Janet Todd cites me on Pride and Prejudice

Photo of Darcy and Elizabeth!
Amazon

In chapter 2 of The Cambridge Companion to 'Pride and Prejudice' (2013), Janet Todd presents recent literary 'Criticism' on the novel Pride and Prejudice, including an article of my own:

In 'Darcy's Ardent Love and Resentful Temper in Pride and Prejudice' Horace Hodges argued that Darcy was used to test current ideas of resentment, such as those discussed by Scottish Enlightenment thinkers Adam Smith and the historian William Robertson, who wrote of 'the strong resentment which calumniated innocence naturally feels'. Darcy's love for Elizabeth lets him put resentment in an epistemological framework and is imbued with 'the Christian concept of a love that is not proud and that seeks to perceive what is good in the loved one'.[26]

That's on page 144, and so is the footnote:

[26] Horace Hodges, 'Darcy's Ardent Love and Resentful Temper in Pride and Prejudice', Persuasions 30 (Winter 2009).

So, I'm now officially "Horace Hodges," I reckon . . .

Persuasions Article: Jane Austen on Resentment and Love

Persuasions On-Line

Jane Austen Society of North America

Some readers will recall from last summer and into the following autumn that I was working out my ideas on Darcy's love for -- and resentment of -- Elizabeth in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. My subsequent article, fittingly titled "Darcy's Ardent Love and Resentful Temper in Pride and Prejudice," has recently seen publication in the Winter 2009 issue of Persuasions On-Line.

I believe that I've previously posted preliminary stages of the introduction and the conclusion to this article, but just in case anyone is interested in the final form of each, I'll post both below -- starting, naturally, with the introduction:

In 1759, Adam Smith wrote in Part 3 of his Theory of Moral Sentiments that "Love does not judge of resentment, nor resentment of love. Those two passions may be opposite to one another, but cannot, with any propriety, be said to approve or disapprove of one another" (192). Kenneth Moler has argued that Smith's work on the sentiments exerted an influence on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, written some forty years later (567-69). Similarly, Peter Knox-Shaw examines Elizabeth Bennet's query, "'Is not general incivility [toward others than the beloved] the very essence of love?'" (160) and finds in it an echo of Smith's observation in Moral Sentiments (Pt. 1) that "though a lover may be good company to his mistress, he is so to nobody else" (87-88, n. 44) -- although the similarity seems rather faint to be heard as an echo. On the "incivility" of lovers, anyway, Smith and Austen would generally seem to agree, but possible influence by one writer on another can be found as readily in disagreement as agreement. Despite her apparent convergence with Smith on some points, would Austen have accepted Smith's views on love and resentment, namely, that neither can judge the other?

Not to leave anyone hanging on this point, here follows the answer in my conclusion:

Adam Smith may have thought that the opposed feelings of love and resentment did not judge one another, but Jane Austen -- whether or not she knew specifically of Smith's view -- appears to have held a radically different opinion. Ever since Juliet McMaster's 1978 book Jane Austen on Love, we have known that Austen conceives of proper lovers as each taking on roles as the teacher and the taught in a pedagogical economy concerning love, and of proper love as achieving the "integration of head and heart" (45) in a manner that does not lose passion because "the full and mutual engagement of head and heart is what is passionate" (46). But if love involves the heart as well as the head, then love plays a unique pedagogical role, for it also provides an impassioned epistemological framework for understanding the world and acting within it. In Austen's understanding, the heart's romantic love must be imbued with the head's charitable Christian love, which can judge pride and resentment as improper to love and thereby seek a better way. Douglas Bush, writing in 1975, spoke of Austen's "fusion of Christian virtues and principles and eighteenth-century reason, . . . sensitized and fired by controlled feeling" (196). Perhaps this remark gets at what Austen was up to, namely, responding to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment with a renewed Christian view of the human being. The best education by itself would not overcome one's natural evil, as Darcy himself remarks of his own "implacably" resentful temper, but a genuine love -- neither proud nor resentful, but charitable -- could empower one to do so, and in Darcy's case actually does so.

But if you want to know why I conclude these things, then you'll have to go read my online article. You'll want to, of course, since the editor, Susan Allen Ford, praises it so highly:

"C. Durning Carroll, Horace Jeffery Hodges, and Edward Kozaczka read individual novels through very different but strangely compatible perspectives."

Now that you've heard such highfalutin praise -- me and my article likened to C. Durning Carroll, of "Willoughby's Apology," and Edward Kozaczka, of "Queer Temporality, Spatiality, and Memory in Jane Austen's Persuasion" -- who could resist an urge to read more?

Austen's Irony: A Mode of Thoughtful Hypocrisy?

Twisted Sense?

(Image from WSJ)

One of my regular readers, Cynthia, offered an off-topic comment to yesterday's post and kindly provided a link to a thoughtful Wall Street Journal article by the novelist James Collins about Jane Austen's moralism: "What Would Jane Do?"

Collins argues that Austen's novels have moral relevance even in our own time and can teach us how to live our lives with integrity:

I find that reading Jane Austen helps me clarify ethical choices, helps me figure out a way to live with integrity in the corrupt world, even helps me adopt the proper tone and manner in dealing with others. Her moralism and the modern mind are not, in fact, in direct opposition, as is so often assumed.

I cannot say that I've learned that much from Austen, but I am impressed by the seriousness of her moral reflection and have recently written an article to be published in Persuasions, "Darcy's Ardent Love and Resentful Temper in Pride and Prejudice," which analyzes the moral development of Darcy as his love for Elizabeth overcomes his resentment toward her, for he feels both of these emotions. Let me turn to a remark by Collins for a brief elucidation of my meaning:

Austen's value system can be thought of as a sphere with layers. The innermost core might be called "morals," the next layer we could call "sentiments," and finally the surface "manners."

In this schema offered by Collins, I would say that Darcy's initially cold courtesy is at the outer layer of manners, and his resentment is obviously at the middle layer of sentiments, but his love -- though it might be thought of as also belonging to the sentiments -- goes deeper, to the layer of morals, for it extends its roots down into the core Christian ethic of charitas. Darcy's problem lies in finding a way to show through a kinder courtesy -- and through commmitted action -- that his love is true and thereby to win Elizabeth's disdainful heart, and he must do so without betraying his dignity.

That's Darcy's particular case, but what of more general cases? How does one reconcile the dilemmas that morals, sentiments, and manners present? Collins thinks that Austen recommends irony:

Irony is not just Austen's characteristic mode of expression: It is her characteristic mode of thought. Austen's irony reflects a perfect understanding of all the ways the world is wretched and the belief that although you can't really fight it, you can at least separate yourself from it. In her ironic sentences, there is movement with stability. She moves toward the object of criticism, then away from it, and then provides a gentle snap of closure at the end. This rhythmic motion serves as an ideal for both accepting and rejecting the ways of the wretched world while maintaining balance.

The irony of Austen's characters also gives those of us who believe in decorum a way to handle hypocrites. Sense and Sensibility's Elinor Dashwood is rarely ironic, but she provides a good example. Recall the conversation when the odious John Dashwood, who has reneged on the deathbed promise to his father to help his half-sisters, suggests to Elinor that Mrs. Jennings will leave them a bequest. Elinor replies, "Indeed, brother, your anxiety for our welfare and prosperity carries you too far." John Dashwood lacks generosity and integrity. Elinor insults him, but she does it in the politest possible way.

And that courteous slap is most gratifying to hear, but does Mr. John Dashwood feel it? Or does he rather feel somehow gratified at the superficial hint of praise without recognizing the deeper disdain? Irony perhaps works best when the one upon whom it is used fails to perceive the deeper truth. But doesn't that make irony a mode of hypocrisy? Isn't it pretending to be something that it isn't? Dashwood is a hypocrite because he pretends concern for his half-sisters' welfare despite having done nothing material to provide for their care even though it lay in his power to do so. Is Elinor a hypocrite for wrapping a stiff insult in apparent praise?

Perhaps not.

Irony covers the truth but leaves the form of that truth sufficiently visible for the hearer to ascertain what lies beneath, whereas hypocrisy hides the truth in hope of that truth never being uncovered.

But I'm not entirely persuaded that irony is commendable as a "characteristic mode of thought" if it leads one to conclude generally that "the world is wretched and . . . [that] you can't really fight it," for that would counsel inaction in the world and advise that you "separate yourself from it" even where something could be done.

Irony in such a sense as this would appear to end in bitter cynicism, and I can't see Jane Austen pointing us in that direction.

Adam Smith and Jane Austen: On Love and Resentment?

Adam Smith

Resentful but not Judgmental?

(Image from Adam Smith Institute)

I've finished the first draft of my article, which I've titled "Darcy’s Ardent Love and Resentful Temper in Pride and Prejudice," so here's my introduction:

In 1759, Adam Smith wrote in Part 3 of his Theory of Moral Sentiments that "Love does not judge of resentment, nor resentment of love. Those two passions may be opposite to one another, but cannot, with any propriety, be said to approve or disapprove of one another" (192). Kenneth Moler has argued that Smith's work on the sentiments exerted an influence on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, written some 40 years later (567-9). Similarly, Peter Knox-Shaw examines Elizabeth Bennet's query, "Is not general incivility [toward others than the beloved] the very essence of love?" and finds in it an echo of Smith's observation in Moral Sentiments (Pt. 1) that "though a lover may be good company to his mistress, he is so to nobody else" (87-88, n. 44). On the incivility of lovers, Smith and Austen would seem to agree, but influence by one writer on another can be found as readily in disagreement as agreement. Despite her apparent agreement with Smith on some points, would Austen accept Smith's views on love and resentment, namely, that neither can judge the other?

I'll leave you wondering about that (though you surely know the answer!). By the way, my three sources are:

Knox-Shaw, Peter. Jane Austen and the Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Moler, Kenneth L. "The Bennet Girls and Adam Smith on Vanity and Pride." Philological Quarterly 46 (1967), 567-9.

Smith, Adam, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Edited by Knud Haakonssen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Those are for any readers who themselves might wish to follow up on this issue. Sorry that this is short and possibly tantilizing -- though more likely boring -- but I slept late and need to get on with proofing and touching up this first draft.

Pride and Prejudice: Darcy's Ardent Love

Colin Firth as Darcy

Ardently in Love with Elizabeth

(Image from Wikipedia)

I've been using my time alone to work on an article about love and resentment in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and I've been trying to understand why Fitzwilliam Darcy falls in love with Elizabeth Bennet even though he considers her his social inferior:

As we know from the novel, although Darcy initially has no interest in Elizabeth and even deplores her inferior social status, he soon begins to notice her attractive features, especially the way in which her face is "rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes," the "light and pleasing" aspect of her figure, and the "easy playfulness" of her manners (26). From this series of closely spaced moments of recognition, Darcy discovers to his surprise that he is attracted. He begins "to wish to know more of her" and therefore starts to attend "to her conversation with others" (26). He will certainly come to note that she enjoys reading, for in his presence, she turns down a card game in favor of a book (40), and in a conversation that soon follows, Darcy maintains that for a woman to be truly accomplished, she must demonstrate "improvement of her mind by extensive reading" (43). He also enjoys conversation (27-28), attends to hers, as already noted (26), and obviously delights in her conversational art, as evidenced by his smiles at her verbal adroitness (49, 63, 102, 197, et passim). Elizabeth's attractiveness for him is thus both physical and intellectual, and already at an early meeting, due to the "mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner," he finds himself never "so bewitched by any woman as he was by her" and realizes that he could "be in some danger" if he were not careful, yet he continues to admire the "colour and shape, and the eyelashes, so remarkably fine," of her eyes (56-7) and also later pardons her friendship with the despised Wickham due to his own "tolerably powerful feeling towards her" (105). He regularly attempts, however, to maintain emotional distance from her because of her social inferiority, as when he scarcely speaks "ten words to her through the whole of" a day (66) or when he adopts "a colder voice" in her presence (201), but despite his best efforts to resist her charms, he falls ever more deeply in love with her through each subsequent meeting, as he confesses to her in his initial proposal of marriage:

"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." (211)

His was a genuine struggle between an elevated pride and an overwhelming love, for when he finally approached her to propose, "he came towards her in an agitated manner" (211) but expressed himself eloquently in "representing to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite of all his endeavors, he had found impossible to conquer" (212).

I'll need to rework and strengthen this passage, but I think that it hits on the principle reasons that Darcy falls for Elizabeth despite his elevated pride even as it prepares for the subsequent struggle between Darcy's continued love for and roused resentment at Elizabeth.

By the way, all citations are from the Cambridge Edition of Pride and Prejudice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), an annotated, scholarly text edited by Pat Rogers, and I appreciate Google Books for making this sort of research possible for me.

Superbia and Vanagloria in Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Character Map

to

Jane Austen's

Pride and Prejudice

Click Map to Enlarge

(Image from Wikipedia)

A more developed character map than the one above would need to be dynamic to illustrate the changing relationships as, for example, Elizabeth Bennet's dislike and resentment toward Darcy turn to gratitude and love. Such a map would also need a summary of the various characters' personal traits, such as Darcy's excessive pride (and slight shading of vanity?) -- but also reveal the humbling of that pride by Elizabeth.

With respect to these character traits, I've used the Latin terms superbia and vanagloria for "pride" and "vanity" in today's blog heading because I want to recall that these two categories of vice have a long intellectual history in Christian thought. These were originally two of the eight evil thoughts distinguished by the fourth century monk Evagrius Ponticus in his treatise De octo spiritibus malitiae (The Eight Spirits of Wickedness, original Greek: Περὶ τῶν οκτῶ πνευμάτων τῆς πονηρίας). These eight evil thoughts eventually developed into the seven deadly sins, partly due to Pope Gregory I (aka Gregory the Great), who joined superbia and vanagloria into the single sin of pride in the late sixth century. The thirteenth-century Thomas Aquinas follows Gregory I in considering pride the root of all vices, but he separates vanity from pride, listing vanity as one of the seven deadly sins and arguing that pride lies at the root of each of the seven. Most lists of the seven that I've seen in English, however, contain pride rather than vanity (vanity being considered an aspect of pride).

I'm not sure that Jane Austen would have been aware of these specific developments in the history of Christian thought, given her lack of a formal education, but she did read widely and was concerned to distinguish pride from vanity even while recognizing their similarity. In chapter 5 of Pride and Prejudice, the somewhat priggish Mary Bennet makes a useful distinction:

"Pride," observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, "is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us."

Mary's observations are ignored, but Jane Austen uses them cleverly to raise some issue and make some distinctions. These two themes of "pride" and "vanity" are returned to again later in the story, in chaper 11, when Elizabeth tells Darcy that she finds follies, nonsense, whims, and inconsistencies diverting and enjoys laughing at them whenever possible, adding, "But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without."

"Perhaps that is not possible for anyone. But it has been the study of my life to avoid those weaknesses which often expose a strong understanding to ridicule."

"Such as vanity and pride."

"Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride -- where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation."

Elizabeth turned away to hide a smile.

Presumably, she smiles because she finds either folly, nonsense, whim, or inconsistency in Darcy's statement, probably the fourth item in this series, for Darcy's assurance that he has his pride "under good regulation" surely strikes her as manifestly inconsistent with his regular display of pride, as well as being a rather proud thing to say in any case.

Moreover, Darcy's pride is not well regulated by his superior mind. It only comes under better regulation through his love for Elizabeth, for rather than falling into a profound, bitter resentment that would merely serve to increase his injured pride upon being rejected by her, he writes her a letter that closes with an "adieu [that] is charity itself" and is taught by his love to feel the opposite of resentment, a sense of gratitude toward her for a moral lesson well learned, as he informs her himself in chapter 58:

What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.

And, interestingly, he admits in that same address and shortly thereafter to having had both of the faults "pride" and "vanity." He then goes on to say that upon their later chance encounter at his estate, he had striven by every civility in his power to show her that he "was not so mean as to resent the past," by which he meant her past refusal of his first marriage proposal.

Austen thus seems keen to encourage the cultivation of virtues, so I am puzzled by her nephew's remark in his biography of her that her novels "certainly were not written to . . . inculcate any particular moral . . . except indeed the great moral . . . namely, the superiority of high over low principles, and of greatness over littleness of mind" (Austen-Leigh, Memoir, page 153). I don't dispute that she was doing the latter, but I think that she was doing the former as well, i.e., inculcating particular moral virtues.

Austen's hedged Christianity?

Steventon Rectory

(Image from Wikipedia)

The image above of the Steventon rectory where Jane Austen was born and grew up (till her 25th year) is from the first chapter of her 1869 biography A Memoir of Jane Austen by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh. I'll return to the biography in a moment, but I first want to note my second thoughts about a quote that I posted yesterday from a letter written by Austen on November 18, 1814 to her niece Fanny Knight offering her views on the Christian commitments of Ms. Knight's suitor James Plumtre:

And as to there being any objection from his Goodness . . . from the danger of his becoming even Evangelical, I cannot admit that. I am by no means convinced that we ought not all to be Evangelicals, & am at least persuaded that they who are so from Reason and Feeling, must be happiest & safest. Do not be frightened from the connection by your Brothers having most wit. Wisdom is better than Wit, & in the long run will certainly have the laugh on her side; & don't be frightened by the idea of his acting more strictly up to the precepts of the New Testament than others. (Jane Austen to Fanny Knight, 18 November 1814, Chapman, p. 410)

Austen praises 'Evangelicals' but does not appear to be one herself, and even her praise of them is hedged a bit, as I noted in a comment:

Austen is certainly a Christian . . . but figuring out precisely what sort is less simple than I had imagined. Even her letter containing praise of British 'Evangelicals' is hedged a bit. She admires those "who are . . . [Evangelical] from Reason and Feeling" -- or might one say 'Sense and Sensibility'.

We all know what she thinks of an exaggerated 'sensibility', so those who are Evangelical from 'Feeling' alone might not receive much praise.

By "sensibility" -- which I've borrowed from the title of Austen''s novel Sense and Sensibility -- is meant "sentiment," an emotion of strong feeling that Austen satirizes, though she's not entirely opposed to that feeling if kept within proper bounds by good sense. She might think the balance of "Reason and Feeling" to be rare, however. At any rate, she seems not to have spoken much about her own religious beliefs, for her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh writes:

I do not venture to speak of her religious principles: that is a subject on which she herself was more inclined to think and act than to talk, and I shall imitate her reserve; satisfied to have shown how much of Christian love and humility abounded in her heart, without presuming to lay bare the roots whence those graces grew. Some little insight, however, into these deeper recesses of the heart must be given, when we come to speak of her death. (Austen-Leigh, Memoir of Jane Austen, page 100)

When he does come to speak of her death, however, he has little of significance to say:

Two of her brothers, who were clergymen, lived near enough to Winchester to be in frequent attendance, and to administer the services suitable for a Christian’s death-bed . . . . She was a humble, believing Christian. (Austen-Leigh, Memoir of Jane Austen, page 175)

Perhaps so, but we're still left wondering precisely what sort.

Jane Austen's Christianity?

Steventon Church

Where Austen Worshipped

(Image from Wikipedia)

Even though Jane Austen wears her Christian beliefs rather lightly in her novels, she seems to have taken Christianity seriously, as perhaps befits the daughter of a rector. According to Jane Stabler in "'Perswasion' in Persuasion" (Master Narratives, by Richard Gravil), "Jane Austen's Christianity important to her":

I am by no means convinced that we ought not all to be Evangelicals, & am at least persuaded that they who are so from Reason & Feeling, must be happiest & safest. (page 83)

Stabler cites Jane Austen's Letters, edited by Deirdre Le Faye (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, page 280). Precisely how important her Christianity was could be subject to some debate, for one might want to look more closely at this letter. According to Oliver MacDonagh, "The Church in Mansfield Park: a Serious Call?" (Sydney Studies in English, 1986-1987, 12, 36-55):

[This] letter of 18 November 1814 to her niece, Fanny Knight, discussing Fanny's suitor, James Plumtre, contains the clearest and perhaps the best known of all the religious comments in the correspondence. "And as to there being any objection from his Goodness", Jane writes,

from the danger of his becoming even Evangelical, I cannot admit that. I am by no means convinced that we ought not all to be Evangelicals, & am at least persuaded that they who are so from Reason and Feeling, must be happiest & safest. Do not be frightened from the connection by your Brothers having most wit. Wisdom is better than Wit, & in the long run will certainly have the laugh on her side; & don't be frightened by the idea of his acting more strictly up to the precepts of the New Testament than others. (Jane Austen to Fanny Knight, 18 November 1814, Chapman, p. 410)

These four religious references of 1813-14 [i.e., this one above and three others] seem to carry, however faintly, these particular implications: that Jane Austen's Christianity was Christocentric in the orthodox pious-protestant sense; that she conceived of religion as also national in character; that her anglicanism and her chauvinism were mutually supportive and interpenetrating; that she rejoiced in what seemed to her the increasing religiosity and advance in public morality in her homeland; that she was -- or at any rate believed one ought to be --seriously devout; and that, while she herself eschewed, she also respected and even envied the evangelical school in the Church of England, whose salvation was the more secure for the totality of their conversion. (MacDonagh, "The Church in Mansfield Park," pages 42-43, pdf)

MacDonagh appears to think that Austen had a rather conventional if serious Anglican piety. Reportedly -- according to Michael Wheeler ("Religion," in Janet M. Todd, Jane Austen in Context) -- Austen used a devotional:

One of the few books that we know was owned by Jane Austen herself, and not simply borrowed from her father's library of 500 volumes or from a circulating library, was William Vickers's A Companion to the Altar, later referred to by a great-niece, Miss Florence Austen, as a "book of devotions always used by Jane Austen.' (Wheeler, "Religion," Jane Austen in Context, page 410)

Todd notes that this book was intended for preparing the Christian for holy communion and that it emphasized the national significance of this sacrament.

Given her Anglican faith, Austen would undoubtedly be familiar with readings from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, such as this one from the 1778 edition to be recited on "the next Sunday before Lent":

O Lord, who hath taught us, that all our doings without charity are nothing worth; Send thy Holy Ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace, and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee: Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

This collective prayer is immediately followed by St. Paul's famous hymn to love in 1 Corinthians 13, which included lines that we've already looked at in a previous blog entry:

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil (1 Corinthians 13:4-5)

The word "charity" sounds odd to our contemporary ears, but Austen would have understood it to mean an active, generous, giving and forgiving love. Neither in these two lines nor in the larger context of 1 Corinthians 13 are either "pride" or "resentment" explicitly mentioned, for this is the Authorized Version that we've already analyzed, but a strong warning against pride can easily be read in such expressions as "vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up" . . . though a warning against "resentment" is less readily found in "thinketh no evil."

Against pride and related vices, the Litany from this same Book of Common Prayer also warns:

From all blindness of heart; from pride, vain glory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, Good Lord, deliver us.

The regular Christian reader of such a prayer book would readily connect this with the Lent reading above.

What this all adds up to in Jane Austen's views on love, pride, and resentment is not entirely clear to me yet. I'm simply locating that dots to be connected later.

St. Paul: "Love . . . is not . . . resentful"

Saint Paul Writing His Epistles

Artist: Valentin de Boulogne or Nicolas Tournier

Sixteenth Century

(Image from Wikipedia)

Yesterday, I cited I Corinthians 13: 4-7 in the New International Version (NIV) to suggest a source for Jane Austen's understanding of love's power to overcome resentment in Pride and Prejudice. In looking further, I discovered that the Revised Standard Version (RSV) offers the following translation for verse 5:

[Love] is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.

Austen, of course, would have been using the Authorized Version (AV, aka King James Version (KJV)) or some variant of that, for the RSV was authorized later. Here's the old AV for verse 5:

[Love] doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil.

For the record, the AV uses an old term for "love," namely, "charity." Moreover, "thinketh no evil" does not immediately connote "is not . . . resentful." The larger passage, however, would lend itself to an understanding that true love is not resentful:

13:4 Charity suffereth long, [and] is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

The Greek behind the AV version, the so-called Textus Receptus, has the following for verse 5:

13:5 οὐκ ἀσχημονεῖ οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ ἑαυτῆς οὐ παροξύνεται οὐ λογίζεται τὸ κακόν

The phrase "οὐ λογίζεται τὸ κακόν" is what the RSV has translated as "is not resentful." The term "λογίζομαι" (logizomai, pronounced lo-gē'-zo-mī) means "to reckon, count, compute, calculate, count over" and can have the sense of "to take into account, to make an account of," or, metaphorically, "to pass to one's account, to impute." Since "κακός" (kakos, pronounced kä-ko's) means "evil," then "λογίζεται τὸ κακόν" (logizetai to kakos) could have the meaning of "to pass evil to (some)one's account," which would certainly overlap with the sense of "being resentful." The negative particle "οὐ" (ou, pronounced ü) negates the expression. Thus, true love is not resentful.

Of course, I can't assume that Jane Austen was reflecting on the meaning of the Greek original, but a next step would be to check old commentaries on 1 Corinthians 13:5 (and its context) to see if they offer any remarks on resentment.

Adam Smith: On Love and Resentment

Adam Smith

Etching by Cadell and Davies (1811),

John Horsburgh (1828),

or R.C. Bell (1872)

(Image from Wikipedia)

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the famous Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith makes an interesting observation upon love and resentment:

"Love does not judge of resentment, nor resentment of love. Those two passions may be opposite to one another, but cannot, with any propriety, be said to approve or disapprove of one another." (Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, edited by Knud Haakonssen, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), Part III, Chapter V, page 131)

I'm not certain what Smith intends by this. My hunch is that he means to say that the moral sentiments are fundamental and thus have to be acknowledged and taken as the brute facts upon which to base moral theory and to ground moral action.

I don't know that Jane Austen was aware of Smith's observation, but she might well disagree, for her novel Pride and Prejudice could as well have been titled Love and Resentment since the novel seems to be about the power of love to overcome even a "resentful" temperament like that of Darcy. Austen might rather appeal to I Corinthians 13: 4-7 for St. Paul's views on what love is and does:

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (New International Version, italics mine)

I'll have more to say of this another time.

Darcy's 'Implacable Resentment': Literary Background?

John Home (1722–1808)

By Sir Henry Raeburn

Painted c. 1795-1800

(Image from Wikipedia)

I'm still in the initial stages of my research on Darcy's "implacable resentment" but have found the expression used by the character Lady Randolph in the 1756 tragedy Douglas, by John Home:

Oh! rake not up the ashes of my fathers:
Implacable resentment was their crime,
And grievous has the expiation been.

These lines occur early in the play, suggesting that "implacable resentment" plays a significant role in this drama, but I will need to take a closer look.

I also found some intriguing lines in a play by Nicholas Rowe, whose image follows:

Nicholas Rowe

(1674-1718)

(Image from Wikipedia)

The play is Rowe's 1703 drama, The Fair Penitent, which has these intriguing words of Horatio:

I am not apt to take a light offence.
But patient of the failings of my friends,
And willing to forgive; but when an injury
Stabs to the heart, and rouses my resentment,
(Perhaps it is the fault of my rude nature)
I own, I cannot easily forgive it.

Horatio refers to his "rude nature" -- by which he means his unrefined character -- and attributes to this nature his difficulty in forgiving a resentment that stabs to the heart. This isn't precisely the same case as Darcy, for the latter has a refined character, but both appeal to their basic nature as explanation for their 'implacable' resentment. This play, incidentally, has the character Lothario -- who surely has some influence on Austen's shaping of her dissolute character Wickham.

I also want to note what appears to be a rich resource for my investigation of "resentment," an article by Niel Hargraves, "Resentment and History in the Scottish Enlightenment" (Cromohs, 14 (2009): 1-21), for this article "explores the ways in which Scottish Enlightenment writers such as Lord Kames, Adam Smith, David Hume and William Robertson used the concept of 'resentment'" to analyze "the role of the passions in human relations."

That sounds promising.

Darcy's Resentful Temper?

Darcy Units

(Image from Wikipedia)

For the scientifically inclined, the permeability of Darcy's resentful temper can be measured using the above formula.

Just kidding.

More seriously, I'm starting one of my breaktime research projects, this time on Darcy's resentful temperament, to which we are introduced in the following bit of dialogue between Darcy and Elizabeth in chapter 11 of Pride and Prejudice, an exchange of views that follows immediately after Elizabeth is asked whether Darcy has survived her examination of his character, to which she replies with irony:

"I am perfectly convinced by it that Mr. Darcy has no defect. He owns it himself without disguise."

"No" -- said Darcy, "I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. -- It is I believe too little yielding -- certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offences against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. -- My good opinion once lost is lost for ever."

"That is a failing indeed!" -- cried Elizabeth. "Implacable resentment is a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. -- I really cannot laugh at it; you are safe from me."

"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome."

What I find interesting in this passage is that Darcy appears to confess a flaw in his character, a "particular evil, a natural defect," and in line with Christian presuppositions even acknowledges that "not even the best education can overcome" such an innate tendency toward evil.

Yet . . . Darcy seems proud of his flaw, affirming that his "feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them," words that appear to be spoken with a notable degree of pride, especially in light of an earlier discussion in chapter 10 concerning the flaw of one whose opinions are too easily swayed by the opinions of others, a disposition that Darcy particularly criticizes.

Several layers of irony will need to be peeled away in my investigation . . . but I've only begun and therefore have little to say at present . . .

. . . other than to note that Darcy's resentful temper does turn out to be permeable.

Why does Darcy love Elizabeth?

Darcy and Elizabeth

C. E. Brock Illustration

Not as I imagined them . . .

(Image from Wikipedia)

Although readers will naturally -- through Austen's artifice -- identify with the lively, intelligent Elizabeth Bennet from the outset of Pride and Prejudice and liberally detest the proud, insufferable Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the discerning reader will find distraction in the question as to why Darcy falls for Elizabeth.

He mentions her lovely eyes, which succeed in drawing his attention, and he implicitly acknowledges her intelligence in deigning to speak with her, for he expects a woman to have cultivated her mind with the reading of good books.

Yet, she has so much to dissuade love from Darcy. Her lack of fortune. Her lower status. Her embarrassing family. Her indifference to him. Nevertheless, he falls.

Which raises a second question: Why does he continue to love her?

By Darcy's own account, he should not love her at all. Recall his admission to Elizabeth of what some might consider a character flaw:

"I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. -- It is I believe too little yielding -- certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offences against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. -- My good opinion once lost is lost for ever."

"That is a failing indeed!" -- cried Elizabeth. "Implacable resentment is a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. -- I really cannot laugh at it; you are safe from me." (Chapter 11, Pride and Prejudice, from Republic of Pemberley Website)

Elizabeth later calls this to mind as she dances with but distances herself from Darcy at the Netherfield ball:

"I remember hearing you once say, Mr. Darcy, that you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was unappeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its being created."

"I am," said he, with a firm voice.

"And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?" (Chapter 18)

One cannot hope for much softening of judgement -- much less any softening of character -- from Mr. Darcy. And given his response at being so harshly jilted by Elizabeth after his proud and ill-expressed proposal! For Elizabeth says:

"In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot -- I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to any one. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation."

Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantle-piece with his eyes fixed on her face, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than surprise. His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance of his mind was visible in every feature. (Chapter 34)

Darcy's resentment at Elizabeth's words should occasion an implacable dislike of her, given what he has so earnestly and honestly stated. Even Elizabeth has no doubt of that after recounting to her older sister, Jane, the details, whereupon Jane replies:

"His being so sure of succeeding, was wrong," said she; "and certainly ought not to have appeared; but consider how much it must increase his disappointment."

"Indeed," replied Elizabeth, "I am heartily sorry for him; but he has other feelings which will probably soon drive away his regard for me." (Chapter 40)

Likely, she means his resentment, which she expects will drive away his love. Yet, Darcy's feelings take an opposite course, for he treats Elizabeth with great civility when they meet by chance on his estate of Pemberley. Later, after he has proposed a second time and been accepted, he explains his transformation of character, which she had not failed to notice and consequently wondered about:

"My object then," replied Darcy, "was to shew you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you." (Chapter 58)

How do we explain this? Love? Or Darcy's principles? Darcy explains in his way through a confession expressed some lines earlier:

"I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You shewed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased." (Chapter 58)

Love's reproof has taught Darcy a lesson about pride . . . and apparently about overcoming resentment. But there is much to be excavated here, perhaps in 18th-century views on resentment and love, and I may have to do some more digging in texts on ethics, e.g., Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments.

Laughter, the best medicine?

Eduard von Grützner, Falstaff

Shakespearean Humor

(Image from Wikipedia)

As an old man now, I must lean on a rickety false staff to support myself with good humor as I continue this pilgrimage of mine through life, still climbing up along my chosen career path despite the many detours that I've taken.

But my humor often gets misread, as my longsuffering Uncle Cran has reported since yesterday's humorous blog entry. For instance, in his anecdote concerning the high school reunion where everyone present was expected to offer a brief biography of life's events since graduation, he originally related:

When I got to the part about meeting Gay and our marriage, I stated, "When we got married, we were both young, shy, inexperienced, and inhibited."

Then I continued, "Our first son was born 10 and 1/2 months later," and I heard someone, (who will not be identified), make the snide remark, "Sounds like Cran got over his inhibitions!"

There were a few (shall we say, sniggers?) as those two near but unconnected comments of mine were somehow mis-applied. This demonstrates that this lady, and perhaps others of my classmates, still had thoughts in their minds not exactly appropriate for such a gathering. But I will forgive and try to forget! As only I should.

That was Uncle Cran's summary of his brief remark, and he now reports in a circular sent out to those who might have misconstrued:

Some of our classmates have written, thanking me for my report on the 52nd class reunion. One (or more?) thought I might have had my feelings hurt about the cute remarks and giggles following my account of my and Gay's marriage and son's birth. That was actually intended to elicit such a response, and is a demonstration of my twisted humor.

Others, apparently, were worried that my gentle ribbing of my dear Uncle Cran throughout yesterday's blog entry might have been intended as harsh sarcasm or as some sort of criticism

Uncle Cran, however, has reassured them:

Nephew Jeffery has again placed my account on his blog. We have a good time doing this, and all comments are meant to be funny, as he is afflicted with the same family trait of wry (some would call 'strange') humor.

I've replied to Uncle Cran:

I can well imagine that some readers might lack the [peculiar] sense of humor . . . to recognize that we are just kidding. People have often thought that my posts on fan death are serious, a severe misreading that I cannot fathom. So . . . I sometimes wonder if we should be less 'humorous'. Except that it entertains the two of us and makes my blog more interesting . . . I think . . . . As for the comment made at the reunion itself -- the one about your loss of inhibitions -- I suspected that you'd been fishing for that. Yes, we share a sense of humor, unfortunately. Both our humors are radioactive, it seems, for when your humor and mine meet on my blog, there's a nuclear reaction. We ought to threaten North Korea.

As an aside, I'd note that humor probably would be felt as a threat by the Beloved Leader, General King Jong-il.

Anyway, speaking of humor, that 'paramour of scholarly virtue', Wikipedia, offers some theories on how humor works. One of these is the "superiority theory," which says that we laugh at the misfortunes of other people because such misfortunes imply our superiority to others in their failings. Superficially, this seems to be my humor at Uncle Cran's expense, and some people might read my humor this way and take offense on Uncle Cran's part. Those people are not in on the joke, so let me explain to any who haven't understood -- my jokes about Uncle Cran do not belong to this category of humor. A different theory better conveys my meaning, the "incongruity theory," which is a bit more complicated to explain, but this theory basically says that humor is conveyed through the incongruity between what is said and what is meant. What makes my humor at Uncle Cran's expense difficult to catch is that I pretend to laugh at his misfortunes (superiority) but depend upon readers to understand that I surely don't mean what I seem to be saying (incongruity). But, as I noted, not everybody is in on the joke. Well . . . I suppose that they now are.

Humor is often complex when it occurs in literature. Take the case of Falstaff. Are we intended to laugh at him? Or with him? Our reason for laughing says something about us. On the Milton List a couple of weeks ago, a question was raised about humor in Paradise Lost. Several scholars gave examples, and I offered a line by Eve in which she responds to the serpent's multiple, excessively over-the-top compliments on her wonderful qualities by doubting that the forbidden fruit truly conveys wisdom:

In my opinion, Eve has the funniest line in Paradise Lost. Immediately after Satan in serpent form has praised Eve with excessive compliments, she retorts:

Serpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt
The vertue of that Fruit, in thee first prov'd: (PL 9.615-6)

I always have to laugh when I read Eve's remark. But is she aware of the humor . . . or is this solely Milton's joke?

In a recent offlist email, I received a belated response to my question from the scholar David Ainsworth:

Nothing like this time of year for a delayed response.

I think unquestionably that there's a joke here, on several layers. If Eve doesn't mean the contradiction, then she must be using "prov'd" in the sense of being tested or made trial of. Milton would unquestionably appreciate that this other usage of the word aligns itself not just with testing but with *tasting* in particular. The OED [Oxford English Dictionary] doesn't list many usages specific to tasting, but the quibble on test/taste was common enough even outside circumstances like this one.

I suspect there's plenty of bilingual or trilingual plays on words in Milton's poetry which slip past readers.

As for Eve's awareness -- I guess that depends on how close to falling one believes her at this moment. The more she's chiding Satan for praise which she has secretly embraced, the more calculated this response will seem. For me, part of what I appreciate about lines like these is that Eve can mean the joke regardless of how she's taking in the situation, but that the purpose of the humor shifts -- she's either expressing false humility by affirming the serpent's judgment by affirming the fruit's virtue, or she's genuinely chiding the serpent.

Sadly, I suspect in context that Eve's doubt of the fruit must be seen as her humor, deployed precisely in a situation where Satan's overpraising genuinely ought to lead her to genuine doubt.

I take Professor Ainsworth's point to be that Eve only pretends to doubt the fruit's power to bring wisdom, for she secretly enjoys the serpent's attentions and wants to believe the serpent truly wise and therefore correct. As Professor Ainsworth notes, the humor can work on several levels. One possibility is that the reader will react as the superiority theory might predict -- with a sort of judgemental humor, as though one felt superior to Eve and were silently thinking I wouldn't fall for that flattery! Milton, however, thinks that we would fall for it -- if Stanley Fish is right about Milton tempting the reader to fall into sin along with Eve and Adam by encouraging us to identify with Satan. If so, there comes a moment of grim, ironic incongruity as we recognize that Milton is not merely describing Eve but also describing us. If such is the case, then echoing Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennet, I can say, "That is a failing indeed, . . . [but] I really cannot laugh at it."

And with those words, I must now exit this stage and begin my day.

Austen's Fame: Not Universally Acknowledged?

Jane's Fame

Reviewed by Philip Hensher

(Image from Amazon.com)

In "Now universally acknowledged," a recent article published in The Spectator, the novelist and literary critic Philip Hensher has 'reviewed' Claire Harman's recent book on Jane Austen.

Hensher says little about the book under review but says it in an entertaining manner as he riffs off the book to score his own points about Austen's talent. Austen was not always universally acknowledged, and Hensher points to the rather pointed remarks of a couple of 19th-century 'critics':

Some people haven't cared for Austen -- Charlotte Bronte, who called her novels 'an accurate, daguerrotyped portrait of a commonplace face', or Mark Twain, who wonderfully and ambivalently said that 'every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone'.

Both remarks strike me as wonderfully ambivalent.

Bronte's acknowledges Austen's accuracy in portraying the subject chosen . . . though she thinks it ill-chosen:

And what did I find [in Pride and Prejudice]? . . . An accurate, daguerrotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden. (Barbara M. Benedict, "Sensibility by the Numbers: Austen's Work as Regency Popular Fiction," in Janeites: Austen's Disciples and Devotees, edited by Deidre Lynch (Princeton University Press, 2000), page 63)

Bronte's dismissive remark acknowledges not merely Austen's accuracy but also her skillful care for and cultivation of the chosen subject.

Twain's remark implies that he's read her repeatedly. Here's a more complete account:

From letter 13 September 1898, first published, lacking the third sentence, in Letters (1917), ii. 667, ed. AB Paine; sentence added in 'Mark Twain and the Art of Writing', Brander Matthews, Harper's Magazine, October 1920: 'I haven't any right to criticise books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read "Pride and Prejudice" I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone. (B. C. Southam, Jane Austen: 1870-1940, The Critical Heritage (Routledge, 1996), page 232)

Twain admits to a frenzied inability to compose a reasoned, critical review of Austen . . . but isn't he also confessing to having read and re-read Pride and Prejudice?

Be that as it may, Bronte's criticism is more reasoned and more resonant than Twain's, for Austen's world does strike one as limited. I always wonder, for instance, what the various servants are thinking as they go about their largely anonymous but essential tasks. For Austen to focus on that, however, would have meant writing a different sort of novel, with a different set of limitations. Austen's novels work within the limits set, but their greatness lies in how they transcend those limits, as Hensher observes:

And yet there is a kind of universal genius there, and the formula of 'three or four families in a country village' means something to almost everyone. The French anarchist Félix Fénéon discovered her while languishing in prison for possession of ten detonators and a vial of mercury, and translated her most elegantly ('Personne qui ait jamais vu Catherine Morland dans son enfance ne l'aurait supposée née pour être une héroïne'). It was noted in the early 1960s that Nigerian rural schoolchildren had no problems with the dilemmas of Pride and Prejudice, and in recent years Bollywood adaptations, and a delightful Valley Girl version of Emma, Clueless, have demonstrated a high degree of cultural transferability. There seems no reason why these novels should not go on forever.

In other words, it is a truth now universally acknowledged, that this single woman in possession of a great talent, though in want of critical acclaim among mid-19th-century critics, is one of our greatest writers.

The good name "Hodges" . . .

Good Omens

by

the

Honorable

Neil Gaiman

and

Terry Pratchett

(Image from Wikipedia)

The good name "Hodges," oft maligned in this world through the literary works of the likes of Jane Austen, finds itself blessed in Gaiman and Pratchett's Good Omens.

Oh, you weren't aware that Austen maligns the good name of "Hodges"?

Well, consider chapter 27 of Emma, in which a certain cook named "Mrs. Hodges" -- in her depiction by the voluble Mrs. Weston quoting some servant named "Patty" quoting some other servant -- comes across as cross:

Mrs. Hodges, he said, was quite displeased at their being all sent away. She could not bear that her master should not be able to have another apple-tart this spring. He told Patty this, but bid her not mind it, and be sure not to say any thing to us about it, for Mrs. Hodges would be cross sometimes.

All this displeasure over missing apples! As though the fruit hadn't been intentionally "sent away"! As though Mrs. Hodges had inordinate charge over the Garden of Eden and had discovered her precious apples gone! What a proud, overbearing, self-important cook! (Not anything like a genuine self-effacing Hodges.)

By contrast, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett offer us in the "Wednesday" chapter of Good Omens a Hodges with character, a Hodges who develops, a Hodges who improves through adversity. Formerly known as Sister Mary Loquacious, she must rebuild her life when her Chattering Order of Saint Beryl -- a rather unusual order of 'nuns', admittedly, but let's not dwell on that -- finds its hospital struck by lightning shortly after a newborn baby destined to change the world is gently taken home by his unsuspecting 'parents'. Left for the first time to her own devices, her order disbanded, her convent largely destroyed, Sister Mary changes:

Then something very strange happened to her. Left alone in the rambling building, working from one of the few undamaged rooms, arguing with men with cigarette stubs behind their ears and plaster dust on their trousers and the kind of pocket calculator that comes up with a different answer if the sums involved are in used notes, she discovered something she never knew existed.

She'd discovered, under layers of silliness and eagerness to please, Mary Hodges.

She found it quite easy to interpret builders' estimates and do VAT calculations. She'd got some books from the library, and found finance to be both interesting and uncomplicated . . . . So she'd started reading the kind of magazine that talked about mergers. (page 99)

She decides to start her own business and advertises her newly founded Tadfield Manor Conference and Management Training Center:

It had turned out to be an overwhelming success, because Mary Hodges realized early in her new career as Herself that management training didn't have to mean sitting people down in front of unreliable slide projectors. Firms expected far more than that these days.

She provided it. (page 100)

I'm not yet certain what she's providing by way of service, for I've only reached page 100, but I'm sure that it's well-respected and highly successful, altogether a blessing -- rather than a blight -- on the good Hodges name.

Amen to Good Omens.

Jane Austen as Crypto-Catholic Historian?

Cassandra Austen, Portrait of Henry IV

in

Jane Austen's The History of England (c. 1790)

(Image from Wikipedia)

Readers may recall my recent blog entry presenting the opinion of "Jane Austen on Historians," in which I cite some direct discourse by the young Miss Catherine Morland, heroine of Northanger Abbey, as evidence for Austen's own view:

"I read [history] . . . a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all -- it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention. The speeches that are put into the heroes' mouths, their thoughts and designs -- the chief of all this must be invention, and invention is what delights me in other books." (Austen, Northanger Abbey, chapter 14)

Despite these views expressing what I would plausibly take to be Austen's own opinion as to the veracity of history, "which may be as much depended on . . . as anything that does not actually pass under one's own observation," Austen herself penned a History of England. Moreover, I am cautioned by others not to take Catherine's words as so strictly the views of Jane:

Devoney Looser cautions readers against equating Catherine's simple dismissal of history with Jane Austen's complex response. In his recent biography of Jane Austen, for instance, David Nokes too quickly concludes of Catherine's remarks about history, "These were Jane's thoughts, too." Looser demonstrates that, in contrast to Catherine Morland, Jane Austen found history of "paramount importance."

Or so writes Emily Auerbach in her review of Devony Looser's Novel Approaches to History British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670-1820 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), a review published in JASNA News (Volume 17, Number 2, Summer 2001, p. 26). Auerbach takes -- as does Looser -- Jane Austen's view of history to be closer to that of Catherine Morland's interlocutor, Eleanor Tilney:

How much richer the discussion of history in Northanger Abbey becomes if we consider Eleanor Tilney, not Catherine Morland, as a model reader of history. Like Catherine, Eleanor recognizes that history mixes fact with fiction, but she reads with discernment and enjoyment.

Auerbach then cites Eleanor's own words:

I am fond of history -- and am very well contented to take the false with the true. In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and records, which may be as much depended on, I conclude, as any thing that does not actually pass under one's own observation . . . . If a speech be well drawn up, I read it with pleasure, by whomsoever it may be made -- and probably with much greater, if the production of Mr. Hume or Mr. Robertson, than if the genuine words of Caractacus, Agricola, or Alfred the Great.

Of course, I cited these myself in my earlier blog entry (and also, fleetingly, above) as more evidence that Jane Austen turned a jaundiced eye upon the writings of historians. But I take Auerbach's point. Austen's perspective on history is closer to Eleanor's than to Catherine's. Nevertheless, Austen distrusts the writings of historians -- and had already done so at 15, when she penned her historical spoof, as noted by Kathryn Sutherland:

[I]n her early spoof 'History of England from the reign of Henry the 4th to the death of Charles the 1st. By a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant Historian', written out according to her own dating in November 1791, when she was not quite 16, JA [Jane Austen] inverted the conventionally approved account of the past (as the gradual, Whiggish progress towards liberty and the defeat of Stuart absolutism) by setting up history as a pro-Stuart tragedy. Its climax and conclusion is the execution of Charles I in 1 649, and its heroine is his grandmother Mary, Queen of Scots, 'one of the first Characters in the World', also executed, in 1587. (See 'The History of England', in Catharine and Other Writings, ed. Doody and Murray, 136; and Christopher Kent, 'Learning History with, and from, Jane Austen', in Jane Austen 's Beginnings, 59-72. JA's contrasted presentation of Mary and Elizabeth I, the one vulnerable, beautiful, and innocent, the other unattractive and severe, resembles that in Sophia Lee's The Recess, or A Tale of Other Times (1783-5). JEAL [James Edward Austen-Leigh] is unnecessarily po-faced in accounting for his aunt's hilarious exercise in political uncorrectness. In MAJA [My Aunt Jane Austen: A Memoir], his sister Caroline presents the same detail with less qualification. (A Memoir of Jane Austen: And Other Family Recollections, by James Edward Austen-Leigh, edited by Kathryn Sutherland, Oxford University Press, 2002, pages 230-231)

In writing such an anti-Whiggish spoof, Austen is implicitly suggesting the biased and partial character of all historical writings. Of Henry the Sixth, she writes:

I cannot say much for this Monarch's sense. Nor would I if I could, for he was a Lancastrian. I suppose you know all about the Wars between him and the Duke of York who was of the right side; if you do not, you had better read some other History, for I shall not be very diffuse in this, meaning by it only to vent my spleen AGAINST, and shew my Hatred TO all those people whose parties or principles do not suit with mine, and not to give information. This King married Margaret of Anjou, a Woman whose distresses and misfortunes were so great as almost to make me who hate her, pity her. It was in this reign that Joan of Arc lived and made such a ROW among the English. They should not have burnt her -- but they did. There were several Battles between the Yorkists and Lancastrians, in which the former (as they ought) usually conquered. At length they were entirely overcome; The King was murdered -- The Queen was sent home -- and Edward the 4th ascended the Throne. (Jane Austen, "History of England from the reign of Henry the 4th to the death of Charles the 1st," in Love And Friendship And Other Early Works)

Austen is writing in the guise of a historian "partial to the roman catholic religion," and thereby as little to be trusted as those Whig historians partial to the Protestant Reformation. Yet, I can't help but wonder where Austen's true sympathies lie. Take her observation on Henry the 8th:

[N]othing can be said in his vindication, but that his abolishing Religious Houses and leaving them to the ruinous depredations of time has been of infinite use to the landscape of England in general, which probably was a principal motive for his doing it, since otherwise why should a Man who was of no Religion himself be at so much trouble to abolish one which had for ages been established in the Kingdom. (Austen, "History of England from the reign of Henry the 4th to the death of Charles the 1st")

Austen writes with fine irony here in suggesting that Henry the 8th had done England a favor in leaving it so many ruined abbeys to grace its landscape, a bequeathment so useful for Romantic poets and Gothic novelists -- even such as Austen herself in her Gothic parody, Northanger Abbey. Her irony is so penetrating that one could imagine that Austen actually had Catholic sympathies and regretted the destruction wrought by the Reformation. But someone more expert than I in Austen will have to inform us as to her actual religious views.

But as for her views on history, we should consider another point raised by Auerbach:

In Austen's era terminology was even more fluid than in our own: "history" could mean either a factual or imaginary narrative; a "romance" might be a biographical account or a fantastical tale . . . . Austen's letters show her awareness that novels and histories were competing for sales and status. She ironically jokes to Cassandra that the "too light & bright & sparkling" Pride and Prejudice might be improved by mixing it with "a long Chapter" about "the history of Buonaparte." (Auerbach, JASNA News, Volume 17, Number 2, Summer 2001, p. 26).

Austen is once again being ironic, but she is serious in comparing history to fiction. I'm glad, however, that she didn't bring in Napoleon, for much as I like Pride and Prejudice, I wouldn't want to have seen it stretch like War and Peace to over 1400 pages! Elizabeth and Darcy are long enough in getting together already! I wouldn't be able to sublimate for 1200 extra pages while Darcy unlearns his pride and Elizabeth her prejudice . . . and vice versa.

And we would have even fewer Austen novels than we already have.

Jane Austen's "Free Indirect Discourse"?

Steventon Rectory

Home of Austen and Undirected, Free Discourse

(Image from Wikipedia)

Yesterday, I asked about Jane Austen's use of quotation marks with the third person, and Professor Julie Choi of Ewha Womans University posted a comment connecting this practice by Austen to something that the literary theorists call "Free Indirect Discourse":

There is a good reason for this phenomeon which literary critics call "free indirect discourse" or FID for short. The third-person framework is maintained as well as the past tense, but the diction and idioms are those that would have been used in the first person by the individual speakers. This style is a mix between direct and indirect quotation and has the benefit of creating the illusion of transparent transcription of a third-person subjectivity simply lifted from his/her thoughts or speech. The reader can get a very good feel for the "mind" of the character in a very elegant and economic mode of narration that does not rely on lengthy explanation on the part of the narrator about the shortcomings, etc. of the character in question. It is this style that is the basis for Austen's fame as such a great novelist, knowing, penetrating, ironic, sympathetic, etc.

Unclear to me, however, was why Austen uses quotation marks, as though she were quoting, so I asked Julie by email, and she replied: "more often than not quotation marks are not used, and hence the free . . . a kind of unmarked entrance and exit out of other people's minds as it were."

That helps my understanding of what is meant by the "free" in "Free Indirect Discourse" but lessens my understanding for why the terminology applies to the 'quoted' sort, and in fact, this sort with quotation marks seems to be a transitional practice by Austen, for I found that Andrew Macdonald, in Jane Austen on Screen, says this:

Still another technique involves taking advantage of Austen's mature style, in which narrative slides into and out of different characters' perspectives. The most obvious way in which Austen blurs the distinction between narrative and dialogue occurs when she casts a character's words into the third person -- as indirect speech -- but places quotation marks around the words, as if they represented direct speech. Such passages can very easily be retransposed into a character's direct speech, as is Mrs. Norris's self-congratulatory pronouncement on the adoption of Fanny: it appears in the text as "The trouble and expense of it to them, would be nothing compared with the benevolence of the action" (I.i) and in the screenplay, condensed but in the first person, as "The burden will be as nothing to our benevolence."

However, Austen has a more complex method of blurring the distinction between narrative and dialogue, much discussed among her critics, and nicely exploited here: the technique most frequently described as "free indirect discourse." Through this technique, what may seem at first to be objective third-person narrative, especially in Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion (to a lesser extent), often proves to be actually one character's view or words -- particularly Emma's, of course, in that novel. Without any punctuation, the omniscient narrator of Mansfield Park in the very first chapter slides into the words of Mrs. Price's despondent letter to Mansfield, into a condensed version of Sir Thomas's deliberate objections to adopting Fanny, and into Mrs. Norris's deft evasion of Sir Thomas's notion that Fanny will reside with her. Such passages are always written in the third person, but they do not include quotation marks: it is up to the reader to determine the point of slippage from omniscient reportage to biased account. (Andrew Macdonald, Jane Austen on Screen, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pages 77-78)

The allusions to various literary figures will make sense only to those familiar with Austen's novels, but the point is clear enough, i.e., "Austen [sometimes] blurs the distinction between narrative and dialogue . . . when she casts a character's words into the third person -- as indirect speech -- but places quotation marks around the words, as if they represented direct speech."

Some scholars side with Julie in apparently considering this to be a type of "Free Indirect Discourse" (or so a bit of Googling reveals), but some apparently do not (possibly because it's not 'free' of quotation marks). At any rate, the technique is well-known and possibly well-understood (even if I don't quite understand it).

I therefore have nothing more to add at the moment (but see questions raised by Kate Marie and Eshuneutics).