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CMP#132 Nobility Run Mad, conclusion

2/21/2023

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This blog explores social attitudes in Jane Austen's time, discusses her novels, reviews forgotten 18th century novels, and throws some occasional shade at the modern academy. ​The introductory post is here.  My "six simple questions for academics" post is here.


CMP#132  Some nobility, but mostly Bristol vulgarity
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    ​In the last post, I introduced the 4-volume novel Nobility Run Mad, or, Raymond and His Three Wives (1802) as an example of the way Bristol merchants were portrayed in the novels of Austen’s era. I got as far as the middle of volume 3, when our noble hero Lord Raymond finally meets our heroine Theodosia. 
    Although the title promises the reader a story about nobility behaving badly, Lord Raymond's dissolute dad was just part of the backstory. In this book, we get more emphasis on portrayals of uncouth, small-minded people from the merchant class of Bristol, namely, miserly old Mr. Filmore, his grandson Samuel, and their friends the Middletons who have Theodosia in their clutches. That’s great for my purposes. I am exploring the hypothesis that in the novels of the long 18th century, the objection to Bristol merchants—such as Mrs. Elton’s father in Emma—is not that they were involved in the slave trade, it’s that they were not genteel. In the novels I've been exploring, Bristol merchants and their families are used as comic characters, as foils to the heroine, because of their vulgarity and presumptuous attitudes.
    To return to the novel: It seems our (anonymous) author found her comical and villainous characters to be intrinsically more interesting than her hero and heroine. Lord Raymond, says sententious things like: “It would very ill become me, Mr. Milner, to arraign my father’s conduct…” (Even though his dad was a complete waste of space who gambled away large fortunes before dying young in France and leaving huge debts behind him.) We have a sentimental storyline with Lord Raymond and Theodosia, but the more energetic storyline involves the Filmores. Young Samuel elopes with Lady Arabella, a scheming noblewoman. He assures Lady Arabella that Lord Raymond is dying, which means Samuel will succeed to the title. Samuel wants to get his hands on her fortune. Lady Arabella wants to get married to Samuel before he finds out she doesn’t have a fortune...


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CMP#131  Book Review: Nobility Run Mad (1802)

2/13/2023

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This blog explores social attitudes in Jane Austen's time, discusses her novels, reviews forgotten 18th century novels, and throws some occasional shade at the modern academy. ​The introductory post is here.  My "six simple questions for academics" post is here.

This post is about a forgotten four-volume novel, and is part of an exploration of portrayals of merchants from Bristol and their families in novels of this period. I'm interested in this topic because of Mrs. Elton.

CMP#131:  Nobility runs mad (and Bristol merchants are vulgar and avaricious)
In Emma, we’re told that Mrs. Elton's father was a Bristol merchant. This is narration filtered through Emma’s point of view (emphasis added)
She brought no name, no blood, no alliance [to her marriage with Mr. Elton]. Miss Hawkins was the youngest of the two daughters of a Bristol — merchant, of course, he must be called; but, as the whole of the profits of his mercantile life appeared so very moderate, it was not unfair to guess the dignity of his line of trade had been very moderate also. Part of every winter she had been used to spend in Bath; but Bristol was her home, the very heart of Bristol; for though the father and mother had died some years ago, an uncle remained—in the law line—nothing more distinctly honourable was hazarded of him, than that he was in the law line.
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Mrs. Elton's first appearance in Highbury was at church.
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   Yes, Emma is being a snob, but Mrs. Elton lives down to her expectations: she is comically inappropriate in social situations, pushy and obnoxious.
    This is no less than what a reader of the time would expect, because Mrs. Elton's father was a Bristol merchant. I'll explain presently.
   First, what does Austen's little dash between “Bristol” and “merchant” signify? You can almost hear the the dismissive snicker. is Austen hinting that Mrs. Elton's father was a slave-trader?  (cont'd)
​


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CMP#119   "The Negro is Our Fellow Creature"

8/15/2022

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Thanks to Debatenstein of Twitter for my new logo, "Side-eye Jane Austen"!

​This blog explores social attitudes in Jane Austen's time, discusses her novels, reviews forgotten 18th century novels, and throws some occasional shade at the modern academy. ​The introductory post is here.

CMP#119   Representations of Black Georgians: Laugh When You Can
     In my last two posts, I reviewed a forgotten 1812 novel about a Black man living in Georgian England.
​      British novelists, poets, and playwrights played an important role in the long struggle to end slavery. No-one living in the United Kingdom in the late 18th century could pretend not to notice the poems, novels, plays and essays which portrayed the cruelty and horror of the slave trade. Dramatic poems like “The Dying Negro” were intended to awaken the consciences and appeal to the emotions of British readers. A poem for children, written in the cadences of the Old Testament, associated the consolations of religion with the fight against slavery:
"Negro woman, who sittest pining in captivity,
and weepest over thy sick child;
though no one seeth thee, God seeth thee;
though no one pitieth thee, God pitieth thee: raise thy voice, forlorn and abandoned one;
​call upon him from amidst thy bonds, for assuredly he will hear thee." ​
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    Naturally enough—since these poems were intended to raise empathy and spur people to action—these representations of enslaved persons emphasized their suffering and vulnerability. In the famous Wedgewood portrait “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” the enslaved man is pictured kneeling, raising up his shackled arms, pleading for help.
  However, Georgian playwright Frederick Reynolds took a different approach—he used the vehicle of comedy, not tragedy, to stress the humanity of people of colour...

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CMP#117  Yamboo, or, the North American Slave

8/8/2022

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Clutching My Pearls is my ongoing blog series about my take on Jane Austen’s beliefs and ideas, as based on her novels. I’ve also been blogging about now-obscure female authors of the long 18th century. For more, click "Authoresses" on the menu at right. Click here for the first in the series.  ​

CMP#117  “Soon everybody forget poor black boy:” Hey, what about Yamboo?
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    Chawton House, the center for early women's writing and former home of Jane Austen's wealthy brother, has made a number of obscure novels available for study on their website. You would think that scholars would fall on a novel entitled ​Yamboo, or, the North American Slave, like a duck on a June bug. But no, they are too busy poring over Mansfield Park. Too bad there are no actual enslaved persons in Mansfield Park and slavery is never discussed, let alone condemned.
  
 How about looking at an 1812 novel which actually has an enslaved person as the titular character? Yamboo's anti-slavery message is far more explicit than Mansfield Park and serves as yet another refutation of the notion that authors, particularly women authors, couldn't talk about slavery back then. 
     Leaving aside the literary merits of the book and focusing on its message, we can say this in favour of Yamboo:
  • The novel strongly asserts the titular character’s humanity.
  • It confronts the issues of racial as well as class prejudice.
  • Yamboo is portrayed as having agency; that is, he acts and is not merely acted upon...


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    More about me here. My earlier posts (prior to June 2017) are about my time as a teacher of ESL in China,(just click on "China" in the menu below.) more recent posts focus on my writing, as well as Jane Austen and the long 18th century. Welcome!


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