Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 6:09am

January 28, 1813: Pride and Prejudice Published

Two centuries today since the publication of Pride and Prejudice.  I confess that I have generally found Jane Austen to be a snore fest unless her text is enlivened, if that is the proper word when Zombies are involved, as in the above video.  Austen’s books began to be published in America in 1832, although they made little impact with the general public until the latter part of the Nineteenth Century when the novelist William Dean Howells wrote several essays celebrating Austen as an author.

One of her most biting critics was Mark Twain.  A sample of his Austen tirades:

Jane Austen? Why I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen. Even if it contains no other book.

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. Everytime I read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

Ralph Waldo Emerson decades before got in a good anti-Austen lick:

I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen’s novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in invention, imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world.  Never was life so pinched & narrow.  The one problem in the mind of the writer in both the stories I have read, “Persuasion”, and “Pride & Prejudice”, is marriageableness; all that interests any character introduced is still this one, has he or she money to marry with, & conditions conforming? ‘Tis “the nympholepsy of a fond despair”, say rather, of an English boarding-house.  Suicide is more respectable.

Outraged Austen fans should feel free to defend her literary honor in the comboxes.

 

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Jay Anderson
Monday, January 28, AD 2013 8:23am

Mark Twain is, arguably, America’s greatest writer, and certainly the author of America’s greatest novel, “Huckleberry Finn”. I have much respect for him and his opinions, although I strongly disagree with the one he expresses here.

Emerson, on the other hand, is a proto-socialist whose only worthy literary contribution, as far as I’m concerned, is “Concord Hymn”. He can suck it.

That ought to get the combox literary fight club off to a decent start.

😉

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Monday, January 28, AD 2013 10:33am

I believe Jane Auten is the English Molière.

No other novelist relies so heavily on dialogue to exhibit character, or does so with a surer touch. Take a sentence of dialogue from any her novels and one can instantly identify the speaker/ And what characters they are: Mrs Jennings, Mr Elton, the preposterous Mr Collins and the truly evil Mrs Norris. In fact, there are no minor characters; they all have the solidity of life. She can induce a suspension of disbelief by careful gradation, from portraying the eccentric Mr Bennett and his silly, but wholly believable wife to lull the reader into accepting the outrageous Mr Collins and Lady Catherine.

No writer can be so concise. She can compress a volume of Christian metaphysics in a single parenthesis. “Was it new for any thing in this world to be unequal, inconsistent, incongruous — or for chance and circumstance (as second causes) to direct the human fate?”

Clinton
Clinton
Monday, January 28, AD 2013 11:34am

M. P-S: Exactly. Well put.

There are a few novels I re-read every few years. Pride and Prejudice is
one of them. It never fails that I find some new reward each time.

I’m not sure why Twain had such an antipathy for Miss Austen’s work. Could
it be just a touch of envy for her more indirect, understated humor? And
surely Twain couldn’t deny her unerring gift for characterization, so perfectly
described by Mr. Paterson-Seymour above.

As for the insufferable Emerson, I agree with Jay Anderson– he can suck it.
Who cares what that gasbag thinks?

Mary De Voe
Monday, January 28, AD 2013 1:48pm

Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and other novels by Jane Austen, a canon’s daughter, were written to expose the banality and injustice of denying women the right to own and inherit property, estates and manors from their deceased husbands. (Job’s daughters in the Old Testament did indeed receive an inheritance. This inheritance would enable them to maintain their virginity and not be forced into an unhappy marriage for the sake of a livelihood. But then again, the English Reformation brought much evil into the culture.) Only the male person, as citizen, in England was allowed, by law, to own property and to vote. Women who were to be accorded all courtesy and gentility, were in fact, denied. Even their home, unless a male heir in their immediate family in-tailed the estate, as Mrs. Bennett decries “Are we all to be thrown into the hedgerow, penniless?” was in-tailed away. ..to Mr. Collins, I believe. And the Dashwood’s estate was turned over to the stepson and his evil wife. Maryann Dashwood near died of the poverty visited upon the family after the death of her father. Tom Jones, a rather ribald novel, also dealt with this unfair law, which denied the owner of the estate his free will to leave his estate to his widow. I cannot tell you how very much I appreciate American Law after watching Pride and Prejudice, but I also appreciate the respect and courtesy shown each person in the novels, always hoping such respect will fill our culture.

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Monday, January 28, AD 2013 6:00pm

[…] January 28, 1813: Pride & Prejudice Published – Don. R. McClarey, The American Cthlc […]

Jon
Jon
Monday, January 28, AD 2013 7:36pm

Mary, the Reformation brought far more good to English society than evil. England had been at her best for almost four centuries post 1559. The England we have come to know is the England of Reformation.

Jon
Jon
Monday, January 28, AD 2013 8:03pm

Well, Donald, from an Irish perspective of course the whole issue seems to originate with Henry and his children. But as to your comment concerning absolute monarchy, Elizabeth Tudor was actually the first monarch to realize that a ruler governs on consent. She consulted and took advice and after reading virtually everything she’s ever written, I have to say she really WAS humble and God-reliant. Unfortunately the Stuarts reverted and I think they were an ugly bunch.

Jon
Jon
Monday, January 28, AD 2013 8:20pm

Well, if the Stuarts did it inadvertantly, what is there to thank? The fact is that Parliament grew used to a certain relationship to the Crown during Elizabeth’s reign, and James I ran roughshod over them–he was an obstinate proponent of Divine Right and the Charles’s were too. As for Wentworth I can’t remember what happened so I can’t speak to that. Let’s see. That was a time when many people were being killed for religious and political reasons. Others were placed under house arrest or secluded somewhere.

Jon
Jon
Monday, January 28, AD 2013 8:41pm

Charles II was obviously not very competent, nor was he seen to be by his contemporaries. The puritans of Elizabeth’s reign were unhappy with her settlement, of course. I don’t know what more they could have reasonably expected in that context, though. Their experiment even in the 30’s onward failed miserably. It was an extreme and eccentric vision that they had. Interestingly, THEY should be thanked since their actions were a catalyst for radical change in the monarchy and the status of parliament. Also, those who came to the new world began an experiment that, although admittedly also eccentric, was actually quite successful! Not bad for nutty Protestants! They seem to get the liberty part right.

PM
PM
Monday, January 28, AD 2013 8:52pm

1775 – 1817
In the conclusion of ‘Sense and Sensibility’ she writes almost autobiographically in the words between the dashes following:

“Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favorite maxims. …. Instead of falling a sacrifice to an irresistible passion, as once she had fondly flattered herself with expecting, – instead of remaining even for ever with her mother, and finding her only pleasures in retirement and study, as afterwards in her more calm and sober judgment she had determined on, – she found herself at nineteen, submitting to new …. ”

In ‘A Portrait of Jane Austen’ Lord David Cecil writes:
Her genius was twofold. Along with her comedy sense she possessed a subtle insight into the moral nature of man. The union of the two is the distinguishing characteristic of her achievement, and it makes these lively unpretentious comedies of social and domestic life the vehicle of profound and illuminating comments on the human drama.

I think it’s funny that Mark Twain said “Everytime I read Pride and Prejudice …”,
and I can’t remember anything about the human condition from RW Emerson.

Jon
Jon
Monday, January 28, AD 2013 8:55pm

At least as many bad things could be said about Chales II as good. It depends on who you were and where you stood at the time. Donald, I won’t discuss how much liberty existed during the reformation and early modern periods for the simple reason that not much existed beforehand. Not to revert to the Whig interpretation, but this kind of thing IS incremental. By the time our nation was birthed, things looked pretty good at least on paper. It would look good for an increasing number of people in practice with time.

Jon
Jon
Monday, January 28, AD 2013 9:20pm

You are correct to a point regarding the Middle Ages and liberty. But remember, centralization is what led to control. The Roman church WAS cnetralized in the Middle Ages and I shudder to think what they did all those centuries. I would not have wanted to fall afoul of them. Charles II could ahve reigned for a half century–I don’t consider the guy that great in comparison to other English monarchs. I’m sorry. True, liberty is not necessarily incremental. But if a reformation was underway it would probably take time for it to play out on various levels. I would look at the bigger picture there, not the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which were still sloughing some old skin. It’s true liberty can be lost, that a people must be fit for it, and that regress is as much a fact of life as progress. Various people see the height and beginning of declines in different places based on their judgement.

But here is what really confuses me. Most of the things many people on this blog wish to promote and defend originate with Protestantism in the Isles and then transferred to America. That’s the framework into which everuthing else fell and the mould into which everything else was forced. It’s the topics people contend for here on this sight. And it’s all very Protestant. America, the Constitution, etc. for at least 400 years beginning when Christendom was first “shattered” to use the usual though incorrect term, is all very Protestant. Now I know Catholics and conservative Jews have picked up where the establishment left off in the 60’s or so. I get that. What I don’t get is how the Protestant nature of it all is missed.

Michael PS
Michael PS
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 4:20am

Donald R. McClarey

“It was the era of the Reformation that turned Kings and Queens into Caesar and Pope”

I would be inclined t say that it was the Renaissance, rather than the Reformation that did so, for the same process of creating a centralised Royal power, exercised through salaried officials, dependent on the royal will, took place in Spain, in France, with its absolutism and Gallicanism and in the Italian states.

It was welcomed by many, as a curb on the power of the nobles, the clergy and of the merchant oligarchs of city states. The feeling was widespread that government must be powerful enough to repress arbitrary action in others. If the supreme power is needlessly limited, the secondary powers would run riot and oppress. Its supremacy would bear no check. The problem, many of the leading thinkers believed, was to enlighten the ruler, not to restrain him; and one man is more easily enlightened than many. That was the feeling of the age

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 6:36am

“I have generally found Jane Austen to be a snore fest unless her text is enlivened, if that is the proper word when Zombies are involved”

It was the success of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” that prompted the same author to write “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.”

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 6:59am

Donald R McClarey

The rise of royal absolutism in France began before the Reformation, with the accession of the House of Orléans in the person of Louis XII, significantly known as « le Père du Peuple » [Father of the People]in 1498 and of Francis I and the Orléans–Angoulême branch in 1515, who assiduously cultivated the intellectuals. The French Wars of Religion only broke out in 1562, a long lifetime after the rise of the New Monarchy.

Moreover, the Church was very far from being opposed to the growth of royal power at the expense of noble and provincial privileges. In France, it was brought to its highest development by three great ecclesiastical statesmen, Cardinal Richelieu, Cardinal Mazarin and Cardinal de Fleury, who, as the kings’ chief ministers, dominated the policy of the period from 1624 to 1743. The Gallican Privileges were seen by both the King and the hierarchy, who enthusiastically supported them, as cementing the “sacred and indissoluble alliance” between Throne and Altar.

I would suggest the Reformation aided a tendency that it did not create.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 8:11am

In which Philippe le bel was supported in his quarrels with Boniface VIII by the Archbishop of Rouen, Pierre Roger of Limousin, later Pope Clement VI. He remained a stalwart supporter of the French crown.

I like d’Argenson’s remark, “Richelieu bled France, Mazarin purged it and Fleury put it on a diet.”

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 4:31pm

That England had such precursors prior to the Reformation was due to its geographical status as well as a couple of other factors, Donald. I totally agree that the Reformation cannot be held responsible for a humanism begun with the Renaissance in soutehrn Europe. One can easily argue the Reformation tempered the excesses of the southern Renaissance when it hit the north. As for the medieval church, the general practice was to decide whether you were guilty and then hand you over to the civil authorities who could kill you. If the evidence showed you were a heretic, you could face death. That’s Constantinian Christianity.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 5:35pm

Indeed in terms of the bigger picture one must say America and northern Europe are heir to centuries of Christianity prior to the Reformation. This is undoubtedly true. The Protestant argument is that Christianity in Europe for centuries was just that–Christianity. But Roman Christianity grew corrupt in its theology, worship, and practice. Then Protestantism revived the very best (and at times not so very best) of the Christian church so that Western civilization was able to carry on well for a while longer. And more importantly, so that the church was able to witness accurately in a lively evangelical spirit. Aside from Restorationists, early church fixations, and the cults, most Protestants see more continuity than anything else.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 5:38pm

Historically, it is tempting for the Protestant to point out that the best of the past five hundred years of Western Civ. owed itself to the Protestant renewal of catholic Christianity and not to Roman Christianity immediately prior.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 5:55pm

History can be ‘seen’ in many ways. I would argue there is a Roman Catholic view of it, a Protestant one, a secular progressive one, an Enlightenment view, etc. I feel I’m not motivated by any animus either. I see what I do. As to the amorphous nature of Protestantism, I had in mind the Protestantism of Scriptural renewal in line with the early creeds and traditional orthodoxy before Rome assumed massive innovation.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 6:06pm

Luther lacked the ability to see how it all hung together. He thought too much in terms of dichotomy. It can be said that Calvin erred in the opposite way by way of too much synthesis. It is true that Protestantism further divided with time. I don’t see that as a reason to accept Roman Christianity as the one true approach, however.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 6:29pm

I don’t see that at all. The church fathers dealt with all kinds of errors, and the truth was consequently articulated in a balanced, biblically informed way. That was the starting point for the best of the Protestant reformers and their descendants. They wanted to maintain the simplicity of the Gospel while being guarded by the boundaries already estableshed in patristic times concerning doctrines like the Trinity, the dual nature of Christ, the resurrection and final return of Christ, the sinfulness of man due to the fall, etc. Have funny denominations and silly cults arisen since which deny the simplicity of the gospel and fundamental orthodoxy? Of course! I see them as on the wrong trajectory adn believe many groups go off like that all the time.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 7:18pm

The real presence is a doctrine that is as much intricate as it is absent in such detail in Scripture. It developed quite later on, though I do not know the time. The veneration of the saints represents another later development, and to venerate any part of creation flies in the face of both Judaism and Christianity. Elder, bishop, and presbyter are synonomous. The question often arises as to where they belong or, in other words, how church government should be structured. Richard Hooker took the position that the church can and often does adapt to surroundings pragmatically. I take Newman’s remark for what it’s worth. To a point, I agree. It makes us catholic with a small c. I’m not overly crazy about a guy who implied spirituality depended upon how many doielies and candle sticks lay about the alter. And the early church would have thought it quite strange if one placed a marian statue at the front of worship to be crowned and paraded—I’m going to be honest—I really think they would have been shocked and horrified. I’m just not convinced on the veneration of saints, I’m afraid. As to the Patristics, it depends on which one and what they said. Some elaborated beyond Scripture to introduce novelty. Others were mostly fundamental.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 7:29pm

Newman started the Oxford movement. He was the product of a certain milieu which sought to recapture mystery and connection to the past. After all, his life spanned much of the nineteenth century! And he was very much an asthetician when it came to worship. But wherever two or more are gathered in my NAME, says the Lord, there am I with them. And that’s crucial. What that says is we worship God in spriti and in truth, that our right standing or inclusion with him is not from from apostolic succession and membership in a universally uniform church structure, but is the invisible communion of saints also expressed locally whereby all people across time and space are situated ‘in Christ.’ Yes, they are linked, then, wtih the church through the years, and their beliefs are at one with the apostles. But they need no other legitimacy. They require no visible or tangible link in the sense of pastoral succession historically. That notion is another one that crept through the back door.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 7:43pm

I think what makes the discussion so confusing is that I don’t adhere to the simple idea that a golden age was corrupted by papal Rome. As I said, I do see the continuity of Christianity thorughout the centuries and across these two millennia. I believe the church started out with many problems, heresies, and dissapointments. All one has to do is read the letters of St. Paul to see that. I also believe the Roman church was the Christian church for most people in Eeurope throughout centuries of history. And I see that some church structures fail and sometimes beyond recovery, at least for a while. It then becomes necessary to begin outside that structure, particularly when you’re practically kicked out anyway. I’m not arguing between two eternally polar opposites of Christianity and Roman Catholicism. I actually agree with much of what you say! I disagree that the Roman church is the only appropriate church. I feel other structures exist with far less error. As an historian, again, I certainly see the continuity of Christianity throughout time. I never said I saw a stop, start, stop pattern or any kind of pause. Christianity can happen both within corrupt structures and outside them.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 7:58pm

To be deep in history and to be educated broadly is to become catholic. I would not say it translates to becoming Roman Catholic. That’s an argument from those who went that route, beginning with folks like Newman and culminating in the lastest fashionable conversion by Tony Blair. When the English get bored of Anglicanism they turn Roman Catholic. It gives them more to chew on and it provides them with a greater sense of certainty, I think. I’m trying to be sympathetic, and I really like Chesterton.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 9:54pm

It is true that Christ spoke of his flesh and blood as food and drink and that he said “this is my body, this my blood.” I rather suppose he was speaking figuratively, such as when he told the woman at the well that she should ask him for living water. Otherwise Christ would be saying his flesh and blood were really present, as you say, during the passover. This is impossible since he hadn’t yet been crucified, neither had he yet resurrected and ascended to heaven.

Quoting the patristic fathers is a double-edged sword. They spoke truth and error. Although catholic-minded Protestants draw upon them for thought and inspiration, I would not take them verbatim and neither would Protestants, typically.

Finally and most importantly, Scripture must be our final authority. We can assess tradition, experience, reason, and so on, but it must all finally be brought before the Bible for acceptance or rejection.

There is a theory that Scripture and tradition form an organic unity, and that truth is ongoing in that way. I don’t beleive that for a minute. Does God still speak? Yes, he does. But through his Word and Spirit in ways that accord with what the Bible already states. God never goes beyond his Word.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 10:08pm

My feeling is that the church became too institutionalized and dogmatic at some point. I see this with Greek Orthodoxy, too. As truth is further articulated error amasses alongside it, and a behemoth is created. The Protestant stance is semper reformanda, or the church always reforming. The idea here is that the church CAN grow too beaurocratic, too widely dogmatic, and can accumulate quite a bit of error with time. That it can lose touch with its origins and its sense of mission. That the PEOPLE of the church can reform and continue the business of doing church, but that this may require serious change and possibly relocation. I think that’s a stumbling block for many Roman Catholics. I don’t have any difficulty in believing this, however. My difficulty is in believing that a church structure is alwyas the right one and can never decline. I think of the letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor in Revelation. These were local manifestations of the church, Christ’s body. Some carried on quite well, others didn’t. They were warned not to be presumptuous, since their status was not guaranteed! This of course goes for any church structure or individual assembly. Much of this discussion would clear itself up if we both understood the nature of the church as it is Scripturally understood.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 10:20pm

We have to think, too, of the historical situation with the fall of Rome and Constantine and all of that. Something a little different happened in the Byzantine East, and that structure’s evolution and thought is not the same as we know. I still disagree with their view of tradition also, but a different arrangement arose between church and state, and theology took a different direction. I guess what I’m saying is that the N. T. speaks of the body of Christ or the universal church, and it speaks of its local manifestations as assemblies. Then we have the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches which don’t really speak to that, but seem almost to represent different phenomena. Of course their argument is that an evolution took place and that tradition must be revered and taken for granted. I argue that while tradition may accrue and practices change, it must all remain in accord with Scripture. If it is such a departure as to contradict the principles and tenor of the N.T., then we must engage in reform. It simply will not do to say tradition continues and the church rules such adn such. Those elements must accord with what is already written.
Another important point to raise is that the situation is not black and white with chruches and truth. We cannot always point to one location and say that only truth lies there, much less that truth lies only there. It just isn’t like that. What we have instead is a spectrum such as we see with the seven churches of Asia Minor. One can say that those churches are types and all kinds of variations exist today. What we don’t want to do is to become immersed at a location where much error abounds. We don’t want to become overly involved in a church where practices are terribly wrong.

Jon
Jon
Tuesday, January 29, AD 2013 10:28pm

So I think we need to remind ourselves first of the church’s definition. It is the body of Christ and that is universal. It is locally manifested in assemblies. These are the two ways in which St. Paul speaks of church. Then we consider the state of affairs of these early assemblies. Paul addresses a variety of problems (some things never change). Then the letters contained in Revelation tell us much the same thing, except that one or two of them were heading toward extinction. This fact immediately tells me a local church–not the church as in the body of Christ, but a local assembly—can drift so far away from Christian truth and practice that it is no longer a church in the true sense of the word.

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