Fear

Bestridden

There once was a creature called "Pound,"
Which emitted a curious sound.
If we stood near to hear
We were warned of what fear
Might bestride us and ride us unbound!

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?

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.

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.

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.

"The Baylor Proud Team"

Sic' em Bears!

Baylor Football Fans

(Image from Wikipedia)

Baylor is really helping me write my blog these days. Just this morning, I received an email from "Baylor Proud," an official 'brag' newsletter from "The Baylor Proud Team" at the University:

Two Baylor profs make ALA Top 10 books list

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in: Baylor 2012, Research, Honors

Not one, but two books by Baylor professors made the American Library Association's list of the Top 10 Books in Religion for 2007.

The Listening Heart: Vocation and the Crisis of Modern Culture, by the late Dr. A.J. "Chip" Conyers, and Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief, by Dr. Rodney Stark, were among the list of 10 books that were honored in what the ALA noted was an exceptional year for books on religion.

An honor like this is nice recognition that Baylor professors are among the leaders in the study of religion -- one of the goals of Baylor's Vision 2012, and a status befitting the world’s largest Baptist university.

Sic 'em, Baylor professors!

I've never received one of these before, so the serendipity of receiving it precisely when I'm blogging about Baylor's "pride" is . . . well, serendipitous.

While I'm glad to hear that Baylor's professors are ranked so highly in the eyes of the world, I'd suggest that the tone of the email is wrong in this case.

The expression "Sic 'em" is a cheer used by Baylor sports fans to whip up support for the football team, but it's often used in other contexts, and that's fine with me. Yet if I read the email correctly, one of the two professors is "the late Dr. A.J. 'Chip' Conyers," which means that he has passed away and is thus in no condition to 'sic' anybody.

A less triumphalist email would sound better.

The website that the email links to is marginally better, for it adds a bit more about Professor Conyers:

Before his death from cancer in 2004, Dr. A.J. "Chip" Conyers was one of Truett Seminary’s first professors. A prolific writer, Conyers finished his final book not long before his death.

This confirms that Professor Conyers has indeed passed away, but the additional information only increases the pathos of the award and thus makes even more striking the inappropriateness of ending with the cheer "Sic 'em, Baylor professors!"

But thus does the pride of boosterism so easily hit a wrong note.

Just in case anyone's wondering, I am 'proud' to be a Baylor alumnus, for I have fond memories of the school, where I received a very good education and a very gentle transition in my passage from Ozark Hillbilly to Berserkeleyite.

Baylor 'Pride'

Baylor Pride

Baylor Line:

Magazine of the Baylor Alumni Association

(Image from Fall 2007 Issue)

For the past two days, I've been thinking about pride, and just after posting on the issue twice, I noticed that my current issue of the Baylor Line, the Alumni Association's magazine, features the words "A Tradition of Pride" emblazoned across its cover.

Why?

Baylor is a conservative Baptist school associated with the Southern Baptist denomination, which is the church in which I grew up and in which I learned to be suspicious of pride, so why is the Baylor Alumni Association (BAA), emphasizing pride?

What is the organization claiming to be proud of?

I only joined the BAA about three years ago, partly out of nostalgia but partly out of curiosity. I wanted to become familiar with the goings on of the university that I had graduated from about a quarter of a century before.

I discovered -- or, rather, confirmed -- that a religious fight was going on. I say confirmed because at Baylor, there's always a religious struggle going on. There was in my day, there was in the 80s and 90s, and there is today. I know this because even though I didn't maintain close connections to Baylor, I kept hearing news through old university friends and through the media about ongoing conflict over how 'Christian' the University should be.

My impression is that the current Baylor administration under Baylor President John M. Lilley would like nudge Baylor more in the direction of a Christian university, which might include moving towards adoption of a creedal statement that faculty would have to sign. I say "might" because I don't know for a fact but do know that this has often been one of the issues raised.

The BAA seems concerned about this as a possible issue, for the organization's Executive Vice President Jeff Kilgore asks in his "Connections" column ("The crux of the matter") if Baylor University needs a religious "correction" toward a more "intentional" form of Baylor's Christian commitment. He poses this question not because he thinks that it does but because he thinks that it does not.

Perhaps I should let Mr. Kilgore speak:

In the spring issue of the Baylor Line, Baylor Alumni Association president George Cowden III, president-elect Bill Nesbitt, and I ran a column in this space titled "A Thriving Faith." We wrote, in part:

Baylor is first and foremost a place of learning. It was not founded to be a church, a hospital, a children's home, or a mission-sending agency but rather a Baptist university of the first order, based upon the historic Baptist principles of the priesthood of the believer, the sufficiency of scripture, the autonomy of the local church, the separation of church and state, and religious liberty for every human being. The beloved and incomparable George W. Truett summed it up best when he said, "There should never be coercion in matters of religion; God wants free worshippers and no other kind."

Afterward, I heard from a regent who had just rotated off the Board of Regents who interpreted our column as being a call for Baylor to move in a less religious and more secular direction. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, during a recent breakfast with Harold Cunningham, chair of Baylor's Board of Regents, I told him that the alumni association would fight as vigorously against any effort to secularize Baylor as it would against any effort to weaken Baylor's adherence to traditional Baptist principles by implementing policies and engaging in practices that would create a more coercive and restrictive religious environment.

The Baylor Alumni Association stands with Baylor's founding fathers and leaders over the years in pointing to Jesus Christ as Lord and following Christ's teaching to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." The point of our column -- and a primary function of the alumni association -- is to speak out on behalf of Baylor's thousands of alumni who are resolute in protecting Baylor from extremism, whether it's secularism or religious demagoguery. We want to protect Baylor's historically maintained place in the "sensible center" of Baptist theology.

During a discussion of these large issues with Harold Cunningham over breakfast, he told me that he understood our position. But he then suggested -- as I remember the general themes of our conversation -- that perhaps the so-called "center" Baylor has occupied, religiously speaking, has been too far to the left. He said that all they were doing was trying to correct that situation, which I understood to be an allusion to the efforts by some Baylor regents and administrators to install a more "intentional" form of Baylor's Christian commitment on campus.

I am guessing that "intentional" is a code word for "institutional" in the sense of "creedal" -- for that's been the issue fought over among Southern Baptists ever since the late 60s. Traditionally, Baptists have been opposed to creeds, emphasizing the sufficiency of scripture for belief and the priesthood of the believer for interpretation. Such a position as that remains unchallenged so long as everybody believes more or less the same thing but becomes challenged if beliefs among believers begin to diverge, which is what happened in the 60s.

The Southern Baptist Convention has moved toward adopting a creed and some Baptists have felt that Baylor should move in the same direction.

In my hard copy issue of the Fall 2007 Baylor Line, the page with Kilgore's column includes a quote from the late former Baylor president Herbert H. Reynolds:

"It would be easier if Baylor were either a secular university of a Bible college, but it would not be Baylor. When a school claims to be 'morally better,' it abandons excellence for spiritual pride."

In quoting this statement, Kilgore would seem to be throwing down a gauntlet. To wit: those who wish to push Baylor in the direction of a more "intentional" expression of Christianity are in danger of commiting the sin of "spiritual pride."

Here, "spiritual pride" would mean "moralism." Kilgore is suggesting that a movement toward adopting a creed would result in hypocritical, outward conformity masking whatever the individual truly believes.

The "Tradition of Pride" emblazoned across the Baylor Line's front cover, by contrast, is intended to affirm a commitment to Baylor's more traditional conformity to "historic Baptist principles of the priesthood of the believer, the sufficiency of scripture, the autonomy of the local church, the separation of church and state, and religious liberty for every human being," as noted above.

Such a commitment implies free expression, however, and Kilgore invites a free response:

The central question I would ask you now is this: Based on your experience, do you believe Baylor's religious commitment has been properly balanced with our values of academic freedom and religious liberty, or has Baylor's religious commitment been too weakly applied to our life at Baylor and thus requires a more intentional implementation in the areas of faculty hiring and tenure decisions, student life, and the character of our academic programs?

In short, is a "correction" necessary? If not, are greater efforts required to preserve Baylor's heritage of a passion for Christ that stems from his liberating grace and an academic environment characterized by the principled pursuit of knowledge unfettered by narrowness and bigotry?

I expect that the Baylor Line will be hearing from various alumni and that the winter or spring issue will feature the answers to this question.

I suppose that we'll see precisely in what matter -- Baptist tradition or Christian creed -- people take the most pride.

Pride: Good or Bad?

Pride, South Portal, Chartres Cathedral

On a haughty high horse, going into a fall...

(Image from Wikipedia)

Last Sunday in the Bible study class that I attend in my church, we read 1 Corinthians 4:6 in the course of our study:

6 Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Do not go beyond what is written." Then you will not take pride (phusiousthe) in one man over against another.

The trouble in the Corinth church stemmed from factionalism, with some believers identifying with Paul, others with Apollos, others with somebody else, and so on. Paul's warning about taking pride in one man over against another was a warning against this factionalism.

This led to a discussion of pride, which the Bible generally condemns as a very bad attitude. Typical examples occur in Proverbs 16:18 and 18:12:

Proverbs 16:18 Pride (MT: גָּאוֹן, gaon; LXX: υβρις, hubris) goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. (New International Version)

Proverbs 18:12 Before his downfall a man's heart is proud (MT: יִגְבַּהּ, yigbah; LXX: υψουται, hupsoutai), but humility comes before honor. (New International Version)

And of course, pride is often identified as the first sin in speculations about Satan's rebellion, based on interpretations of such passages as Isaiah 14:12-15:

12 How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star (MT: הֵילֵל, helel; LXX: εωσφορος, heosphoros; Vul: lucifer), son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!

13 You said in your heart,
"I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.

14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High."

15 But you are brought down to the grave,
to the depths of the pit. (New International Version)

The passage does not specify that the rebellious one is Satan, nor does the context do so, but the identification is traditional, based on the word "lucifer" in the Vulgate's Latin translation verse 12 and on such New Testament passages as Revelation 9:1 and 12:9 and 2 Peter 2:4. An interesting study on the identification of the figure with Lucifer-Satan can be found at the CRI/Voice, Institute, an online site about which I otherwise know nothing. At any rate, the 'story' of this figure in Isaiah 14:12-15 would appear to exemplify the warning given in Proverbs 16:18 and 18:12 about pride leading to one's downfall.

Yet, pride is not always condemned. In two passages, Paul refers to pride in favorable ways:

2 Corinthians 5:12 We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride (kauchmatos) in us, so that you can answer those who take pride (kauchomenous) in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. (New International Version)

Galatians 6:3 If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride (kauchama) in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, 5 for each one should carry his own load. (New International Version)

The related Greek words here, kauchaomai (verb) and kauchama (noun) -- "take pride in" and "pride," respectively -- differ from the Greek words hubris ("pride": Proverbs 16:18) and hupsoutai ("proud": Proverbs 18:12) as well as from Paul's negative use of phusiousthe in 1 Corinthians 4:6 (literally, "be puffed up").

The words kauchaomai and kauchama also occur elsewhere in a positive sense: by Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:12, 7:4, and 8:24 and by James in 1:9.

I suspect that the difference lies not solely in the words used but more in the attitude expressed. Perhaps "confidence" would be a better translation to consider when kauchaomai and kauchama are used positively, but I probably need to look into this point some more.

At any rate, pride can be good or bad, but I'll risk taking pride in my wife today as perhaps a good attitude, for this day is the twelfth anniversary of our very happy marriage.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Medieval Bildungsroman?

The Landscape of Medieval Romance

The Pearl Poet's Europe (c. 1328)

(Image from Wikipedia)

I'm still working on my Gawain paper, which is taking shape bit by bit in a rough, patched-together manner, and as readers might have noted, I'm presenting the story as a sort of Medieval Bildungsroman, a story of personal development in which a character comes to deeper insight and greater maturity.

"Medieval Bildungsroman" is an expression that I came up with just this morning, but I see that it's been coined already. Joseph Szoverffy used the term way back in 1977 in his review of Ruodlieb: Faksimile-Ausgabe des Codex Latinus Monacensis 19486 der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek Munchen und der Fragmente von St. Florian, by Walter Haug, in Speculum, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Oct., 1977), pp. 981-983. Some 15 years later, John W. Baldwin used the expression in his article "Five Discourses on Desire: Sexuality and Gender in Northern France around 1200," also in Speculum, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Oct., 1991), pp. 797-819. And just three years later, John Il Kwun (or John Bachmann?) seems to have used the expression in "The Ultimate Quest: Secular and Spiritual Conceptions of Self-Perfection in the Medieval Chivalric Romance," Google Group: sci.anthropology, May 1, 1994. More recently, on September 27, 2004, M. Charlotte Wolf finished a dissertation, "The Treatment of Fragmentation in Irmtraud Morgner's Unfinished Salman Trilogy" (Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, Ohio), in which she also used the expression.

I cannot, therefore, claim originality in coming up with the expression Medieval Bildungsroman, for its use stretches back to at least 1977. But I can perhaps say something new about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. If this is a Bildungsroman, then what does Gawain learn about himself in the process of his self-formation? One thing that he learns is that he is not completely in control of his own moral development, for he has been tricked into greater self-knowledge, but he does attempt to learn his lesson and apply it.

In particular, his confession to King Arthur in the presence of his fellow knights after returning to that royal court seems to distinguish two sins that he has committed:

"Behold, sir," said he, and handles the belt,
"This is the blazon of the blemish that I bear on my neck;
This is the sign of sore loss that I have suffered there
For the cowardice and coveting that I came to there;
This is the badge of false faith that I was found in there,
And I must bear it on my body till I breathe my last.
For one may keep a deed dark, but undo it no whit,
For where a fault is made fast, it is fixed forevermore."
(ll 2505-2512)

Gawain accuses himself of "cowardice" (couardise) and "coveting" (couetyse). Both contribute to his "false faith" (vntrawþe), a self-reproach by which Gawain confesses his unworthiness to wear the pentangle, that "endless knot" (endeles knot) that stands for trawþe -- the Middle English of “troth” -- which combined the meanings "truth" and "loyalty." Gawain's sin has loosened that endless knot, and the baldric crossing over the shoulder where the shield with pentangle had been hung (line 621) has been replaced with the belt as a substitute baldric tied with a knot at his left side (line 2486). In Gawain's confession, the fault that he has committed will stain him as long as he lives, but what precisely does Gawain confess to? His couardise is clear enough: fear for his life partly led him to accept the belt offered by Lady Bertilak. But what was the object of his couetyse? This recalls the earlier discussion of Matthew 5:27-28.

Ye han herd that it was seid to elde men, Thou schalt do no letcherie. But Y seie to you, that euery man that seeth a womman for to coueite hir, hath now do letcherie bi hir in his herte. (Matheu 5:27-28: Wycliffe Bible)

In that earlier discussion, we learned that in the 14th century, the time of both Wycliffe and the Pearl Poet, the word "covet" (coueite) meant "To desire with concupiscence or with fleshly appetite" (OED I, 1106, 2). The term here, however, is the noun "covetise" (couetyse), so what did it mean? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "covetise" had a sexual connotation in the 14th century. In Daniel 13:7 of the 1382 Wycliffe Bible, we read these words concerning the men who saw the beautiful Susanne bathing:

Thei brennyden in the couetise of hir. (OED I, "covetise," 1106, 1)

They burned with covetise for her. (My Translation)

And Chaucer uses the noun "covetise" to warn against lechery in his Parson's Tale, written about 1386 (OED I, "covetise," 1106, 1). Speaking of the sin worked by the devil's hand, Chaucer identifies the specific work of the devil's first finger:

This is that other hand of the devel, with five fyngres to cache the peple to his vileynye. / The firste finger is the fool lookynge of the fool woman and of the fool man, that sleeth right as the basilicok sleeth folk by the venom of his sighte, for the coveitise of eyen folweth the coveitise of the herte. (John H. Fisher, editor, "Parson's Tale," in The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977), page 385 (ll 851-852))

This is the other hand of the devil, with five fingers to draw people to his villainy. / The first finger is the foolish glancing of the foolish woman and of the foolish man, which slays [people] exactly as the basilicok slays people by the venom of its glance, for the covetise of the eyes follows the covetise of the heart. (My Translation)

Chaucer's parson thus identifies "covetise" with lechery and emphasizes that "the covetise of the eyes follows the covetise of the heart," which fits rather nicely with the view that Gawain has fallen into an adultery of the heart, given his confession of "coveting" (couetyse). Gawain takes rather hard his self-knowledge as one guilty of breaking faith for the low motives of cowardice and lechery. Indeed, he tell us in line 2512 that "where a fault is made fast, it is fixed forevermore," as though he believes that his sin has brought him into a fallen state as low as original sin brought Adam. While Gawain's self-reproach might seem excessive, it represents an important stage in his development as a Christian knight, for he has previously been held in thrall to pride, as the Green Knight tells us in revealing that Morgan le Faye sent him:

She guided me in this guise to your glorious hall,
To assay, if such it were, the surfeit of pride
That is rumored of the retinue of the Round Table.
(ll 2456-2458)

The Middle English word translated by Borroff as the phrase "surfeit of pride" is surquidre (cf. sourquydrye, line 311) which the OED traces to as early as 1225 and renders as "arrogance, haughty pride, presumption" (OED II, “surquidry,” 243). Gawain does, in fact, recognize his fault of pride, for in the punning passage of lines 2437-2338, Gawain has already agreed to keep the belt, saying that it will remind him of his pride and humble his heart. Although the Green Knight assures Gawain that his confession of all his failings has left him as pure as if he had never sinned (lines 2391-2394), Gawain remains troubled over his fall and considers himself stained for life, as we have already seen. Indeed, Gawain needed to fail for this story to be a Christian one, for such is the Christian view of human nature, that it is fallen and must therefore fail due to its innate sin.

Sir Gawain's encounter with Lady Bertilak and his subsequent entrapment in an adultery of the heart thus works as a type of felix culpa -- a fortunate fall -- that leads him to deeper knowledge of himself and thereby to the possibility of salvation.

And that's where my paper now stands, at 22 pages and still in need of a conclusion -- plus a great deal of smoothing out, minor additions, scholarly notes, and so on. Obviously too long for a 20-minute presentation...