| 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#189: Nautical Expressions from the Age of Sail = Androgynous Hairstyle???
William Price, midshipman, visiting at Mansfield Park There is a new display about Mansfield Park at the Jane Austen House Museum which unfortunately takes a nautical phrase used by William Price ("in the same trim") out of context. (BTW this post is definitely for hard-core Janeites who like doing deep dives on the smallest detail of her novels.)
First, Austen's depiction of Fanny's midshipman brother and his father, the lieutenant of marines, are congruent with portrayals of sailors in the literature of Austen's time. Remember how Persuasion’s Admiral Croft says: “I wish Frederick [Wentworth] would spread a little more canvas, and bring us home one of these young ladies to Kellynch.” I assume most people would understand he wants Frederick to unfurl his sails, and put more effort into finding a bride.
The bluff British tar expressing himself with naval idioms is a staple of popular culture. I recently came across a sterling example in the third volume of Modern Characters (1808). The protagonist Charles Stanly is in Spain when he’s approached by a British woman begging for his help. She is roughly pulled away by a Spanish man, so Charles gives a passing British sailor some money to trail the couple and find out where they live.
Jack the sailor comes back to report: “he had watched the sail into the harbor, and a pretty, trim built vessel she seemed, though she was a Spaniard, but that she had hardly got in, before that great lubberly don fellow gave her such a blow on her larboard side, as made her heel, so as almost to upset her—O! d—n it,” continued the sailor, clenching his fist, “if I could have got to windward of him, I’d soon have stove in half his ribs, a cowardly rascal to strike a woman.”
Mr. Stanly asks the sailor to help him rescue the woman and get her on a ship for England.
“Will I?" [the sailor eagerly replies.] "Ay, that I will. Shiver my timbers, but if I can run foul of that Spaniard, I’ll belay his carcase, so long as I can hold a ropeyarn. I thought it cruel enough for him to hit one of his own nation, d’ye see; but a rascally Spaniard to strike a British woman—I say no more—I’m your man for anything.”
Jane Austen doesn't lay it on quite so thick, but she did use nautical expressions...
First, Austen's depiction of Fanny's midshipman brother and his father, the lieutenant of marines, are congruent with portrayals of sailors in the literature of Austen's time. Remember how Persuasion’s Admiral Croft says: “I wish Frederick [Wentworth] would spread a little more canvas, and bring us home one of these young ladies to Kellynch.” I assume most people would understand he wants Frederick to unfurl his sails, and put more effort into finding a bride.
The bluff British tar expressing himself with naval idioms is a staple of popular culture. I recently came across a sterling example in the third volume of Modern Characters (1808). The protagonist Charles Stanly is in Spain when he’s approached by a British woman begging for his help. She is roughly pulled away by a Spanish man, so Charles gives a passing British sailor some money to trail the couple and find out where they live.
Jack the sailor comes back to report: “he had watched the sail into the harbor, and a pretty, trim built vessel she seemed, though she was a Spaniard, but that she had hardly got in, before that great lubberly don fellow gave her such a blow on her larboard side, as made her heel, so as almost to upset her—O! d—n it,” continued the sailor, clenching his fist, “if I could have got to windward of him, I’d soon have stove in half his ribs, a cowardly rascal to strike a woman.”
Mr. Stanly asks the sailor to help him rescue the woman and get her on a ship for England.
“Will I?" [the sailor eagerly replies.] "Ay, that I will. Shiver my timbers, but if I can run foul of that Spaniard, I’ll belay his carcase, so long as I can hold a ropeyarn. I thought it cruel enough for him to hit one of his own nation, d’ye see; but a rascally Spaniard to strike a British woman—I say no more—I’m your man for anything.”
Jane Austen doesn't lay it on quite so thick, but she did use nautical expressions...
Admiral Croft and Anne Elliot Controversial or just mistaken?
However, in the display currently running at the Jane Austen House Museum--the very Mecca for Janeites--a nautical term in Mansfield Park has been misunderstood, or perhaps it was not recognized as being a nautical term.
Guest curator Dr Timothy Moore suggests that Austen is hinting at androgyny; Fanny Price “may be the only Austen heroine with short hair. Her brother William describes the ‘trim’ of her hair as a ‘queer fashion’ which he ‘could not believe’ was come to England. He says women must be ‘mad’ to choose such a bold hairstyle but changes his mind when he sees it on Fanny and becomes reconciled to it. From the sound of it, Fanny may have had her hair cut short in a unisex style known as coiffure à la Titus that emerged from revolutionary France.”
Typically, a suggestion becomes an assertion in the museum display-- "may have had her hair cut short" becomes "Fanny's cropped hair": "Jane Austen tells us very little about her characters’ appearance in her novels, so every detail is important. What do you think Fanny’s cropped hair says about her as a character? Does it make her seem modest and shy, or could it be a statement about androgyny?"
However, in the display currently running at the Jane Austen House Museum--the very Mecca for Janeites--a nautical term in Mansfield Park has been misunderstood, or perhaps it was not recognized as being a nautical term.
Guest curator Dr Timothy Moore suggests that Austen is hinting at androgyny; Fanny Price “may be the only Austen heroine with short hair. Her brother William describes the ‘trim’ of her hair as a ‘queer fashion’ which he ‘could not believe’ was come to England. He says women must be ‘mad’ to choose such a bold hairstyle but changes his mind when he sees it on Fanny and becomes reconciled to it. From the sound of it, Fanny may have had her hair cut short in a unisex style known as coiffure à la Titus that emerged from revolutionary France.”
Typically, a suggestion becomes an assertion in the museum display-- "may have had her hair cut short" becomes "Fanny's cropped hair": "Jane Austen tells us very little about her characters’ appearance in her novels, so every detail is important. What do you think Fanny’s cropped hair says about her as a character? Does it make her seem modest and shy, or could it be a statement about androgyny?"
Coiffure a la Titus Well, since you ask what I think....
I don't think Fanny has cropped hair at all. We know it's long enough for "one little curl" to fall in her face when she bends over her writing desk, because the enamored Henry Crawford mentions this.
This "cropped hair" interpretation is taking the word “trim” and the word "queer" out of context. What William actually said was: “Do you know, I begin to like that queer fashion already, though when I first heard of such things being done in England, I could not believe it; and when Mrs. Brown, and the other women at the Commissioner’s at Gibraltar, appeared in the same trim, I thought they were mad; but Fanny can reconcile me to anything”;
"In the same trim" is like "trim the sails." "Trim the sails" means to adjust the sails. It's got nothing to do with cutting or trimming anything.
No wonder the phrase was trimmed down to “trim” in the museum display because the sentence “William describes the ‘in the same trim’ of her hair,” is just gobbledygook. When people got their hair cut in Austen's novels, she used the word "cut", as she does for Frank Churchill in Emma and Catherine Morland making her debut in Bath in Northanger Abbey.
I don't think Fanny has cropped hair at all. We know it's long enough for "one little curl" to fall in her face when she bends over her writing desk, because the enamored Henry Crawford mentions this.
This "cropped hair" interpretation is taking the word “trim” and the word "queer" out of context. What William actually said was: “Do you know, I begin to like that queer fashion already, though when I first heard of such things being done in England, I could not believe it; and when Mrs. Brown, and the other women at the Commissioner’s at Gibraltar, appeared in the same trim, I thought they were mad; but Fanny can reconcile me to anything”;
"In the same trim" is like "trim the sails." "Trim the sails" means to adjust the sails. It's got nothing to do with cutting or trimming anything.
No wonder the phrase was trimmed down to “trim” in the museum display because the sentence “William describes the ‘in the same trim’ of her hair,” is just gobbledygook. When people got their hair cut in Austen's novels, she used the word "cut", as she does for Frank Churchill in Emma and Catherine Morland making her debut in Bath in Northanger Abbey.
"In the same trim" in context
Don't take my word for it. It is not at all difficult to research how people used the phrase "in the same trim" in Austen's time, or discover its nautical origins, thanks to Google Books and Google Ngram. Here are two contemporary examples of how the phrase "in the same trim" was borrowed from the nautical meaning and used in other situations. The Belfast Monthly Magazine of 1810 has an article discussing a strange medical “disorder” which causes the sufferers to take off all their clothes, “An old lady has assured me, that her daughter, who has been long sick, more than once practised going entirely naked in her own apartment; and that there have been many reasons to believe that some, in the last stage of the complaint, have it in contemplation to appear in public, in the same trim.” Here “in the same trim” means dressed (or undressed), the same way.
In Montgomery, or, the West Indian Adventurer (1812), the narrator describes a group of drunken young gentlemen who are carousing through the streets, annoying everyone, who “unexpectedly, on turning a corner of a street, encountered a party of drunken sailors, whom they also very considerately wished to steer clear of; but the intrepid tars, seeing them to be much in the same trim with themselves, and being as fond of a row as they could wish, bore up along side and grappled with our party; a running fight soon ensured…” Here, we can see that “in the same trim” means “in the same condition,” i.e. drunk and spoiling for a fight. (Nautical terms in italics in the original).
Hence, the "queer" hairstyle that William observed in Gibraltar is the same hairstyle that Fanny is sporting.
Don't take my word for it. It is not at all difficult to research how people used the phrase "in the same trim" in Austen's time, or discover its nautical origins, thanks to Google Books and Google Ngram. Here are two contemporary examples of how the phrase "in the same trim" was borrowed from the nautical meaning and used in other situations. The Belfast Monthly Magazine of 1810 has an article discussing a strange medical “disorder” which causes the sufferers to take off all their clothes, “An old lady has assured me, that her daughter, who has been long sick, more than once practised going entirely naked in her own apartment; and that there have been many reasons to believe that some, in the last stage of the complaint, have it in contemplation to appear in public, in the same trim.” Here “in the same trim” means dressed (or undressed), the same way.
In Montgomery, or, the West Indian Adventurer (1812), the narrator describes a group of drunken young gentlemen who are carousing through the streets, annoying everyone, who “unexpectedly, on turning a corner of a street, encountered a party of drunken sailors, whom they also very considerately wished to steer clear of; but the intrepid tars, seeing them to be much in the same trim with themselves, and being as fond of a row as they could wish, bore up along side and grappled with our party; a running fight soon ensured…” Here, we can see that “in the same trim” means “in the same condition,” i.e. drunk and spoiling for a fight. (Nautical terms in italics in the original).
Hence, the "queer" hairstyle that William observed in Gibraltar is the same hairstyle that Fanny is sporting.
| Queer Also, in Austen’s time, "queer" just meant “strange.” For that matter, I'm old enough to remember when people used "queer" to mean "strange" and "gay" to mean cheerful or festive. The authoritative Oxford English Dictionary states: “the noun 'queer' was first used to mean homosexual by the Marquess of Queensbury, in 1894. The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang says the adjective “queer” began to mean “homosexual” about 1914, mostly in the United States, and notes it was “derogatory from the outside, not from within,” a hint that it was being embraced as a self-description even then. All well after Austen's time. That is not to say that queer and homosexual people do not appear in the literature of the period. They do, and I've been saving up some interesting examples to share in a future post.  Another hairstyle that causes outrage: Billie Piper's anachronistic messy half-up hairdo in Mansfield Park 2007 | A British tar is a soaring soul, As free as a mountain bird... ...His bosom should heave and his heart should glow, And his fist be ever ready for a knock-down blow.... His foot should stamp, and his throat should growl, His hair should twirl, and his face should scowl; His eyes should flash, and his breast protrude, And this should be his customary attitude. "A British Tar" from Gilbert & Sullivan, HMS Pinafore, 1878 |
Is this simply a question of interpretation, as in, you have your interpretation and I have mine? Just turning a scholarly lens on gender? Just asserting, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that Austen intended a heretofore undetected double meaning? Just pandering to the interests of a certain demographic? (Although I doubt it's the demographic that might leave a big bequest to the Jane Austen House Museum in their wills. That's an entirely different demographic.)
I think it’s a question of understanding the context, and understanding that the meaning and usage of words changes over time.
Update: Hollywood pop star Ariana Grande also misunderstands that the meaning of the word "queer" has changed. And, a thoughtful essay on queer interpretations of Austen, also via Jane Austen House Museum. "Queer" in the modern sense, that is.
Previous post: What Has Been, part 2
I think it’s a question of understanding the context, and understanding that the meaning and usage of words changes over time.
Update: Hollywood pop star Ariana Grande also misunderstands that the meaning of the word "queer" has changed. And, a thoughtful essay on queer interpretations of Austen, also via Jane Austen House Museum. "Queer" in the modern sense, that is.
Previous post: What Has Been, part 2
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