I agree with you
Posted by Bonny on August 14, 1998 at 07:34:19:
In response to Villainous Richard?, written by Stolzi on August 12, 1998 at 10:08:31
] There's also the possibility that this is part of the satire upon the Gothic. "Richard" is a very plain and ordinary name, after all, not like "Udolpho" or "Adrian" or "Cholmondeley" or whatever.
] What goes against this, however, is that as far as I recall there is no commentary upon the excessively ordinary names of other characters, e.g. "Catherine" and "Henry."
and you give me a chance to propose some more reasons for my pet theory, though i don't have the proper facts gathered at this time
- In "Love and Friendship" the dual heroines "realize" that they could never identify with the sensible cottager(?) girl, as she is plain, stocky & has never read Sorrows of Werther etc., but also that they could expect nothing better of her because her name was "Bridget".
- In a JA bio, I believe it was Tomalin's, an anonymous contribution to James austens newsletter The Idler?),which jokily requests more stories about young lovers with elegant names, is hypothetically attributed to JA herself. This would also be a "family joke."
My point is that JA has mocked the gothic genre & the very element you suggest before, in her juvenile period just before NA was written in 1970's.
Can search for the precise facts if you wish to make this fledgling theory more respectable.
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