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zalenaI'd promised someone a post on Jane Austen in Love, but as I was composing it, I realized it had already been written. The essays in the book add a little to this subject, but there was no great revelation for me, save one.
Bloom calls out Wentworth's love letter, scribbled upon his overhearing Anne's conversation with Cpt. Harville in Chapter 23 of Persuasion. Cpt. Harville has been given the task of bearing a small miniature portrait of Cpt. Benwick---originally made for Benwick's dead fiancee Fanny---to Benwick's new fiancee Louisa:
"'Poor Fanny! she would not have forgotten him so soon!" Harville says.
And what follows is a famous conversation regarding woman's constancy. Harville speaks eloquently for the sailor waving goodbye to his family and home, arguing that, "...as our [men's] bodies are strongest, so are our feelings; capable of bearing most rough usage, and riding out the heaviest weather."
Anne replies:
"'Your feelings may be the strongest...but the same spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived; which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments. Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise. You have difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with. You are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health, nor life, to be called your own. It would be too hard, indeed' (with a faltering voice), 'if woman's feelings were to be added to all this.'"
Harville responds: that '"all histories are against you---all stories, prose and verse.... I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps, you will say, these were all written by men."
Oh heck, I'll just provide the rest of the chapter:
"Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything."
"But how shall we prove anything?"
"We never shall. We never can expect to prove anything upon such a point. It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of proof. We each begin, probably, with a little bias towards our own sex; and upon that bias build every circumstance in favour of it which has occurred within our own circle; many of which circumstances (perhaps those very cases which strike us the most) may be precisely such as cannot be brought forward without betraying a confidence, or, in some respect, saying what should not be said."
"Ah!" cried Captain Harville, in a tone of strong feeling, "if I could but make you comprehend what a man suffers when he takes a last look at his wife and children, and watches the boat that he has sent them off in, as long as it is in sight, and then turns away and says, 'God knows whether we ever meet again!' And then, if I could convey to you the glow of his soul when he does see them again; when, coming back after a twelvemonth's absence, perhaps, and obliged to put into another port, he calculates how soon it be possible to get them there, pretending to deceive himself, and saying, 'They cannot be here till such a day,' but all the while hoping for them twelve hours sooner, and seeing them arrive at last, as if Heaven had given them wings, by many hours sooner still! If I could explain to you all this, and all that a man can bear and do, and glories to do, for the sake of these treasures of his existence! I speak, you know, only of such men as have hearts!" pressing his own with emotion.
"Oh!" cried Anne eagerly, "I hope I do justice to all that is felt by you, and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures! I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman. No, I believe you capable of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance, so long as -- if I may be allowed the expression, so long as you have an object. I mean while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!"
It is that last bit... "the privilege of loving longest... when existence or when hope is gone," that Wentworth replies to in his letter:
"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in
F. W."
"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."
Bloom has the temerity to critique the failings of the letter, ultimately deciding this is a great coup on Austen's part, as she was certainly capable of writing a better letter, but chose not to in evidence of the feelings of her character.
I must admit I rolled my eyes at this. Who critiques such a letter? Austen herself says, "Such a letter was not to be soon recovered from..."
But perhaps it was the proximity of Bloom that made me realize that exchange is reminiscent of another famous exchange on woman's constancy:
Twelfth Night: Act 2 Scene 4
Orsino has ordered a melancholy song to be played as he pines for Olivia. The Clown that sings subtly mocks the Duke. Viola, meanwhile, has a raving crush on the Duke, as he pines for Olivia, so she (in the guise of a man) pines for him.
DUKE ORSINO
There is no woman's sides
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart; no woman's heart
So big, to hold so much; they lack retention
Alas, their love may be call'd appetite,
No motion of the liver, but the palate,
That suffer surfeit, cloyment and revolt;
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much: make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me
And that I owe Olivia.
VIOLA
Ay, but I know--
DUKE ORSINO
What dost thou know?
VIOLA
Too well what love women to men may owe:
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.
DUKE ORSINO
And what's her history?
VIOLA
A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
We men may say more, swear more: but indeed
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.
DUKE ORSINO
But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
VIOLA
I am all the daughters of my father's house,
And all the brothers too: and yet I know not.
Sir, shall I to this lady?
DUKE ORSINO
Ay, that's the theme.
To her in haste; give her this jewel; say,
My love can give no place, bide no denay.
I have little analysis to add to this, except that Orsino's love is in fact the kind of love that won't take no for an answer. As such it is a false love, and his melancholy, a false melancholy, for it is based upon an illusion. The entire play seems to play with the difference between actual sadness and grief opposed to depression---boredom and thwarted desire, melancholy as an affectation---. It is one of my very favorite plays and its themes of cross-dressing and power structures overthrown are the essence of Saturn's holiday. Twelfth Night, is in fact, what Saturnalia becomes.
There is nothing more for me to say at this time, save the Chapter 23's closing in Persuasion:
Wentworth speaks:
"I have been used to the gratification of believing myself to earn every blessing that I enjoyed. I have valued myself on honourable toils and just rewards. Like other great men under reserves," he added with a smile, "I must endeavour to to subdue my mind to my fortune. I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve."
Bloom calls out Wentworth's love letter, scribbled upon his overhearing Anne's conversation with Cpt. Harville in Chapter 23 of Persuasion. Cpt. Harville has been given the task of bearing a small miniature portrait of Cpt. Benwick---originally made for Benwick's dead fiancee Fanny---to Benwick's new fiancee Louisa:
"'Poor Fanny! she would not have forgotten him so soon!" Harville says.
And what follows is a famous conversation regarding woman's constancy. Harville speaks eloquently for the sailor waving goodbye to his family and home, arguing that, "...as our [men's] bodies are strongest, so are our feelings; capable of bearing most rough usage, and riding out the heaviest weather."
Anne replies:
"'Your feelings may be the strongest...but the same spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived; which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments. Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise. You have difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with. You are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health, nor life, to be called your own. It would be too hard, indeed' (with a faltering voice), 'if woman's feelings were to be added to all this.'"
Harville responds: that '"all histories are against you---all stories, prose and verse.... I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps, you will say, these were all written by men."
Oh heck, I'll just provide the rest of the chapter:
"Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything."
"But how shall we prove anything?"
"We never shall. We never can expect to prove anything upon such a point. It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of proof. We each begin, probably, with a little bias towards our own sex; and upon that bias build every circumstance in favour of it which has occurred within our own circle; many of which circumstances (perhaps those very cases which strike us the most) may be precisely such as cannot be brought forward without betraying a confidence, or, in some respect, saying what should not be said."
"Ah!" cried Captain Harville, in a tone of strong feeling, "if I could but make you comprehend what a man suffers when he takes a last look at his wife and children, and watches the boat that he has sent them off in, as long as it is in sight, and then turns away and says, 'God knows whether we ever meet again!' And then, if I could convey to you the glow of his soul when he does see them again; when, coming back after a twelvemonth's absence, perhaps, and obliged to put into another port, he calculates how soon it be possible to get them there, pretending to deceive himself, and saying, 'They cannot be here till such a day,' but all the while hoping for them twelve hours sooner, and seeing them arrive at last, as if Heaven had given them wings, by many hours sooner still! If I could explain to you all this, and all that a man can bear and do, and glories to do, for the sake of these treasures of his existence! I speak, you know, only of such men as have hearts!" pressing his own with emotion.
"Oh!" cried Anne eagerly, "I hope I do justice to all that is felt by you, and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures! I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman. No, I believe you capable of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance, so long as -- if I may be allowed the expression, so long as you have an object. I mean while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!"
It is that last bit... "the privilege of loving longest... when existence or when hope is gone," that Wentworth replies to in his letter:
"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in
F. W."
"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."
Bloom has the temerity to critique the failings of the letter, ultimately deciding this is a great coup on Austen's part, as she was certainly capable of writing a better letter, but chose not to in evidence of the feelings of her character.
I must admit I rolled my eyes at this. Who critiques such a letter? Austen herself says, "Such a letter was not to be soon recovered from..."
But perhaps it was the proximity of Bloom that made me realize that exchange is reminiscent of another famous exchange on woman's constancy:
Twelfth Night: Act 2 Scene 4
Orsino has ordered a melancholy song to be played as he pines for Olivia. The Clown that sings subtly mocks the Duke. Viola, meanwhile, has a raving crush on the Duke, as he pines for Olivia, so she (in the guise of a man) pines for him.
DUKE ORSINO
There is no woman's sides
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart; no woman's heart
So big, to hold so much; they lack retention
Alas, their love may be call'd appetite,
No motion of the liver, but the palate,
That suffer surfeit, cloyment and revolt;
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much: make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me
And that I owe Olivia.
VIOLA
Ay, but I know--
DUKE ORSINO
What dost thou know?
VIOLA
Too well what love women to men may owe:
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.
DUKE ORSINO
And what's her history?
VIOLA
A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
We men may say more, swear more: but indeed
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.
DUKE ORSINO
But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
VIOLA
I am all the daughters of my father's house,
And all the brothers too: and yet I know not.
Sir, shall I to this lady?
DUKE ORSINO
Ay, that's the theme.
To her in haste; give her this jewel; say,
My love can give no place, bide no denay.
I have little analysis to add to this, except that Orsino's love is in fact the kind of love that won't take no for an answer. As such it is a false love, and his melancholy, a false melancholy, for it is based upon an illusion. The entire play seems to play with the difference between actual sadness and grief opposed to depression---boredom and thwarted desire, melancholy as an affectation---. It is one of my very favorite plays and its themes of cross-dressing and power structures overthrown are the essence of Saturn's holiday. Twelfth Night, is in fact, what Saturnalia becomes.
There is nothing more for me to say at this time, save the Chapter 23's closing in Persuasion:
Wentworth speaks:
"I have been used to the gratification of believing myself to earn every blessing that I enjoyed. I have valued myself on honourable toils and just rewards. Like other great men under reserves," he added with a smile, "I must endeavour to to subdue my mind to my fortune. I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve."
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-19 10:18 pm (UTC)I only read Persuasion for the first time a few years ago, and am rather glad I didn't discover it earlier. I think I would have underappreciated it then.
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Date: 2009-12-20 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-20 03:42 pm (UTC)However, Persuasion also contains one of my favorite (and only) examples of a positive mature relationship: the Admiral & Mrs. Croft. They are kind of silly characters, Mrs. Croft's perceived coarseness in her appearance and untraditional mannerism, the way the Admiral is always crashing into things; but their love for each other and their sense of adventure, and the way that largesse spills over to the way they treat other people seems a kind of ideal to me.
Of course, Bloom points out that just as Mansfield does not explore slavery the exploitation of which Mansfield is built upon, neither does Persusasion explore the brutality of the British Navy. We might not like Wentworth so well when we see him whipping other sailors. And this kind of rule of law is one of the reasons it was considered unsuitable to have women on board. A tradition that he comes to flout along with the Admiral.
Jane Austen, Feminism, and Fiction has a compelling defense of Mansfield. I will see if I can summarize it here.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-20 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-20 07:45 pm (UTC)And yes, they are kind of wishy-washy people who deserve each other and probably the best possible outcome considered the limit choices/circumstances of novel. Still, part of me is wondering if someone sufficiently 'experienced' as Crawford might at least get her an orgasm. Not that the Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen is really appropriate in the context of the massive physical danger sexual activity amounted to for women of the time period.