Much Ado reveals several other puns in the same vein. Clearly then, Shakespeare intended his alert readers and/or spectators to catch this punning---and it is not entirely funny, as it does suggest that behind Benedick’s flowery words of love, he is more than a little mercenary, especially when we take note that the first item in his wish list, ahead of wisdom, virtue, fairness, and nobility, is “RICH  she shall be, that’s certain”.

And anyone who knows P&P well will immediately associate Benedick’s mercenary tendencies with Mrs. Bennet’s unashamed yearning for rich sons-in-law, and Elizabeth Bennet’s famous joke that not’s a joke, when explaining to her amazed sister Jane her sudden engagement to Darcy:

"My dearest sister, now be serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let me know every thing that I am to know, without delay. Will you tell me how long you have loved him?"

"It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley."

Another entreaty that she would be serious, however, produced the desired effect; and she soon satisfied Jane by her solemn assurances of attachment….:”

And it’s no accident also, I would argue, that we see the word “noble” more often in P&P than in any other Austen novel, and in all cases referring either to Darcy or to his aunt Lady Catherine --- Jane Austen means to raise in the mind of her alert readers the disquieting notion that Elizabeth may indeed have been more revealingly honest than she meant to be with her sister Jane, and therefore not a little hypocritical for having earlier judged her friend Charlotte for what Eliza saw as mercenary motives in marrying Mr. Collins.

There is much more that could be said expanding on this outline of Shakespeare’s and Jane Austen’s masterful treatment of these themes in Much Ado and P&P, respectively, but I believe most of you will agree that I’ve already made a strong prima facie case for my initial claim that Jane Austen the literary scholar was every bit as extraordinary as Jane Austen the writer of fiction.

And with that, I will conclude with the promise to deliver in my next post the previously promised discussion of the Gilpinesque and Reynoldsian theorizing about the picturesque hidden just beneath the surface of P&P, which will now be read by you in the context of all the textual evidence I’ve presented thus far on this theme of the picturesque.

Cheers, ARNIE

@JaneAustenCode on Twitter

Maggie Lane's Surprisingly Positive Take on Mary Crawford

 One of the most fascinating aspects of Jane Austen studies is how sometimes the Austen scholars who usually incline toward conservative orthodox interpretations of JA's novels and biography will suddenly step way outside the box, and surprise everyone with a subversive interpretation that goes strongly against the grain of Austenian orthodoxy.

Here is a great example, which was brought to my attention by a very knowledgeable Janeite friend:

http://www.janeaustensociety.nl/MaggieLaneMP.html

"Dear Mary Crawford, As one of your warmest admirers, I am always so sorry when you find yourself shut out from Mansfield at the end of the book. Every time I reread I hope it might just turn out differently, but it never does. Two hundred years have now passed and you are still denied a happy ending. I wonder why you should be punished, not rewarded, for your delightful personality?

Elizabeth Bennet, who is so very like you, gets her man, so why can’t you? You two share many traits. You both have sparkling dark eyes, a light tripping figure, a witty tongue and an irreverent attitude. But she is regarded by her author ‘as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print’ while your very similar charms are always slightly suspect. Your author seems to hold you at arm’s length for fear of your subverting her design for her novel.

Of course, some of it is your own fault, for falling in love with a ditherer. If Edmund had proposed to you when he came back from ordination and found you still in the village, ready to speak to him very pleasantly despite his errand, all would have been settled very satisfactorily. Despite his slightly stodgy personality, I think he would have made you a good husband. You two would have settled down together and, as even your author has to admit, you would have grown more like one another as the years went on. You would have adopted some of his opinions, and when he got too serious, he would have benefited from being gently teased by his charming wife, especially as there was never anything coarse or sharp in your verbal repartee. As a couple, you would have been very much like Elizabeth and Darcy, in fact.

It must be galling for you to see little Fanny Price succeed where you failed. You never thought of her as a love rival, and to be quite honest, whatever her own secret desires may have been, I don’t think Edmund ever could love her the way he loved you. It’s not that easy to change cousinly love into conjugal love, despite any amount of sitting under trees and telling yourself that you now prefer light eyes. The physical attraction Edmund felt for you was palpable to all who read your story. He loved to observe the play of your features, and he was thrilled when you took his arm and he felt physical contact with you for the first time. Of course, men are often misled by their eyes into marrying very silly wives, but that would not have been the case with you two. Edmund also appreciated your cleverness, obligingness, quick wits and alluring conversation. He would never have found you boring as a wife. And think how he would have enjoyed listening to you play the harp when he relaxed in the evening after a hard day’s sermonising or sick-visiting his parishioners.

All that held him back from following his heart were some rather ridiculous scruples. You spoke slightly disrespectfully of both your uncle the Admiral and your brother-in-law Dr Grant. But that showed good judgement on your part. Dr Grant was a selfish idle bon vivant and you were perfectly justified in disliking his imperfect treatment of his very amenable wife, your beloved sister. As for the Admiral, again it shows your own warmth of heart and loyal feelings that you resented the failings you observed in him as a husband to your dear aunt, and that when he introduced a mistress under his roof, you fled. Your morality can hardly be in question, and really the worst that Edmund could accuse you of is calling the adultery of Maria and Henry folly instead of suffering those sick shudderings of horror which afflicted Fanny when she heard of it. Edmund can be a little tiresome in that way, and you did try to bring him round with your saucy smile, but unfortunately on that occasion it only made things worse.

The warmth of your heart and loyalty to all those you love is evident in all your close relationships, with your brother and sister and aunt, but most commendably in your growing friendship with Fanny. You befriended and defended her when nobody else did, not in order to make yourself agreeable to Edmund, but because you felt genuine sympathy and pity for someone whom almost everybody else overlooked. Considering that Fanny never showed much gratitude towards you, I think that is evidence of real goodness on your part. You warned Henry not to hurt her by flirting lightly with her, and then, when he had fallen seriously in love with her, you were genuinely delighted for them both. You have a generous spirit, which is more than can be said for Fanny, however correct her opinions may be.

 You even have the merit of being loyal to your old friends, though the better taste you acquired at Mansfield has quite properly lessened them in your esteem – another sign of good judgment. You were rather astonished when you found yourself attracted in the first place by a younger son without worldly prospects, but it is to your credit that Edmund’s probity appealed so deeply to you. Your attempts to make him change his mind about his profession were perhaps ill-judged, but you are not to be criticised too severely for trying. You were being true to yourself in staking your last like the woman of spirit that you are. But as it happens, I think your feelings for him were only deepened by his steadfastness on this important point. You would have lost respect for him had he given in to your rather unfocussed persuasions. Like other very feminine women, you like a fundamentally strong man. It is one thing during the days of courtship to enjoy bending his sturdy spirit to yours, and to revel in the delicious proofs of your influence; but you would not have liked a husband who was easily led, by yourself or by anybody else. Although you were first inclined to deplore Sir Thomas’s strict authority as the head of his household, in the end you had to admit to Fanny that he was in fact your model of a good husband.

 Well, Mary, it was not to be, and you and Edmund never did teach the world what connubial happiness is. But I hope you find plenty of consolations in your life in London with your sister. Many women would envy your lifestyle. Now that Dr Grant is so conveniently out of the way, you two women can do what you like, especially as you have plenty of money between you. I imagine you in a very charming Georgian town house, going about in your own carriage – perhaps a very pretty landaulette.

There will be the additional pleasure sometimes of Henry’s company, and for variety maybe he will escort you from time to time on holidays by the sea or in the country – although I know you are not fond of sea breezes, and you have never shown much interest in Norfolk. Too flat, perhaps.

 If I were you, I would not be in too much of a hurry to let any of those dashing representatives or idle heirs apparent attracted by your beauty get their hands on your twenty thousand pounds. In fact, do you really need to be married at all? You are not cut out for housekeeping, and I can’t see you wanting to endure childbirth too often. In that sense, perhaps you had a lucky escape even from Edmund. Clergymen always have large families.

What you truly need is some engrossing outlet for your abilities, which are very considerable. That was why you took to acting with such relish and such success. You liked to try your powers in something new. Your talents are for the light and lively, your interests are men and women. Edmund said you read character well. It is clear that you have in you the making of a good novelist. Having some serious work to turn to every day, creating your own imaginary world to delight your mind, will surely be the very best way to put Edmund out of your head. And to get your own back on your author, perhaps, dear Mary."  END QUOTE BY MAGGIE LANE

 

My only comment to Maggie Lane re the above is that if she had been able to get a little further outside the box of Austen orthodoxy, and see that Mary is bisexual and in love with Fanny Price, and that Mary's "rears and vices" pun is her blowing the whistle on sexual blackmail in the naval promotions racket, among other things, then she'd realize that Jane Austen really did love Mary Crawford and did not deny her a happy ending after all.

Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter