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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Jane Austen
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Belisarius
Lord Bountiful of Admin (Emeritus) Delights
# 32
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
I always got the impression that Tom was not long for this world, and that, vicar or no vicar, Edmund would inherit Mansfield Park soon enough.
Mary Crawford had that impression too. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Animals may be Evolution's Icing, but Bacteria are the Cake.
Andrew Knoll
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
The more I read here, the more fascinating Mansfield Park seems. I must re-read it this year.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Meh, the whole problem with Mansfield Park is that everything interesting happens to everyone but the main character. All Fanny has to do is wait out the morality tale everyone else is in. Heck, she only hears about the the most climax of the book through letters!
[ 03. May 2012, 20:01: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
How about "Heck, she only hears about the climax of the book through letters!"
![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Belisarius
Lord Bountiful of Admin (Emeritus) Delights
# 32
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Posted
Heh--in Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen, Fanny is forced to play a (non-sexual) role in The Curious Cousins (written by "an Energetic Gentleman"); the stage action includes having her outer clothes torn off.
While Fanny may not be directly involved in some events, I agree with others who have said she shows endurance and a backbone. Fanny also has an all-too-human jealousy of Mary--when she thinks Edmund is about to propose to Mary:
quote:
“He is blinded and nothing will open his eyes, nothing can, after having had truths so long before him in vain. He will marry her and be poor and miserable. God grant that her influence does not make him cease to be respectable!...She loves nobody but herself and her brother. Her friends leading her astray for years! She is quite as likely to have led them astray...Edmund, you do not know me. The families would never be connected, if you did not connect them. Oh! Write, write. Finish it at once. Let there be an end of this suspense. Fix, commit, condemn yourself."
[Admittedly, she does soon feel guilty about the outburst and starts excusing Edmund.]
[ 03. May 2012, 21:25: Message edited by: Belisarius ]
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Animals may be Evolution's Icing, but Bacteria are the Cake.
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
I am presently rereading "Mansfield Park". It is interesting to notice that Fanny Price and Edmund, the happy couple, do not have much wealth or prospects; he is a vicar, and his living is in the family's gift, so he will eventually be at his older brother's mercy.
At the very end of the novel, Mr. Grant, the vicar, dies and Edmund is given that living. AIUI once he has the living, it is his for life. His heirs may have a problem, however.
Moo
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
How about "Heck, she only hears about the climax of the book through letters!"
But she's the heroine of an eighteenth century novel!
We only know of everything through letters in Clarissa and the central action - the rape - is not described directly.
[ 04. May 2012, 06:43: Message edited by: venbede ]
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Just thought a bit more:
OK, Fanny is passive and doesn't take much initiative. But there was precious little initiative a woman could take.
Anne Eliot and Elinor Dashwood suffer a lot in silence as well. As does Jane Bennett, who if you find innocent goodness boring, if far more so than Fanny. (And like Fanny, she has sex appeal, not that it is spelt out.)
I'll try to stop posting here and read some of the books. (And isn't it good that everyone here is talking about the books, and not the movies/TV adaptions?)
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Am I right in thinking that Shamela by Fielding contains a wonderful scene where she is writing a letter while being raped?
[ 04. May 2012, 11:24: Message edited by: Robert Armin ]
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Just thought a bit more:
OK, Fanny is passive and doesn't take much initiative. But there was precious little initiative a woman could take.
Anne Eliot and Elinor Dashwood suffer a lot in silence as well. As does Jane Bennett, who if you find innocent goodness boring, if far more so than Fanny. (And like Fanny, she has sex appeal, not that it is spelt out.)
I'll try to stop posting here and read some of the books. (And isn't it good that everyone here is talking about the books, and not the movies/TV adaptions?)
Yes, some feminists have argued that Fanny is an accurate portrayal of the role of women. Persuasion has the fascinating situation where the woman (Anne Elliot), is not allowed to do the heavy lifting in the courtship, and has to find circuitous routes to it. But having once been persuaded against her wishes, she now is able to insist on them.
The other thing about Fanny is that because she is rather passive, everybody manipulates her, or has designs on her. She is seduced, rejected, patronized, and so on, but you could argue that Austen is actually presenting a brilliant portrayal of how women are treated.
Of course, in a sense, we want her to become more active, but our frustration is an image of hers perhaps.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yet another facet of Mansfield Park, pointed out by contemporary critics, is that Fanny is actually increasingly portrayed as an erotic being, who excites sexual feelings in men. This is done in a fairly discreet manner, but it is there. Thus in the Mansfield ball, Fanny dresses in a ball-gown, thus partly exposing her flesh, and men notice her.
I think one film version (Rozema's), has been described as a film about slavery, lesbianism and incest, perhaps not quite what Austen intended!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belisarius:
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
I always got the impression that Tom was not long for this world, and that, vicar or no vicar, Edmund would inherit Mansfield Park soon enough.
Mary Crawford had that impression too.
Heh. That's just what I was going to say. I always feel a little sympathetic, as well as horrified, when Mary Crawford puts her foot in her mouth by voicing her belief that Tom would soon be gone. The Crawfords were altogether frightening to me because they set themselves beyond the pale with such relatively small mistakes. (Just the sort of thing I might do!)
I love Cottontail's defense of Mansfield Park. because it's my favorite too. I would much rather root for downtrodden, timid Fanny than someone like Emma who seems to have had it all her way from birth. Not to say that Emma isn't a glorious novel and Mr. Knightly is my favorite Austen hero.
I can never enjoy Pride and Prejudice because of the family's treatment of Mary. The father's favorite is Elizabeth, the mother's favorite is Lydia, they all admire Jane. Jane and Elizabeth are very close and so are Lydia and Kitty. No one likes Mary. Mary is either ridiculed, "No one danced with Mary!" left out, or publicly humiliated by her father over excessive piano playing. Oh yes, Mary is pedantic and embarrassing, but there's never the slightest indication that anyone in the family has tried to guide her or even befriend her and she's only seventeen for heaven's sake.
Yes. I have issues with Miss Austen even while reading her novels over and over and never missing the latest BBC adaptations. Why is she so apt to ridicule mother love? Of course the parents of a young man who died are going to remember his good qualities and forget his faults (Persuasion) of course new mothers fuss over their babies. If I had one during the days of diptheria and smallpox I probably wouldn't take him out of the nursery till he was sixteen. Why don't Marianne and Eleanor talk to each other like sisters, instead of keeping their heartaches secret?
Austen is wonderful and amazing but a biography I read said that her neighbors didn't like her and I can understand why. I would hate to come under her critical gaze and find myself in the next publication.
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
I can never enjoy Pride and Prejudice because of the family's treatment of Mary. The father's favorite is Elizabeth, the mother's favorite is Lydia, they all admire Jane. Jane and Elizabeth are very close and so are Lydia and Kitty. No one likes Mary. Mary is either ridiculed, "No one danced with Mary!" left out, or publicly humiliated by her father over excessive piano playing. Oh yes, Mary is pedantic and embarrassing, but there's never the slightest indication that anyone in the family has tried to guide her or even befriend her and she's only seventeen for heaven's sake.
I read an article once that speculated that Mary's pedantry was the result of her observation that her father spent a whole lot of time alone, reading in his library, from which she that he would appreciate a scholarly daughter. It makes a lot of sense. Consider Mr Bennet's contempt of balls, and Mary's claims that she herself found little pleasure in a ball. She much prefers reading- alone.
Of course, all she got for her efforts was her father's contempt, poor girl.
[ 04. May 2012, 15:03: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
...the result of her observation that her father spent a whole lot of time alone, reading in his library, from which she that he would appreciate a scholarly daughter.
Whereas what he really wanted was someone intelligent and funny he could talk to. The reason he sat alone wasn't that he disliked conversation so much as that he was bored by his wife's empty conversation. (And pretty much everything else about her)
Some of the funniest scenes in the book, and some of the cruellest, are where Mr Bennett and Lizzy talk over the heads of the opther family members. They manage to communicate with each other and leave Mrs Bennett in the dark. Irony spiced with sarcasm.
And of course it is nearly impossible to read the book without either half falling oin loive with Lizzy yourself, or else realising that she is a self-portrait of the author - but as she would like to have been, not as she really is. She's too good to be true. But not too good to be funny.
I suppose Pride and Prejudice has to be just about my favourite of the novels.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
Probably Pride and Prejudice. Among many other things, I like the way Mrs Bennett is held up as a figure of fun - while she is just doing her duty as a mother of five unmarried daughters with little money and Mr Bennett is held up as clearly sensible and likeable - although he has singularly not done his duty by them.
Very sly.
M.
Spot on. Mrs B is actually the only one, pretty much, who both realises the urgency of, and tries to do something about, securing homes for herself and her daughters when Mr B dies. Silly and quacking and vulgar in many ways, no doubt, but she has got her head screwed on and knows where her duty lies. Mr B has just opted out- but then he can: he's got a home for life.
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
My JA novels are ready to re-read, thanks to all of you on this thread! But, I also decided to download more of the audio books into my phone so I can listen while walking.
It's very embarrassing to "talk back" to the characters while walking though. Some of my neighbors just don't understand.
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
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Belisarius
Lord Bountiful of Admin (Emeritus) Delights
# 32
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Spot on. Mrs B is actually the only one, pretty much, who both realises the urgency of, and tries to do something about, securing homes for herself and her daughters when Mr B dies.
In the modern novel Jane Austen in Boca, the women in a retirement-community book discussion group all take Mrs. Bennet's side.
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Animals may be Evolution's Icing, but Bacteria are the Cake.
Andrew Knoll
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
I have issues with Miss Austen even while reading her novels over and over and never missing the latest BBC adaptations. Why is she so apt to ridicule mother love?
Jane's parents kept a small-scale boys' school - boarding the boys in their own house - and sent Jane and her sister, Cassandra away to boarding school when they were both very young - in fact, Jane was really too young, but insisted on not being separated from Clarissa. Funnily enough, Jane seems to have been on very good terms with all the boys, but loads of buried anger there, I guess.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
This is fascinating.
I'd always regarded Mary Bennett as one of the crudest characterizations and irrelevant to the plot.
But I now see here how she is another example of how JA works out the relationships within families: imitating Mr Bennett in the hope of his approval, but with her mother's intelligence and vanity.
It would be nice if JA could provide a few more positive pictures of mothers (though there's Mrs Dashwood, and indeed Mrs Jennings - Emma's mother figure, Mrs Weston, is much too nice to have had any influence on Emma).
Was it there were only really only two acceptable roles for a woman, and Jane was not prepared to be limited by either.
As a young woman one should be sexy and available (Lydia Bennett, Isabella Thorpe).
As an older woman one should be a matriarch (Mrs Bennett, Mrs Price et al.)
As a younger novelist, Jane criticizes the first stereotype.
As an older novelist, she criticizes (and very unfairly in Persuasion) the later.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
The good mothers are dead (Emma's and Anne's); the alive mothers are ineffectual. Either way, Jane's girls have to find female role models elsewhere.
Anne's late mother in Persuasion is held up as a model of prudence: Anne seems to take after her, and never will admit that she was wrong to turn down Wentworth the first time. Indeed, although his fortunes have turned out well, she suggests that they would not have done so had he been encumbered with a wife and family at a young age. So unhappy though everyone has been, she was nevertheless right! (Which didn't keep her very warm at night.) And although Lady Russell has her flaws, she genuinely cares for Anne, and Anne never blames her for her advice to reject Wentworth. It is just that the time has now come for Anne to make her own decisions.
Also, Sophia Croft is an older woman who is a good strong role-model to Anne - although it is interesting how she is not allowed by Jane to be a mother herself. And Mrs Musgrove is a warm affectionate mother of a slightly chaotic family, who gives Anne some uncomplicated and much needed affirmation. They may not be perfect individually, but put together the warmth of Mrs Musgrove, the strength of character of Sophia Croft, and the prudence of Lady Russell, and you have there a composite model of womanly perfection!
I could also mention Aunt Gardiner in Pride and Prejudice (does she have children of her own? I can't remember), as a minor character with good motherly sense. And Anne Weston models some aspects of motherhood (though fails in others) in Emma. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realise how utterly isolated Fanny Price is in Mansfield Park. I can't think of a single female role model there.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
Anne seems to take after her, and never will admit that she was wrong to turn down Wentworth the first time.
Anne thinks that she was right to turn down Wentworth given the advice that she was given; but she doesn't think it was the right advice. She thinks that she, Anne, wasn't in a position to see that the advice was wrong at the time.
[ 05. May 2012, 13:20: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
Anne seems to take after her, and never will admit that she was wrong to turn down Wentworth the first time.
Anne thinks that she was right to turn down Wentworth given the advice that she was given; but she doesn't think it was the right advice. She thinks that she, Anne, wasn't in a position to see that the advice was wrong at the time.
Yes, you are right - I spoke too strongly. But Anne also adds:
quote:
But I mean, that I was right in submitting to her, and that if I had done otherwise, I should have suffered more in continuing the engagement than I did even in giving it up, because I should have suffered in my conscience. I have now, as far as such a sentiment is allowable in human nature, nothing to reproach myself with; and if I mistake not, a strong sense of duty is no bad part of a woman's portion.
So yes, it was the wrong advice. But she thinks she was absolutely right to obey it, and not just because she was too young and inexperienced to know the advice was wrong. Even had she known clearly and absolutely that the advice was wrong, she intimates here that her duty would still have been to obey the woman who was "in the place of a parent" for her. Which is an odd conclusion, but there you are.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
I could also mention Aunt Gardiner in Pride and Prejudice (does she have children of her own? I can't remember), as a minor character with good motherly sense.
Yes, she has children. There is a brief charming description of their behavior when Elizabeth arrives for a visit. They come as far as the stairs to welcome her, but they are too shy to come down and greet her.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
What other characters do shipmates like or identify with?
I love Charlotte Lucas. I can totally see myself making the same decisions she made. As ridiculous as Mr Collins is, I think I would rather be married to him and have my own home and children than live out my life as a spinster in a quiet Regency village. (silent scream)
The scene where we see how she has arranged her household to keep Mr. Collins at the front of the house, watching out for Lady Catherine de Bourgh of course, while Charlotte rules from the rear, delights me every time.
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The Weeder
Shipmate
# 11321
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
The scene where we see how she has arranged her household to keep Mr. Collins at the front of the house, watching out for Lady Catherine de Bourgh of course, while Charlotte rules from the rear, delights me every time.
Yes, I love that too! Charlotte is very wise. She gets the status of being a wife, but keeps as independent as possible!
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Still missing the gator
Posts: 2542 | From: LaLa Land | Registered: Apr 2006
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Huntress
Shipmate
# 2595
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Posted
In 'Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennet?', John Sutherland addresses the puzzle of how Lady Catherine becomes aware that Mr Darcy once proposed to Elizabeth (along with other puzzles thrown up by works of classic fiction - I recommend it and the others in the same series: 'Is Heathcliff a Murderer?' and 'Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?' A few Austen puzzles are examined, including the source of the Betram's wealth in 'Mansfield Park').
He puts forward quite an interesting theory that Charlotte Lucas (now Collins) had the secret of Darcy's surprise proposal confided to her by Elizabeth before her departure from Hunsford Parsonage. Charlotte has let slip the secret to her husband in a lapse of character due to a possible frustration with her circumstances - despite the advantages afforded by them in comparison to remaining single. Mr Collins mentions in his letter to the Bennets following Lydia's elopement that Charlotte is expecting a child and Professor Sutherland suggests that this state of affairs has affected Charlotte's mood; because if Elizabeth had married Mr Collins, Charlotte would not be pregnant by him.
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The Amazing Chronoscope
Posts: 431 | From: Lancashire / Nottingham | Registered: Apr 2002
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Weeder:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
The scene where we see how she has arranged her household to keep Mr. Collins at the front of the house, watching out for Lady Catherine de Bourgh of course, while Charlotte rules from the rear, delights me every time.
Yes, I love that too! Charlotte is very wise. She gets the status of being a wife, but keeps as independent as possible!
The other way of looking at her is that she has allowed herself to be suffocated by Mr Collins's utter, all pervading stupidity in pursuit of the status of a married woman. The suffocating nature of Mr Collins's stupidity, combined with the visibility created by his pursuit of social standing makes her situation tragic rather than heroic.
[ 05. May 2012, 20:44: Message edited by: FooloftheShip ]
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Lothiriel
Shipmate
# 15561
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Huntress:
In 'Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennet?', John Sutherland addresses the puzzle of how Lady Catherine becomes aware that Mr Darcy once proposed to Elizabeth ...
He puts forward quite an interesting theory that Charlotte Lucas (now Collins) had the secret of Darcy's surprise proposal confided to her by Elizabeth before her departure from Hunsford Parsonage.
I can't believe that Elizabeth would have told Charlotte. After Charlotte's wedding, the were no longer close confidantes. We are told that Elizabeth's and Charlotte's correspondence "was as regular and frequent as it had ever been; that it should be equally unreserved was impossible."
Mr Collins was too close to Lady Catherine for Elizabeth to risk telling Charlotte about the first proposal. There's no indication that anyone other than Jane was told that the first proposal had taken place.
When Lady Catherine visits Elizabeth at Longbourn, she gives no sign of knowing about the proposal at Hunsford; that lady, not noted for tactful reticence, would surely have mentioned it in her tirade had she known of it.
Another possibility is that after Elizabeth's visit to Pemberley, Bingley's sisters may have alerted Lady Catherine to Darcy's admiration for her, in the hope of her putting a stop to it. Or maybe the rumour got started after Darcy was seen visiting Elizabeth at the inn in Lambton.
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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. St-Exupery
my blog
Posts: 538 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Mar 2010
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
The Collins' could have had a gossipy servant or two that overheard his proposal in the parsonage. Just another possibility. The delay in Lady Catherine finding out could be the time it took to filter through the neighborhood servants, to Lady Catherine's servants, to Lady Catherine herself.
Or, come to think of it, she finally figured out that Mr. Darcy was just not interested in her daughter, and cast her mind about for possible reason why. A likelier situation in my mind.
[ 06. May 2012, 12:35: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Zacchaeus
Shipmate
# 14454
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Weeder:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
The scene where we see how she has arranged her household to keep Mr. Collins at the front of the house, watching out for Lady Catherine de Bourgh of course, while Charlotte rules from the rear, delights me every time.
Yes, I love that too! Charlotte is very wise. She gets the status of being a wife, but keeps as independent as possible!
I suspect this type of marriage was common, marriage being more about security, property and family lines, than love.
Posts: 1905 | From: the back of beyond | Registered: Jan 2009
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
I suspect this type of marriage was common, marriage being more about security, property and family lines, than love.
It was also about having a home of your own rather than constantly being in someone else's.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
On love and marriage, I can remember being shocked and confused as a teenager by reading JA's comments on Henry Tilney falling in love with Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey.
"I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought. It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine's dignity; but if it be as new in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will at least be all my own."
I hope Catherine has more intelligence than her mother and learns from Henry, or he will get very bored by her and a Bennett situation is on course.
I wonder if Henry and Catherine inspired Mr and Mrs Bennett?
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Belisarius
Lord Bountiful of Admin (Emeritus) Delights
# 32
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Posted
I think Mr. and Mrs. Palmer would be a more likely inspiration.
I've also thought more the opposite--when would Catherine start getting bored with Henry? I find him insufferable; a more sophisticated woman would tear him a new one.
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Animals may be Evolution's Icing, but Bacteria are the Cake.
Andrew Knoll
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Belisarius
Lord Bountiful of Admin (Emeritus) Delights
# 32
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Am I right in thinking that Shamela by Fielding contains a wonderful scene where she is writing a letter while being raped?
Not sure (Shamela never gets her "vartue" taken that way, IIRC), but probably something similar. Pamela does keeps scribbling almost up to the moment her marriage is consummated.
ETA: Shamela manipulates Mr. Booby(?) into marrying her but is then caught in adultery with a parody of the minister-figure from Pamela.
[ 07. May 2012, 16:12: Message edited by: Belisarius ]
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Animals may be Evolution's Icing, but Bacteria are the Cake.
Andrew Knoll
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I have to say Henry Tilney is my very favourite Austen hero, the only one who would be fun to be with.
I loved Northanger Abbey when I read it as a teenager mainly because of the piss-taking of the Gothick novel and sensationalism generally.
But I had an awful lot in common with Catherine - a sheltered, provincial upbringing, hardly any social confidence except what came through innocence. I'd have loved a reasonably good looking, piss-taking, clever young clergyman to be sweet and affectionate and joke with me. I find him sending up Catherine a sign of affection recognising that despite her innocence, she's has integrity.
I'd have fallen for his chat lines.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belisarius:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Am I right in thinking that Shamela by Fielding contains a wonderful scene where she is writing a letter while being raped?
It sounds like an appallingly bad taste parody of the central rape in Clarissa.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
It sounds like an appallingly bad taste parody of the central rape in Clarissa.
That's EXACTLY what it was intended to be.
Fielding considered that Richardson's novels were preaching the "prosperity gospel" - that you should do good because it will bring you wealth, status and social success.
He couldn't thole it.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chamois:
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
It sounds like an appallingly bad taste parody of the central rape in Clarissa.
That's EXACTLY what it was intended to be.
Actually, I think, an exceedingly good parody of a very silly near-rape in Pamela, also by Richardson, of course.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Terry Eagleton in The Rape of Clarissa wouldn't find it very funny. But then, Marxists are not notoriously lacking in a sense of humour.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
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Thro' the world we safely go.
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Belisarius
Lord Bountiful of Admin (Emeritus) Delights
# 32
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chamois:
Fielding considered that Richardson's novels were preaching the "prosperity gospel" - that you should do good because it will bring you wealth, status and social success.
Definitely re Pamela, but Clarissa is considered more morally sophisticated. Clarissa was truly attracted to Lovelace and might have given in to him he hadn't treated her like a conquest; she then refused to marry him after he "disgraced" her with rape.
[ 07. May 2012, 20:22: Message edited by: Belisarius ]
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Animals may be Evolution's Icing, but Bacteria are the Cake.
Andrew Knoll
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Steve H
Shipmate
# 17102
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
I'd say my (and practically everyone else's) favorite is Pride and Prejudice, while Mansfield Park is my least favorite. What a boring dishrag Fanny Price is! One feels preached at and abused by the time one is done reading about her.
I agree. Fanny Price and her drip of a boyfriend are the least likeable of Austen's heroes and heroines, being a pair of priggish spoilsports. P.&P. is prolly my favourite, predictable though that is.
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Steve H
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# 17102
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belisarius:
quote:
Originally posted by Chamois:
Fielding considered that Richardson's novels were preaching the "prosperity gospel" - that you should do good because it will bring you wealth, status and social success.
Definitely re Pamela, but Clarissa is considered more morally sophisticated. Clarissa was truly attracted to Lovelace and might have given in to him he hadn't treated her like a conquest; she then refused to marry him after he "disgraced" her with rape.
I haven't read either yet, though I mean to read 'Pamela' one day. I've got an old four-volume edition of it, with no publication date given, but each volume except the first have been inscribed by the original owner, One Ann Moss (or "Mofs", as she wrote it*), who added the date "Oct. 23. 1808" to Vol. IV. Vol. III is signed "Ann Mofs Chesterton", with the last name below the rest, suggesting she added it later - her married name, perhaps, she having originally inscribed them when she was single? Vol. I's front free endpaper is missing, which no doubt originally bore her inscription of that volume. Vol. I is prefaced by a selection of letters written by readers of the first edition to Richardson, praising the book. One is headed " The following objections to fome paffages in Pamela were made by an anonymous Gentleman in a letter from the Country." I love this objection: "That females are too apt to be ftruck with images of beauty; and that the paffage where the gentleman is told to fpan the waift of Pamela with his hands, is enough to ruin a nation of women by tight-lacing."
*She wrote in copper-plate, and the first s is long and f-like.
[ 07. May 2012, 20:51: Message edited by: Steve H ]
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Steve H
Shipmate
# 17102
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Posted
Incidentally, prosperity gospel or no, 'Pamela' is one of the first novels, if not the first, in which the hero(ine) is from the lower orders, and I think Richardson deserves some praise for that at least.
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Hold to Christ, and for the rest, be totally uncommitted.
Herbert Butterfield.
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
Fielding was also mocking the epistolary form. The young Jane Austen also had some fun with that form - wrung it out and hung it up to dry with her hilariously wicked Lady Susan.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Fielding was also mocking the epistolary form. The young Jane Austen also had some fun with that form - wrung it out and hung it up to dry with her hilariously wicked Lady Susan.
Love and Freindship surely? Absolutely wonderful. However, Richardson was Jane's favourite novelist: objections to him seem only to come from men.
PS. Steve - I know Clarissa is appalingly long and it is tempting to read Pamela to get to know Richardson, but C is much the more fascinating work.
Silly though the epistolary form seems to us, it allows layers and layers of ambiguity: what are Clarissa's feelings towards Lovelace? There is the theory that she really fancies him, but I don't think she does very much. Her very last words show who she really loved.
Jane wrote the first draft of P&P in letters. It may well be she learnt the possibilities of ambiguity from Richardson, which later third person novelists didn't manage to the seem subtle extent.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
quote:
pot on. Mrs B is actually the only one, pretty much, who both realises the urgency of, and tries to do something about, securing homes for herself and her daughters when Mr B dies.
Yes, but she's so stupid and has questionable morals in that she (along with Mr Bennet) fails to bring up her girls responsibly such that Kitty and Lydia disgrace the family and Lydia almost ruins all the other girls' chances of respectable marriages.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Glad to see someone else resisting this revisionist account of Mrs Bennett.
I even heard one woman say she sympathised with Mrs Bennett and thought Lizzie was a bitch, who only fell for Darcy when she saw his estate.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Steve H
Shipmate
# 17102
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Posted
I think that a major reason the epistolary form arose was purely practical. Novels as we understand them today - realistic, extended prose fictions - are a relatively new form, and in the early days, the conventions that we take for granted nowadays, including the omniscient, third-person narrator, were not in place, so authors had to think of some device which would explain how all the events narrated in the novel came to be known. If the novel was written in the first person, there was no problem, since the novel was masquerading as a memoir (Daniel Defoe tried to pass his novels off as genuine memoirs, and was rather asnnoyed when people began to realise that they were fictional). However, if the plot demanded that events be described which one person could not plausibly have witnessed all of, things were trickier, and that problem was solved with the epistolary novel, which has at least two viewpoints. (Two early novels or proto-novels, Sidney's 'Arcadia' and Cervantes' 'Don Quixote', are both writtin in the third person, but the first is not a novel in the modern sense, being more like myths or fairy-tales, and the latter is really a series of short stories linked by a frame-narrative, like 'Pickwick Papers', rather than a single story.)
Fielding's 'Tom Jones' was one of the first novels in the modern sense to be written in the third person, using the omniscient-narrator convention.
Perhaps some of these posts should be split off to a new thread about Richardson and epistolary novels, but that's for the mods to decide!
Returning to Jane, does anyone else agree that there's something of a moral hole in her fiction, in that, although she makes gentle fun of them, she never questions the right of a small minority to live in idle - or at least unproductive - luxury, dependent on the labours of the productive vast majority, who live in or near poverty? I love her novels, but that aspect of them makes me a little uncomfortable.
[ 08. May 2012, 07:33: Message edited by: Steve H ]
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Hold to Christ, and for the rest, be totally uncommitted.
Herbert Butterfield.
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Jane wrote the first draft of P&P in letters.
S+S, surely (Elinor and Marianne) not P+P?
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve H:
Returning to Jane, does anyone else agree that there's something of a moral hole in her fiction, in that, although she makes gentle fun of them, she never questions the right of a small minority to live in idle - or at least unproductive - luxury, dependent on the labours of the productive vast majority, who live in or near poverty?
That's at the back of my mind as well, and the issue has been discussed earlier on the thread (which is getting a bit Richardsonian in length).
QLib - yes, you're right. But there was an early version of P&P called First Impressions of which the manuscript doesn't survive. I had the idea it was epistolary.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
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Thro' the world we safely go.
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