The Voices of Men in Praise of Jane Austen
Messages on the
Bulletin Board - c. Jan. 21, 2000
Dear Ashton,
Is there any indication as to whether J.A. meant for Mr. Knightley to have been, how do I put this, a virgin? I have no problems with the characters in her other works thus far, however he is another ten years older than Darcy who by todays standards and Lydia's is quite a late bloomer. I am aware of J.A.'s morals but ... what are your views on this matter?
Dear Voices,
Hello, hello. I haven't gone anywhere. Perhaps I will have more time to post things now that the big murder trial is over (not guilty) and my boss is on well-deserved holidays. I try to read on my home computer but my daughter generally has other ideas.
Then I get behind in reading the postings and I'm breathless to catch up with all of you. I begin to develop my opinions on a subject but they must wait because I haven't yet read Julie's response to John's response to Ashton's response to Cheryl yet and then suddenly there's some input from Bruce! By that time my opinions are not worth the ether I type them to because someone else has already said it better, or the conversation has moved on to something else, so I just shut up and keep reading.
My, my what heady conversations we're having. I'm so glad to know you're all still out there, exercising those brains and making yourselves fit for jury duty should the task ever fall to you (I do not wish it on my worst enemy, but it sometimes happens nevertheless) and if I should ever have a brush with the law, I pray that I am judged by a handful of thinkers such as yourselves and not a group similar to the one we just had to deal with.
One woman told the press that she had read several mystery novels and was therefore surprised that the Crown's case was not put together as tightly and seamlessly as what she would have expected from her "experience." Another said she thought the fellow was guilty "but the evidence wasn't there." Then on what was she basing her opinion? "I looked into his face and saw the eyes of a murderer." Egads. If that ain't enough to keep you on the straight and narrow! Perhaps there's something to be said for Judge Alone.
Okay. I'll try to get on topic next time. Thanks for the venting room.
Dear Folks,
In the latter part of her life, Jane Austen maintained a steady correspondence with her niece, Fanny Austen-Knight. Fanny was a young, rich adult and frequently in love. In one case, she had been encouraging a young man with whom she decided she was not in love after all. Fanny was worried about how her change of mind might affect the young man and, so, she wrote to her beloved aunt for guidance. Amongst the many parts of our Lady's reply was this: "It is no creed of mine, as you must be well aware, that such sort of disappointments kill anybody."
How very stoic of Jane Austen! Or, perhaps, this is an indication of a bitchiness, or an attitude of marriage, or maybe a dislike of men? This is among the quotes used to support all those theories at various times. As for me, I wonder that the creator of Marianne Dashwood and Anne Elliot could write such a thing. I want to explore this quote with you.
First, I will supply the dots and then, with your help, I will try to connect them.
Brother Henry Austen left the army to become, first, a supplier for the army and, then, a banker. (It is arguable that without his considerable help, sister Jane might never have published.) In the last year of Jane Austen's life, Henry's bank failed and he became a bankrupt. Several family and household members lost money in the failure including, even, a small amount lost by our Lady herself. Henry's response was to immediately enter Oxford and prepare for a career in the church. Ultimately, he would become a biblical scholar and, some say, an evangelical.
How very stoic of Henry Austen!
Two months before the death of Jane Austen, occurred the death of her maternal uncle. He was a very rich man and it had been thought that he must have provided for his widowed sister and her children in his will. Lord knows, Jane's mother would have welcomed the independence and improvement that the inheritance would have provided. Instead, the uncle left everything to his wife. Mrs. Austen would quickly hit upon the explanation that, well, her brother must have assumed that he would outlive his sister and so there was no need to provide for her.
How very stoic of Mrs. Austen!
Here is the final dot. Sister Cassandra wrote several letters to Fanny immediately after Jane Austen's death. Amongst the very tender and loving things, Cassandra said this: "I am perfectly conscious of the extent of my loss, but I am not at all overpowered. ... You know me too well, to be at all afraid that I should suffer materially from my feelings."
How very sto- ??? - I-I-I do-on't think so-oo. It is amazing that Cassandra would have written such a thing - absolutely amazing! And, I am very glad that she did because this is the Rosetta stone, the key to cracking the Austen-family hieroglyphs. Come on my friends, this was a family of warrior/adventurers and an author of immortal reputation; they simply had to have heart and a great deal of it. They were stoic, but they wore that stoicism only as a shield to protect a great tenderness and a determination to succeed. They were determined to overcome - they insisted that they would overcome.
Don't be bewildered by the hieroglyphics sometimes so evident in our Lady's letters. Don't be confused by Austen-family culture and tradition - always return to the novels. Connect the dots.
Dear Folks,
Jane Austen's family was upwardly mobile. In comparison, America's Kennedy family is lethargic. Beginning with the father, and extending to five brothers, there was achievement and reward well beyond all expectation. And of course, baby sister was invited to the Prince's palace as an early recognition of her literary achievement. We honor her still in so many ways, including with the institution of this humble web site.
I suspect that a family must hang together, well beyond what is normal, in order for his sort of thing to take place. And the members of that family protected as well as promoted each other. Cassandra Austen burned and trashed some of Jane's letters - we know that and can only conclude that Cassandra wished to protect her sister in some way. The family set up a defense, an armor of sorts against our prying eyes. They succeeded for the most part, but I want to bring to your attention one little glimpse of the humanity of the family, one little glimpse that survived.
I refer you to Chapter 4 (School) of Claire Tomalin's biography Jane Austen, A Life. There, Ms. Tomalin shows a photograph of the title and facing page of an English-French dictionary owned by Jane Austen as a child. The first thing that you will notice is that brother Frank (later Admiral Sir Francis Austen) has scribbled his name all over the pages. (Frank was one year older.) It almost seems that he was practicing writing his name with various experimental flourishes. (Do you remember going through a phase like that? - I do.) Perhaps the only paper at hand was sister's dictionary! However, the more interesting thing is written at the top of the second page; there you will see written in a childish scrawl, apparently not Frank's, this message for posterity:
Mother
angry
father's gone
out
Wouldn't mama and papa have been pleased to know that you and I were thinking about that just now?
Dear Ashton,
I am dumbfounded as to what the joke is referring to Darcy placing Wickham at Newcastle. Mr. P and I have looked at a map and see no sign of Meryton or Derby relatively close. As we are in California and all places there seems relatively close to each other. Please explain.
Dear Mrs. and Mr. P,
Welcome to the community. I hope that both of you will feel free to post your questions and comments on a frequent basis.
Let me begin by reminding you that it took Collins nearly all the daylight hours to travel from Hunsford to Meriton and that was only forty miles, as Darcy would say, on good road. (Recall the little unpleasantness that Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet had over that very matter.) The point is that the closeness of two points is determined by your mode of travel. Darcy has Wickham posted to nearly the extreme northeast corner of England (England, not Britain) and that struck me as hilarious. The fact that Hertfordshire or Derbyshire (especially Derbyshire) are not near is the joke.
Dear Ashton,
Thank you for your kind welcome. I however thought the joke was perhaps Newcastles' proximity to Gretna Green. Still not far enough considering Wickham manages to visit and mooch off of Jane and Bingley.
By the bye, I love your site. One thing not mentioned is that what the heroes and heroines do not say and do make one respect them at the end. Especially in times such as these when letting it ALL hang out is normal, just ask Bill Clinton, ANYTHING.
Dear Mrs. P,
Yes, Jane Austen is not explicit, and for that reason, many decide that there is nothing of passion or sex in her novels. I suppose that Charlotte Bronte clearly expresses that view of Jane Austen in a most representative way.
I have always taken the view that the novels are deeply passionate and the sexual tensions between Darcy and Elizabeth, Bertram and Mary Crawford, and between Wentworth and Anne are palpable. I recently read and am now studying Elizabeth Jenkins's biography of Jane Austen. (If you have not read it, I highly recommend it to you.) Anyway, Miss Jenkins takes a view identical to my own on this matter and explicitly questions Charlotte Bronte's judgment. Bravo.
Dear Folks,
mare's nest 1. A discovery that proves worthless or false. 2. Loosely, a cluttered and confusing mess.
How many mare's nests have been inspired by Jane Austen's life and works? A great many, it seems to me. Nowadays, I think most mare's nests are built about an imagined radicalism of Jane Austen. I want to discuss that here.
First I want to give an example of a good and worthy exploration of Jane Austen's progessive nature, and then I will give an example that I suspect of being a mare's nest. The good example is taken from the pages of Elizabeth Jenkin's biography of Jane Austen. In Chapter Three, Miss Jenkins wrote this of her subject.
"... Her bent of mind showed itself in her fondness for history ... a copy of Goldsmith's History of England is preserved in which, on the page where he tells of a man and his wife driven to suicide by the horrors of destitution, she has written in the margin: 'How much the poor are to be pitied and the Rich to be blamed.' "
Miss Jenkins gives an even better example in Chapter Thirteen, where the biographer discusses Jane Austen's liking for the poetry of George Crabbe.
"... It has been suggested that what attracted her in Crabbe's verses was his minute and highly finished detail. The Tales are indeed amply furnished with detail, but it is detail of a grinding and prosaic kind. Tales of the Hall are anecdotes of middle-class life, but Tales of the Borough and Tales of the Village are pictures of poverty and hardship whose realism was evolved for a very definite purpose. Crabbe objected to The Deserted Village as giving a false impression of the happiness of village life; the reader had only to look about him, he said, to be convinced of Goldsmith's disingenuous romanticism, and describing a peasant's existence as he himself saw it, Crabbe exclaimed
By such examples taught, I paint the cot..."
As Truth will Paint it and as Bards will not
Surely, this is the proper approach. We all anticipate that Jane Austen was a progressive person and we want to know of it. Miss Jenkins gives documentary proof; we can check these things - no mare's nest here.
However, I begin to think that this "slavery paid the bills at Mansfield Park" bit to be nonsense. Its seems based on the flimsy notion that Jane Austen named her park after the "Mansfield judgment", a famous slave case of the times. I pulled out some history books of the period and the very first index I examined had in it the name of "Mansfield", a diplomat and celebrity of the time. There is a far better example: "Sir Thomas Mansfield" is a character in Richardson's The History of Sir Charles Grandison, a novel that was a great favorite with the young Jane Austen. - And, that sounds too much like Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park to be a coincidence. My point is that the name might have been common and there is no good evidence that the legal case influenced our Lady's choice.
The other "evidence" is an association of the West Indian holdings of Sir Thomas with slavery. "West Indies" must mean "slavery" seems to be a building block for this mare's nest. However, I have reproduced the only mention of slavery in the novel in another place, and that seems to support the opposite conclusion - the Bertram holdings did not employ slave labor. If Sir Thomas's tenants grew tobacco or sugar, both labor intensive, than slavery is likely, but there is no hint that either was the Bertram crop. I can't believe that the West Indians imported all their food in those days. Some must have been involved in vegetable farming or animal husbandry and there, the employment of slaves might have been less likely. Incidentally, in the United States, slaves were very expensive and only the wealthiest land owners could afford them.
However, my suspicion is chiefly fueled by the mention of slavery in Emma; there it is clear that the characters assumed that all right-thinking people were naturally abolitionists - then as now. That being the case, why would Jane Austen have felt it necessary to be so tangential, almost subliminal? It is a mare's nest, I tell you.
Dear Sir,
Mansfield simply means the paddock with the church in it, surely? The manse field, in other words - surely not an unusual name in England or Scotland? It would seem an appropriate name for Sir Thomas' estate, as the parsonage (and therefore presumably, the church, though that is never mentioned) can be seen from the walk in front of Mansfield Park.
I wonder whether Jane Austen ever decided or determined what the nature of
Sir Thomas' estates was to be at all, at all, or whether she was content to
simply send him far enough away so as to be out of contact, for a crucial part
of the action of the novel? His absence is vital to the plot and character
development, and must continue for some considerable period: he could not
very well be sent to another part of England, therefore. A Grand Tour of
Europe is unlikely: her only other option would have been to have him
struck deaf and dumb and confined to the garret - and even that wouldn't have
been sufficent for the purpose, as Maria would not then have been obliged to
delay her marriage to Mr Rushworth. No, over the seas he had to go, and
given Sir Thomas' domestic character, it would be inconsistent for him to have
undertaken a voage of discovery and adventure: he had to be made to go
because of the necessity of circumstances. I rather suspect that, like
Maria, Jane Austen didn't care much where he went, as long as he went, and
plausibly.
Julie
Dear Ashton, Julie and other folks,
An Oxford English scholar once said to me that Jane Austen never wrote a single detail that was not relevant. Surely Sir T could have been sent to sea? Or America? Or Belgium? But he wasn't.
Anyway, here is the crux of our dilemma. Geophysicists involved in oil exploration are constantly involved in estimating probability versus possibility in finding oil and it is from geophysics that I draw this model. You have to imagine a long bar representing a spectrum of probability from point Y (not very likely) to point X (definitely there). This works for any unknown eg is there a mention of slavery in MP? Was Darcy based on Pitt?
Now imagine colouring in a section of the bar close to point X which represents all the known factors (eg all the reasons you know why oil is definitely in a certain place, why slavery is mentioned in MP and why Pitt was modelled on Darcy) Colour a lot of the bar in if you have loads of reasons to think this is true. Colour just a little of the bar in if you only have slight justification for why you think this to be true.
Now go to the other end of the bar near point Y (end of the "not likely spectrum") Now colour in a section of the bar representing all the reasons and factors why your supposition is NOT true (ie factors that lead you to believe that oil is definitely not in a certain place, factors which make you believe that MP is NOT about slavery, reasons why Darcy is NOT based on Pitt)
For all three of these examples you will usually end up with a bar that looks similar. A bit of colouring in down the "oil is there, MP is about slavery, Pitt is Darcy" X end, and a BIT of colouring down the "oil isn't there, MP is not about slavery, Pitt is unlike Darcy" Y end.
AND YOU NEARLY ALWAYS HAVE A HUGE GREAT WHITE SPACE IN BETWEEN THE TWO REPRESENTING UNCERTAINTY. A huge white space filled with unknowns and unknowables. Those of us who claim that MP is not about slavery are as likely to be correct as those who claim it is. Possibly less so it is much harder to gather evidence to prove that a Jane Austen text is not about something than it is to gather evidence that it is about something.
In all my theorizing about Pitt and Darcy not once did anyone anywhere try to give me any good reason why Darcy was NOT about Pitt, eg not once did anyone say "here are three reasons that show why Pitt's politics and Darcy's politics were diametrically opposed". All people tended to do was to argue from "the big white space" ie all the unknowns from the "that's not enough evidence" point of view.
My current feeling about the MP/slavery issue is that the novel gives us two or three good reasons to colour a LITTLE bit of the bar in near end X, that Mansfield Park is about slavery. Not once has anyone come up with a good bit of reasoning that colours in the bar towards the point Y end, that Mansfield Park is NOT about slavery. All we can do is to argue from the "big white space" in between the two the space that represents the fact that we can't ask Our Lady what she intended and that we never will be able to.
So, I urge all of you skeptics out there. Instead of saying "you don't know" to those who believe in the slavery theory (a Big White Space argument), give the slavery believers something more concrete. Colour in a bit of the bar at the other end and actually state some reasons why Mansfield Park is NOT about slavery. This means instead of saying where Sir Thomas wasn't sent, we have to come up with references in the novel that indicate that the novel is definitely not about slavery.
If we can't find any then we can't condemn the theory that MP is about slavery.
Dear Anielka,
So you see, it will be counterproductive of you to call up your Oxford connections, your geophysical black magic, or your awesome economic and political might borrowed from international oil cartels.
I must say that when I posted, I did have you on the list of persons with the opposite view, but you were not the principle target - my main goal is to refute the filmmaker, Rozema. You are not even the first member of the community to support the theory of a slavery subtext, that honor falls to Bruce. If I want to take issue with you specifically, I will not be oblique - I will speak to you directly and clearly. Perhaps you will give me credit for that.
It seems to me that when one proposes the theoretical existence of a subtext, the burden of proof falls on the theoretician and not the skeptics.
I reproduced the "mention" - the only mention of slavery in Mansfield Park in an earlier posting. I then stated that the passage seems to support the notion that the Bertram holdings did not employ the use of slaves. Would you care to reply to that statement? Also, when one examines the single mention of slavery in Emma, it is clear that Jane Austen, and all her characters, believed that all right-thinking persons were, of course, abolitionists. So, what is the need for a subtext?
Dear Ashton,
I gave that last posting the title "Whether or not MP is about slavery" because I simply support Rozema's choice to portray the novel as she wishes in the absence of any directly contradictory evidence.
"I can't be sure, but I think this passage casts great doubt on the possibility of slavery at the Bertram holdings in the West Indies" is not directly contradictory evidence. It is simply a subjective belief that this reference to slavery is not conclusive proof. And you are spot on. It is not conclusive proof. And what you think is fine but what is needed is a more substantial quote that demonstrates that MP is not about slavery. There aren't any so it can't be done.
We cannot conclusively refute Rozema's argument. All we can do is argue from the nebulous big white space along the "ummm, well, I personally can't be sure but I don't really think so and it doesn't seem quite right to me so without any contrary evidence I am just going to pronounce this theory as wrong" point of view.
My own point of view is that Fanny's situation is analogous to the slavery of women as described by Wollstonecraft. The suggestion that a woman's lot required active improvement was a radical and unpopular belief in the late 1700s that took third place behind abolition and the plight of the poor working-class man in England.
However, if Rozema (and her researchers) have a different interpretation that I cannot disprove then I simply welcome it as a particular refreshing insight that artistically represents a point of view different from my own. I feel I will benefit if I open my mind to her interpretation and enjoy it as it as her interpretation. However, I will be the first to post here (it hasn't arrived in WA yet) if it turns out to be a load of pants. (pants - colloquial contemporary English expressing my potential lack of appreciation.)
My mother has just read me a very interesting quote from a book she is currently studying "The Creative Loop" by Erich Harth. "...a man...approached Picasso after seeing his Demoiselles d'Avignon and asked the artist why he didn't paint people the way they looked. "Well, how do they really look?" asked Picasson. The man then took a photograph of his wife from his wallet. "Like this," he said. Picasso looked at the picture; then, handing it back, he said, "She is small, isn't she. And flat."
Just because we perceive it differently doesn't make Rozema wrong.
(And anyway, I'm much too excited about my latest Theory to mind what other people think of MP!!)
London, 1938
This is not an age favourable to the development of aesthetic genius; it may be that for some time all forms of art will pass into the domination of those who think that a good picture can be painted only if the artist's political views accord with theirs, and it is only possible to write a good novel provided the author follows the rules they have laid down.
But such a state of things would not endure in a race with such powers of imagination, so vigorous and independent as our own. If and when that period should arrive, the great writers of the past will come into their own more fully than before. So far from belonging to an outworn past, their work belongs to a future which will reveal more fully the beauty and the wonder of human nature, by recognizing more completely the rights of human existence.
Dear Bruce,
That's Mr Trevor-Roper's correct title, I find. I know now from whence I remember the name: he was the man who edited the Goebbels diaries, and 'championed the authenticity of the Hitler Diaries, until their fraudulence was revealed' (oops!). (Cambridge Biographical Encyclopaedia). One of his career choices is listed as 'controversialist': had I known that was a way to make a living, I'd have been a millionaire years ago! He also wrote The Philby Affair, and I probably recognise his name from that, as the histories of Philby, MacLean, Burgess and friends have long been an interest of mine.
By the way, he was born in 1914, so he just might be a little old for
me...
Julie
Dear Cheryl,
Concerning
"Beer does more than Milton can
To justify God's way to man."
A.E. Houseman can be witty when he is not feeling otherwise.
I do not know why the Meister did not immediately reply to you that a century earlier than Houseman put these words to paper Benjamin Franklin (he of the stove, US paper money, The Montreal Gazette, putting the arrow in the wrong direction in electric schematic drawings, etc.) had written Beer is proof that God loves us.
I have problems with non sequiturs. How can you distinguish between
Houseman's joke that the most simple-minded person can understand from a flagon
of beer what Milton's elevated epic poetry makes available only to the highly
educated. Houseman does not disagree with Milton (and therefore neither do you),
but he does suggest that the enormous labour in dictating the epics to his
daughter was work wasted on the sad sacks who understand only beer. One of the
sad facts of life in this troubled vale is that beer is far more accessible
(especially to young drivers) to the world than is Milton. Another sad fact is
that making beer less available than it is could not make Milton more
available.
John
We salute you from sunny Florida.
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