Hear, hear!
Posted by Patrick on January 29, 1998 at 17:01:18:
In response to Not even here is here, written by Helen on January 29, 1998 at 11:09:38
Helen:
[snip]
] Because for me, the passion and the polite form in which it is conveyed are linked together intrinsically. JA chose to write in this particular style. She could have given us the passion a la Mrs Radcliffe, Walter Scott, or even Byron.
Patrick:
But are they linked in the sense that the polite form amplifies or supports the message about passion? Do you mean that the form itself calls attention to what JA is arguing against?
Helen:
I think Caroline is right: information about the world in which she lived is very relevant here. For instance, you say elsewhere that even the marriage of Elizabeth and Darcy is not fundamental to the special nature of their relationship. But I can think of several other novels written during this period about extra-marital relationships which enjoyed publication...
Patrick:
Have these novels received the same judgment of history - have they survived, are they still being read, made into films? Or was notoriety their chief selling-point? Were they at all didactic?
Helen:
...and other women who would be quite happy to see all marriage abolished as a social form which gets in the way of relationships between individuals.
Patrick:
But were those other women in any way obsessed with the idea? That is, did they attribute every woman's misfortune to the institution of marriage? My point is that, for JA, marriage was not important. No need to get rid of it, since that would probably upset people. But don't build your life around marriage per se (as opposed to relationships).
Helen:
So the valorisation of marriage in her novels (ie. all her protagonists get a happy wedding), again, is a deliberate decision on her part.
Patrick:
Perhaps, but again, it may simply reflect the fact that she had no particular brief against marriage.
Helen:
] Now I'm going to make a plea: please, please please please please can we not get into the question of objective reality? If we do, we may as well all throw up our hands and go home.
Patrick:
I don't agree with the thesis here, but I am certainly willing to acknowledge the strong emotion behind the plea, and discuss something else :-)
Helen:
For meaningful debate to take place, we have to assume that it does, that we are sharing some form of rules of communication and relation of that communication to "real objects". We have to make assumptions, and yet negotiate the cracks in those assumptions when they appear - and this is something which, dare I say, human beings are very good at doing instinctively.
Patrick:
But let us negotiate, not to plaster up the cracks, of course, but to see through them to the world beyond. The assumptions are produced by our analytic selves. Through the cracks, we see the world of the unconscious. Happy thought, indeed. Cracking our assumptions is what art is all about, is it not?
Cheers,
Patrick
Posting followups to old messages is disabled; instead go to the main index and post a new message which mentions this one.
