And we are recording. Andrea Osorio. And we are recording. It's not Andrea
Osorio. And I was in German. Osorio. Odio. Una jornada. Yo no los odio.
Odio. Una jornada. Odio. It's like earlier. I hate this. Go away. Right.
Hello, Laura. No, Laura's gone. Laura was here. Now she's gone. No more
Laura. Maybe she'll come back. So. It's like the second year of course.
Everything else is here. Here we go again. So. Do we have any questions
about Pride? And. And prejudice. Either Pride or prejudice. You can ask
about it. You can hear it. You can still read it. But how do you not read
it for another course? No. I can see it. It is today. It's not. You're not.
Uh-huh. I couldn't. No. I couldn't. So I'm nervous. And I've been trying.
But. I think I need to brush it. Okay. So we have admitted dollars.
Everybody work. Hello, hilarious. Hello Antonio. Antonio is here, but I
could see it. Here. Sorry. Could you read my notes? Did you read my notes
or not? What did you try? Did you read my tutorials? You normally. So you
are completely fresh. You are an adult, an innocent student. Hello,
Antonio. Can you hear me, Antonio? Yes, I can hear you. Okay. So I will
start with my questions. Do you have any questions? No, no. You're just
absorbing the engine and the cartridge at the end. And, well, it's a little
good. Good. Any questions, Paola, Antonio? You seem to have lost somebody,
didn't you? No. No more questions. Paola, any questions? Hi. Can you hear
me? Yes, perfect. Great. I read Pride and Prejudice like last year, so I
don't really remember. But I guess I will have some question at some point,
probably. Okay. Well, just stick. Hand up or shout, and we will do that.
Right. Okay. So first question. What's wrong with the film versions? The
film versions. You can say two things, I think, specifically, which tend to
go wrong. The actresses are generally much older. Good. Okay. Than the
characters. The actresses, as often happens, tend to be too old to be the
young women that they are interpreting. Also, I think something which a
little bit in a different sort of way, a little bit like with Frankenstein,
Because it's visual, there's a huge amount of emphasis on the visual, on
the clothes, on the nice country houses and things that you see, which is
logical in a film. And one of the defining characteristics, I would say, of
Jane Austen is that she's not really interested in the visual. You get very
little physical description. And for example, in this book, we don't get
very much more than the description of Pembla, the description of Pembla's
bags, if you will. But it doesn't go much beyond that. Clive and Potiphar,
like Beowulf, How am I going to finish the sentence? Clive and Potiphar,
like Beowulf, like Le Monde d'Arthur, like The Fairy Queen, can be read as
a moral codebook. What is its focus? It's a moral codebook? Yes. Well, we
would hope so, in a novel. At least the protagonists. And that is not like
Beowulf. Beowulf, nobody changes. Everybody has their fixed character in
Beowulf. And they go to their deaths with their fixed character. There are
lots of people hiding behind the screen, not willing to answer. OK. Really,
it's a moral codebook of rational love. Rational love. So what can we
relate that to from the first year? What that we have seen in the first
half of the course. Sorry, it's not the first half. It used to be the first
half of the same course. Now they're two different courses. But anyway, it
doesn't matter. What we saw last term, could we relate to a codebook of
rational love? The proviso sin? Sorry? The proviso sin? From a way of the
world? Interesting. Not what I was thinking of. But very true. OK, that's
interesting. I mean, you will obviously because these are two different
courses, you will not be asked this type of question. I'm just asking you
because it's interesting. And it will help you to . Right. But I mean,
we're very much in the transition period. Of course, we're talking 100
years later than the way of the world. We'll come to that. But this is the
transition between the idea of a completely sort of business type
relationship, which was the reality in Shakespeare's time. However much
Shakespeare was interested in love at first sight and people dying for love
and this type of thing. That was absolutely standard amongst the nobility
in Shakespeare's time. And we've had this gradual transition towards
finding a good partner. And it's not necessarily the parents having all the
say. Parents still have. Yeah. Right. OK. Yeah. Right. And to some extent,
women are the same in all of us. So, yes. I'm sorry. You're saying that the
parents are the same. Yeah. Yeah. And so they, the, they, they manage the
situation to get some kind of release. Right. I'm sorry, I had to remember
to repeat things that I said in class because the microphone is not that
sophisticated. So, yeah, just the idea that there is a negotiation between
Mirabelle and. Yes. OK. Mi-la-ma. It's a name that I don't know. Mi-la-ma.
Do you know why the name is not? Yes. This is my age. Or something. I've
just erased the last time. Okay, yes. Mi-la-ma. Yes. they come to a
negotiation for how to create a mature lasting relationship neither of
which is what I was thinking about yeah the last quote that we read last
semester that could be related to the idea of the treaties of rational love
yes okay so what I'm thinking of is the contrast between a vindication of
the life of a woman and of course Mary Wollstonecraft I remember her name
and her life and of course what we have here is a sort of playing out of
very very similar ideas to the ideas that Wollstonecraft was presenting if
not actually living so there is that side of things how would we so who
represents a good example of rational love who represents a bad example of
rational love in this novel you haven't read well it's not really love it's
rational love so it's settling if you like for somebody to be Right. Yes, I
think very much so. Right, right. So it is settling for a type of survival
which is bearable because she has made sure, she makes sure, rather like
somebody else, that she has her own space. Who is in a similar situation of
having their own space and therefore being able to live with, stand there,
put up with a pretty unbearable spouse? I think there's a very clear
parallelism that's meant to be there between these two characters having
their own space. Which allows them to sort of be themselves and just escape
from their spouse in that sort of sense. And so who do we have as examples
of good rational love when people get it right? Steve Hammond. Right. Steve
Hammond. He's a very good and good man. Okay, so this is all very, very
easy when you're young. Right. What about, is it possible when you're older
or is this just a fantasy of Western sexual pairing? I hope it's not. So,
but what does Jane Austen say? I think Jane Austen is different. How does
she say it? I think she sets up these spoils eventually. And is there a
relationship which answers the question? I think. Does she offer us an
example of an older couple who function, it was in the context of Russian
love? Yes. It's not the first, it's the others. It's the others. Good. The
others. Right. What are the others called? You know this. Right. Good. My
point. Okay. Right. So, what are the other couples? There is this idea of
having this couple. I mean, we don't see that much of them, certainly in
the past, but they obviously increase in importance and they are an example
of a target to a young couple because there's respect, there's
companionship, there's economic stability. There's all of these things
which Jane Austen is saying are necessary to have a good lasting
relationship. And our bad examples, do we have any more bad examples? No.
fell in love. According to Pastor? I didn't say anything about attraction.
He was physically attracted to her. But it was just that. Presumably she's
someone younger who's physically attracted to her but there's absolutely no
companionship. There's absolutely no friendship. There's no, if they're not
interlateral equals. And that is a recipe for disaster. And the book is
saying there's a recipe for disaster for them. Well, whatever. But it's a
recipe for disaster for their children. How do we know it's a recipe for
disaster for their children? Right. Yes. You can. So. You can tell them all
that. Because father avoid his responsibility. Father trying to escape from
his wife. Okay, let's play a game which you're most allowed to play in your
own families. But you are allowed to play in fictional countries. Um. How
can we, what group of these children? Jane and Ruthie. Mm-hmm. Mary.
Mm-hmm. Kitty and Maria. Okay. So. What can we say about the parental
relationships between Jane and Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Ruthie. Sorry,
not Kitty and Ruthie. Kitty and Lydia. I think you meant Lydia. Yes. Lydia.
The engine. The engine. She's very obvious. She is, she considers to be the
smartest, the most clever person that you actually can converse with.
Mm-hmm. Um. Whereas Mrs. Benning, part of her is getting rid of
particularly, is the apple of her eye. Okay. So. What can we deduce about
the parenting of these late adolescents, young women? Depending on who I'm
actually talking about. It's very uneven and mostly driven by their own
motivations. Okay. What can we say? Sorry? Right. What can we say about the
Bennett's relationship while for most of Elizabeth and Jane's when they
were born and their early childhood? Well, let's still open it for a sec,
sure. But we can assume that this, that early, early part of the childhood
was a moment of the parents having something in common. Like a decent
relationship. Yeah, having a decent relationship and such sort. Yeah. And,
and Mr. Bennett being involved in, like her을 that she's not one of her
mother's favorites. Ask are, She's desperate to try to be inside the group.
but it's just horrible. It's being put out. You know, married. For me,
quite clearly. But, I mean, she is the one who's, through no fault of her
own, is entirely sort of ignored. I mean, there's some suggestion at the
end of the novel that her elder sisters take some sort of interest in her,
but, I mean, she's left with her parents, etc., etc. She's not in a very
good way, in that sort of sense. Who are the J-knights, and why are they a
problem? Who are the J-knights, and why are they a problem? Even though
I've read my tutorial. Paula, or Antonio, have you read my tutorial notes?
Not yet. That would be no. Right, okay. So, this is the only way you're
liking to be out of date. After this, you get further and further behind.
Okay. The J-knights. The J-knights is a term invented by Roger Kipchick. I
think there is actually one of his short stories. It's called The
J-knights, which is talking about military officers in India who are
obsessed about Jane Eyre. But, J-knight more generally refers to people who
treat Jane Eyre as a type of non-religious bible, as it were. Jane Eyre.
Nick is having problems today. Yes, she treats Jane Eyre's oeuvre as some
type of miracle work that goes beyond any other type of fiction. It's just
wonderful. And, obviously, Jane Austen is not a bad writer. But, we
probably should not be considering her outside the context. There is a
similar sort of hyperbole about Jane Austen as we get about Shakespeare.
Shakespeare was a writer of his time. He was a very great writer of his
time, but there are other great writers of his time. it didn't come out of
the number in that sort of sense. In 2000, which when I started teaching
this course was very recently, it's not so recently now. But, anyway, in
2007, and I'm sure this has been replicated since then, British people were
asked by the BBC, I think possibly the BBC Radio 4, but I can't remember
who, to name the book They Could Not Live Without. And Private Prejudice
handsomely meets the bible. It was significantly more people's who said
that they could not live without private prejudice than people who said
they could not live without the bible. It probably says more about British
people than anything else. But, I mean, is certainly, it is easy to read,
and if there are more jokes, it's more funny, etc. But, that's hyperbole
about private prejudice and Jane Austen. Jane Austen. That is a problem
because it impedes our literary also, this is where this book fails. So
where can we say this is where this purpose fails? Everyone's unhappy now.
What are the limitations of private prejudice? Okay, so lack of social
depth. And we have people beforehand, I think, for example, Mariah Ishworth
and other people who are writing novels with a much more complete social
depth. So it's not just that's how people wrote at this time. There are
people already who are including a greater level of social depth. And the
reality is that if you fall below the Bennett's, you will fall into
oblivion. You just simply don't exist. And we know about as much of that
discernment in, for example, the Bennett's household as we would about
somebody's washing machine or their dishwasher or their tumble dryer or
whatever, their air fryer. So the latest graduate is in a house today. They
simply don't exist as human beings. Even there's a couple of people in
Rosling's Park who are named, but there's nothing more than that, et
cetera, et cetera. Yeah. But we don't get anything really about these
people. And that can be a social attitude. And that, to some extent, is a
social attitude. And obviously, you have everybody from Charlotte to the
Bennett's mother, et cetera, et cetera, who are desperate not to lose
social status because that would mean they fell out of the gentry class, et
cetera. But the other people do exist. And it's interesting that. I think
that whenever we have a film version of these things, we have coach men
waiting outside with their coaches at four and dancers and all this type of
thing. It's necessary for us to be able to relate to one of these things.
OK. Let me re-read that. There is a commentary on that as well because of
the whole, the disdain for those who made their money in trade or the
lawyers. There's that line where they say something like, money in trade.
You've got to put this up and you're all into jobs that are the same amount
of work. Right. So where is your disdain for that? Yeah. But I mean,
there's an attempt because they're in the same situation. OK. So you're
only OK, at least you make money. Yeah. So I mean, with the Phillips and
with the gardeners, there is that element. But they are somebody. They are
people. They are people who in a next generation would have access to this
obsession on the part of Mr. Phillips, the fact that he's sort of met the
chain and this sort of thing. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm getting very
confused today. I did not speak very much. I didn't say anything. You have
to check everything I said today. It may not be true. What else can we say?
So a last question. Lack of social depth. Ella? Yeah. I was, you know, an
adolescent. But I almost think that it makes marriage seem like the only
real way out. So living as such a strong individual. Yeah. I think that the
pen and paper or strong being a character could almost be more of a
character to end up striking out on the whole. Doing that. OK. That's a lot
of information. OK. It's women eating the numbers, but it's also reality at
the time. That these women, like Charlotte Lucas, really growing, getting a
stability for their adult life through marriage. Right. I mean, I think
probably Jane Austen would see herself in one sense as a failure. She does
not present us with a single successful female writer. But I mean, writing
is a way out. And in fact, practically nobody does of the women writers.
You would think women writers would be writing a little bit about
themselves. And there are very, very, very few women writers at this time.
And the whole of the first half of the 19th century who gave characters
were successful women writers. We're going to see Aurora Lee written
exactly mid-century. And that does have a successful female writer, etc.
But that was pretty radical and quite shocking. OK. And that would have
been too bad. Well, I think that's the decision. Yeah. I'm sure. But I
mean, they exist. We have Anne Ratcliffe. We have Tammy Merling. We have
these people that to your and Barbara's team, generally speaking, actually
sort of earning a living from their books. But they do exist. But Austen
does not present us with them. So, yeah, I mean, I think. And so the real
options for a. A. A listening type figure. Ladies companion. And we see how
awful that is in Rosby Park. We have a governess for the author of the
Victorians that got absolutely obsessed about this is in general. And we
have a school teacher. And so we have a lot of pointing towards that in
Wuthering Heights. Which of course we're going to read in a couple of
months. But all of those things are a fall out of the gentry class. You
become sort of pathless in a weird way if you become a governess or a
ladies companion or a school teacher. And to a large extent, you. It's the
worst option possible. The worst option possible is prostitution or
something like that. But. But you're going to be rejected by the servants.
And you're going to be rejected as not really one of us. So you might. I
mean, there may be moments when you are a sort of pet like we saw with more
flowers. But you're not going to be rejected. As a companion figure in her
when she was a teenager. But you're never going to be one of us. And you're
never going to be one of the servant class. Because you're sort of seen as
the in between. So that's not really a very good option. Having having a
man with an enormous house, a good income who respects you intellectually.
And you're going to have a whole wing of the building. Where you get lost.
And of course, economic stability, etc. But I'm enough of a intellectual
equality to actually have a meaningful relationship. When sort of. Affluent
love converts into companionship. That will work. So, yes, I mean, from a
modern point of view. Lizzie should be able to get educated, get trained in
something and be able to become an independent woman. And that would be
what we would like to see happen to her. That is the version of this, which
is written in this diary. But it's not the an option here. OK, what else
can you say that is wrong with this novel? How is it worth reading this?
You're leaving. I think that George Wiggover is OK. It goes into a constant
crisis with an enemy of the characters. Aha, interesting. Mr. Collins ends
up with a technical problem. George Wiggover ends up being stable. But he
doesn't want what he was doing. And he was embarrassed. Interesting.
Because you see George Wiggover as the villain of the piece. It's hard to
even find someone else to leave it alone. Is it really what I'm hearing? I
have a villain. Who? Mr. Bennett. I think he's just casually selfish.
Exactly. But the Wiggover is in a... Wiggover can be seen as a victim of
his circumstances. In the sense that... I know he can sense them. Without
marrying her. OK. He... She can sense them in a way, doesn't she? Of course
she can sense them. But... Right. It's not that he knows Apple. Sure. But I
think that he has less control over the circumstances. He has a huge
problem that... He has been educated as a gentleman without the resources
to be a gentleman. If he finds a job, he stops being considered a member of
the gentry. And so, all of his decisions are based on trying to behave in
the way that you all see as completely acceptable for a young woman to
behave. He's just doing the same but being a man. That's interesting. I
love that. Yeah, the young... The young... ... But he has a relatively
small amount of money and being a member of Young Milk with a Gentry means
gambling and drinking and behaving like this. This is how you are a member
of the Young Milk membership. ... We wouldn't really know about his vices
just because he has so much money that it's not going to be that relevant.
You'd have to be a serious, serious whatever you say, ludicrous or whatever
and drinker, etc. to waste his ... I'm sure it's possible. And Baron's
father managed it. That's a different question. Okay. My second weakness in
this novel would be a lack of anchoring. What do I mean by that? ... What
that refers to is that these people are floating in a sort of nebulous
moment where it's gone. They're not actually within a particular society.
And so ... during ... ... Okay, but I mean you could say that for the
appealings. You could have said that in my childhood. ... That's not very
specific to make an anti-French comment. We have a period of time in which
we have ... ... that this is tied down in any historical context. This
could be happening at the same time, when it was written, when it was
published, when the first version was written, or 50 years earlier, and we
wouldn't be very much surprised. We don't have newfangled inventions and
things like that. Well, we do have them. So you're saying, but do you
anyway? Anyway, we do have them, for example, in some of Mrs. Gathgill's
writing, for example, which is slightly later, and there's a mention of the
invention of Christmas cards that you buy instead of making them yourself,
and this type of thing. And there is the train is arriving to the village,
and how that's going to change the dynamics of the village, all this type
of thing. Just sort of, you know, it's just... I think that's a choice as
well, because the reason for it is that it is a tea cup. But that would
make it more, if you like, related to the world of fantasy rather than the
world of the novel. One of the aspects of what we understand as novels is
that they tend to be tied down in social and historical context. And you're
going to get, you're going to get that much more in the historical novels
of Walter Scott and in the social novels of Dickens. We know when things
are happening and that's related to the public face. Yeah. Yeah, I mean,
there's, you could say, I mean, this is, to some extent, village life, and
maybe a weekly newspaper does not reach the village every week. But...
Yeah, the fact that things, things that brings down, die, a kid goes mad,
that sort of thing, it's sort of relevant to you. And just some sort of
change. I mean, another thing that we can criticise this novel about, for
example, in compared to Walter and Pat Norwood, I'm not talking about
Walter and Pat Norwood. That's confusing me. I didn't mean to speak more.
Is, but also... Is, is the fact that there are seasons. If this is a rural
community, and it is a rural community, and although everyone we are
dealing with doesn't get their hands dirty, really, in anything rural,
apart from maybe feeding a few chickens, occasionally, and shallows, and
that sort of thing, what we do have is a situation where in that type of
community, summer, autumn, winter, spring, are different seasons. And I
mean, this is almost like modern urban living. Almost like for us, where we
hardly notice the seasons. Remember that the seasons until the invention of
sexual heating and all the rest of it was a time where a significant, it's
not a large fraction, but a significant part of the population died of the,
because of the cold, because of a lower amount of food, etc. And that's
still the case in Britain at this time. Seasons are actually something that
matter. This is not obviously the Anglo-Saxons, it's not the situation
where people are selling their children to slavery or eating their children
or whatever, because there's absolutely no food around. But there is a
dramatic difference in terms of abundance, in terms of how you feel, what
sort of clothes you have to wear. I am sitting here, well, I just
disappeared from the screen. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sitting here in shirt
sleeves because of the type of building that we live in. That would simply
not be possible at this time. So that is something that is surprising
because that would certainly be part of Jane Austen's life. And that's not
something that somebody in the city writing about the countryside, she
would have had that experience. There are farm activities happening around
the, the Boston household. And the other thing is what's called, which to
some extent encapsulates all of these things. Austen's small world
syndrome. What we have here, and elsewhere in Austen, is three or four
families interacting. And it doesn't go beyond that. I mean, there is,
there's very little interaction with people who are, further away. Even
when you have a thing with Fitzwilliam, Colonel Fitzwilliam, coming into
the story, he's a parson, and it was this type of thing. There's just not
enough people around that you like, and everybody's rather interrelated,
and this is all terribly, terribly, terribly incestuous in that sense.
Literally, they don't tend to be very much interrelated. There is a
parochialness about urban life in England at this time, but it wouldn't be
quite that bad. Everything's a little bit too convenient. That's the way
that all of that works. Yeah, obviously, difference and things like that,
something like the Vicar of Wakefield, Stephen Wakefield. Yeah, I think
that's the worst in terms of coincidence. You just have to have a different
attitude about coincidences at this time. I mean, it's true that people's
worlds were smaller, and as I've commented to you now half a dozen times,
for me, what is incredible is that you have been a single group of people
who network, who basically all know each other. We have everybody from
Prince Albert, the Queen Victoria's husband, to the great, greatest
painters of the time, to the greatest artists, to the greatest writers of
the time. Everybody's known, and scientists. There's a connection between,
there's actually quite a close connection between William Godwin, the
father of modern anarchism, unless you want to say that, but I don't, and
Prince Albert. I mean, that's pretty weird that there's so much connection
within society. You can't sort of imagine all of the artists in, for
example, contemporary Spain, all of the writers, all of the scientists, the
royal family, and the chief leaders of radical politics all basically
interacting socially to one sense or another with each other in a time. You
could happily exterminate 99% of the English population in theory at this
time, and the cultural difference would be minimal. Obviously, there the
people who do all the work and create all the wealth and allow for the
culture to happen. But what I mean is it's a tiny group of people who are
actually creating what we understand as the culture at this time. So, I
will stop criticising. I'm joking, I still am. How does the work reflect
the time in which it was written? Well, there's a first version which is
called First Impressions, which is written at the very end of the 18th
century. And then the version that we have is, I think it's polished off
and finished, as it were, by, what was it, 1814, 1813, 1814? 1814. Okay, so
I mean just really most of what I was saying there. And we could argue that
there is a, that there is probably a lack of mass media arriving in rural
England, so there's some level of realism in this lack of knowledge about
national and international politics. Well I mean it's also when I worked
with sort of the script models. No, perhaps. Intertextuality, which works
may have influenced the writer? What, which novel could this novel be a
parody of? Of which novel could Pride and Prejudice be considered a parody?
is just really bloody long. And then his third great novel is Sir Charles
Glanderson. And Sir Charles Glanderson was Jane Austen's mother's favourite
novel. And what we have in Sir Charles Glanderson is the presentation of
the perfect nobleman, the perfect noblest or liege or whatever the idea of
an aristocrat who looks after his underlings, looks after the people who
are in his care, but doesn't interfere in their lives is helpful, is the
sort of patrician class, this idea of the perfect patrician, which possibly
has existed sporadically, occasionally, very occasionally in some
countries. I mean, there is, you can imagine this, I'm just trying to
think, there's possibly some suggestion of this in the film Belle Époque.
There doesn't tend to be, do you remember Belle Époque? But it's perfectly
possible that he can have, probably we wouldn't use the word catheque, but
somebody who is a moral aristocrat, who actually looks after his people,
etc., etc. the points of cynicism in this novel, what is the moment in
which we're given an option for cynicism? Well, okay. Okay, well that's
irony. If we were to say all of these supposedly high ideas about Lizzie
and then we actually see the reality, where would we see it? What would be
the moment in this novel where we see that? Well, it could be argued from a
cynical perspective that Lizzie is no better than Charlotte. Right. When
she's asked, when was the moment that you knew that you were in love with
him? And she says, my first prospect of him or something like that. That
means she can hear it. Quite possibly. First excuse for Lizzie is she's
being ironic about herself. And this is probably a factor that has factored
in. We are talking about somebody who has a very, very big house and a lot
of land. And this famous 10,000 a year that we all have to refer to. So
she's very big in science. How else could we justify her? I mean, if this
is, this could be self-sensitive. She could be being oversimplified about
herself. Fair enough. But how else, if this is a sincere comment, could we
let her off on this comment? I feel like it's a pretty mercantile. I don't
think she is. I disagree with this interpretation. But how could we, how
could we say that her first prospect of Pemberton, Pemberley, all my names
are going wrong today. I think I need to have, I need to see a
psychiatrist. Or just need to do more. How can we say, that her first view
of Pemberley could be a good justification for her attitude? She said to
me, after, after she was one, she said to me, that every person should be
as important. When, when she, she raised her hand. Before she was one.
Yeah. In the, in the middle of the night. She was, no. He's definitely
getting But then, when it happens, Lydia was born. She can. because of
that. But she, she, she has not seen, I mean, it, it can be, it makes sense
in the novel that she falls in love with him literally when she sees
Pemberley. Because that is, chronologically, that makes sense. Because
she's rejected him before, and she accepts him after. How can we justify
that attitude? Okay. Complex compare Rosalind Park as Pemberley. The dark
inside and lacking in taste. Sure. Right. Pemberley is the perfect 18th
century landscape garden house. It's a house which is well-ordered, is
beautiful, talking to a servant who does not have any idea about who that
is. Yeah. Who talks about him. Yeah. So, when she sees Pemberley, she
actually sees that this is a good patrician. In contrast to the bad
patrician or matrician or whatever they were, the female patrician that is
Lady Catherine de Bourgh. I think also that it's really she's a good
patrician. Yeah, sure. Sure, sure, sure. But, that, of life. The fact that
what she has seen of him. Yeah. But, she has seen him as somebody who
projects himself as above everybody else. But he's, but quite, but quite
clearly he is somebody who will speak far more willingly on an equal level
with the gardeners than any being legal. And, and treats his servants
properly. So, he's more aware of his responsibilities than his privileges.
And that is a good sign for a future husband. So, another, so let's get
back to criticism in this novel. What is the weakest moment in this novel?
What is the moment in this novel which just doesn't really seem to work
with the rest of the novel? And how can we find an excuse which you
desperately need to for Jane Austen? Why? Why would she not do this?
Because she's, because she trusts somebody else to do it for her? Who's
speaking the same? Who's speaking the same? To some extent, but she, I
mean, the belief on this, if you can say that, is much greater. She's
accepted this young woman into her house. So, she is on speaking terms with
him. So, I mean, Yeah, I think, I don't believe that is possible. She's so
outraged by this idea that what she has decided is the future, which is her
wedding plans for her daughter are being scuffled by this upstart girl,
which is the way that she sees it. I think it's possible that she would
swallow her pride and go and just tell her to stop being so ridiculous and
thinking about her station. No. You've read this part. You can participate,
I imagine. Did you get as far as the first dance? Did you get as far as the
first dance? In your reading, have you read the first ball, the first time
there is a public dance? The first part. Yes. Okay. So you've read the
part. What happens at the first dance? Nothing, we could argue. Nothing in
what we see of Bingley after that would suggest that somebody who is so...
so rude to say within earshot of somebody that she's a rioter. Not exactly
a temptation. Which effectively is what he says. He's basically saying,
okay, yeah, whatever, about her. And he says that within earshot of her.
How can we forgive Darcy that? How can we come back to a situation where we
think we're not seeing Elizabeth's sacrifice? But we think, yes, they could
be an appetite. Also, there's two pieces of life. It's our demonstration of
the practice of words and actions to be very honest and be very
uncomfortable. He doesn't know. It's a good question. Right. Can we go
beyond to this? Yes. Exactly. What a lot of people with psychological
training say about this character is that he is on the autism spectrum. In
the sense that if you actually go through when he's at home, he's
infinitely more relaxed in the context that he controls. If he's in social
certainty, he doesn't control. He says things which are socially out of
place, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. He isn't very good with words. He's
intellectual, but he's not very good with words. He's not very good. He's
evilly embarrassed, but he doesn't hold that against people. There's all
sorts of ways that we can construct. Now, this is a fictional character.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And autism was not something that was
understood at this time. But there are elements that could be taken from
that. There are some that don't. But I mean, you said go that far, but it's
a spectrum. There are people of high function in that sort of situation.
And the solution in that situation tends to be sort of being rigid and sort
of, and that can come across as being furious, not wanting to get along.
Not knowing all the little social cues that we're meant to give to make
other people feel relaxed. And so, if there is an element of that not fully
formed, because that figure just did not exist in anybody's mind at this
time. It's very interesting what we can see of probing towards
neurodiversity from this time on in literature. For example, in a poem
which is called The Idiot Boy, which is not a very nice title, but, yeah,
that we have a compassionate description of a child we're dancing. And that
is the first time in world literature, which at the same time, this is
words were writing before the promise. Now we have somebody dancing and
being described in literature. So, there is, you know, that's psychological
side of this whole, I mean, of course, the modern day, full fledged
psychological literature. The great expo is Mark Haddon, that was The
Curious Case of the Dog in the Night and Polar Bears. And I mean, he's a
novelist who is specialised in neurodiversity, all sorts of different types
of, neurodiversity. And it's, I mean, this is a very fertile field. And it
is very, very interesting when somebody has the maturity, the subtlety and
the empathy to actually fully imagine being different, neurodiverse in
different ways. I think he probably will be considered one of the major
writers of our time, when people come to decide on the history of our
literature. But anyway, that's another. Another question. Where does Austen
get her title? The title of this novel is, correct, one point. Where does
this come from? Right, we have the binomial Pride and Prejudice in a
previous novel. I'm still on intertextuality. I'm still on the first page
of my notes. There. The whole of this unfortunate business, said Dr Lister,
has been the result of pride and prejudice. If to pride and prejudice you
own your pizzeries, so wonderfully is good and evil balanced, that to pride
and prejudice you will also own their termination. So we have three
mentions of the binomial Pride and Prejudice. In one paragraph in the
novel, Cecilia written by, I mentioned it, Fanny Boehner, Franz O'Gwenner.
Okay, so when we talked about women writers, et cetera, I did, or at least
in the notes, there was a bit about Fanny Boehner. He's a very interesting
character, as far as I'm concerned, in real history, it's interesting.
There is also the possibility that this may have some relationship to a
book which is called Self-Knowledge. Of course, Self-Knowledge, knowing
yourself, that sort of stoic ideal is hugely important in this novel. The
fact, the problem, as stated specifically by Lizzie, is sort of until this
moment, I didn't know myself. That's very important. That idea of she is,
she sets herself up as this young woman, and sort of, I think, means a very
young woman, as this late, someone with a great knowledge of character. And
she has some knowledge of character, but she has much less than she thinks.
And anyway, this book called Self-Knowledge by John Mason, which was
published in 1745, says, self-knowledge indeed does not enlarge or increase
our national capacities, but it guides and regulates them. Leads us to the
right use and application of them, and removes a great many things which
obstruct their due exercise, such as pride, prejudice, and passion, et
cetera, which oftentimes so miserably pervert the rational practice. So
there's this idea again, that the rational powers, the reasoning human
being, in contrast to these factors like pride, prejudice, and passion. And
I mean, one could easily, there would be no real problem in calling this
pride, prejudice, and passion, unless you are Charlotte Montague. Charlotte
Montague was very nasty about this. Surprisingly. Yes. Because she says
that the problem with Janet Mann is that she's completely passionless.
Nothing is there to ruffle people's, I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but
basically nothing is there to ruffle people's passions more than a puddle
on the pathway, you know, like referred to when, Lizzie is going to see
Jane in, Yeah. My name's, My name's, yeah. My name's a little something to
me. But there's, so I mean, we, but from our perspective, there is
certainly a level of passion and we could describe the situation of Lydia
running away as related to passion. So we could, we could, she could easily
have called it pride, prejudice. This, this for British people, this is
like what I would say to people about the pandemic, the pandemic in
Britain. Here it's called social distancing. In Britain it's called, yeah.
This is what we do anyway. Nice distance between us. Anyway, where does she
get the truth that is universally acknowledged? This idea of a universally
acknowledged, you know, truth from. And I don't, and I don't think that
there's a great deal of influence from the, from the Russians until the
very end of the Victorian period. From, from the very end of the Victorian
period, and certainly, modernists begin to say, wow, look what the Russians
have been doing. And even that is, the Russian 19th century literature is
the great contribution of Russia to world culture. I think we can say, but
that we should really recognize the British as well. So the integration of
man, the U.S. integration. No, no, I say, what the Russians' great
contribution, the part of, Well, No, no. The phrase is used in theory of
moral sentiments. Theory of moral sentiments by 1759, before the American
Revolution, by Adam Smith. By the way, I don't know if you have any. This
is, the universally acknowledged truth, is very much like what Donald Trump
says, everybody says, nobody knew that. There's what we would call in
Latin, the consensus gentium, the idea that there is a shared value between
the two, there's a shared truth that is referred to there. And that
expression universally acknowledged, truth was used there by Adam Smith and
is used throughout this treatise by Smith. We've got a new guy who is,
yeah, I'm sorry, he's the father of economics or certainly political
economy. Actually, much less neoliberal than a lot of neoliberals would
like to complain. It's political economy. There is a political aspect to
it. But yes, the wealth of nations is some extent the starting point of
capitalism in its own philosophy. The famous scene at the beginning of the
novel when Darcy refuses to bring his proposal of an introduction to
Elizabeth Paradey's a similar scene in Bernie's Evelinda. So again, Fanny
Burney is there in the background as a great female writer that has to be
beaten, if you like, by Jane Austen, although I'm sure Jane Austen would
never express it in those terms, but she is the great female writer of the
novel. to be a male writer in English until that moment, until Joan Austen
comes in. Are there any other elements of metafiction in the novel?
Everybody happy with metafiction? So when in the book they talk about other
books? Right. Exactly. Four Dice of Silence, okay, which is very much in
the same sort of tradition as our old friend, what's her name? Oh yeah,
sorry. But an interesting conversation there also about the novel. I don't
know if you've been volunteering the lines, but Mary, Mary, Mary... No, is
it Mary? No, Moore. What's her name, Moore? Do you know who I'm talking
about? No. One of the blue stockings. Hannah Moore, Hannah Moore. That's
not the name of the book. Okay, it just takes time. Hannah Moore is very
much in the same sort of tradition. So we have this reactionary part of the
church is very, very closely related to conservative writers like Hannah
Moore. And so Collins quotes Four Dice when he says, there seems to be very
few in the style of novel that you can read with safety and yet fewer that
you can read with barter. So this, of course, is deeply ironic that a
novelist is writing. This about novels or quoting this about novels.
Obviously, that is not Jane Austen's voice. And we can assume that she can
assume that she would not share her audience with the chair. This otherwise
it wouldn't be her novels. This is a joke that can be shared between
everybody. How useful are conventional literary periods for understanding?
Is this the novel? Well, I think there's nothing to talk about. I'm not
talking about that type of context. I'm talking about the literary context.
This is the greatest novel written in the Romantic period. Is this in any
sense a representation of the Romantic period? You have two options. Yes.
There are certain elements of logic I would say not. Do you think anybody
can think of this as a But it's not even described at all in the way of the
romantics. No. This is the pinnacle of neoclassical literature. This is
neoclassical literature in terms of rationalism and all this type of thing,
the values of people like Pope achieved in this greatest expression as a
novel. After this, the novel begins to incorporate elements of the Gothic.
Oops. This is, So, I mean, we will see elements of the Gothic in early
Dickens. Well, a lot of different. We will see elements of the Gothic
certainly in Watering House, certainly in Jane Eyre, etc. The Gothic is
pretty much fully incorporated in. It's sort of like a different way of
expression. Yeah, I mean, we would have to have a sort of, there was the
problem, I think, to defend the people that they deal with, is we would
have been, if not, we would be in a situation of studying about the Gothic
and then doing nothing about it. But there's nothing really that's crucial
to literature apart from Frankenstein in the sense of this is a monument of
culture, albeit largely popular culture. And then you would have to read
three novels in this part of the course. So, yeah, I mean, what I suppose
what we could do would be to say the roots of the Gothic that we find in
Frankenstein go deep and all of that happens in this end of the course. And
the branches, if you like, of the Neoclassical are reached, I think,
actually later in the next century with Jane Austen. That would be a
reasonable way of looking at it. But if we understand that what we have in
the first year is what's called the long 18th century, and what we have in
the second year is Romantics and Victorians, which is largely what the
title suggests, then it's difficult to not go about this. But yes, I mean,
I fully understand what you're saying. Yeah. It's a little bit complicated,
but I mean, that is the messiness of literature. And I mean, you have, you
know, it's one of the problems we used to in the first year course, we used
to study people like Mary Roth, who was one of the first great women
songwriters who wrote a song called Urania. But she was writing
significantly after everyone else was writing the song. She was writing
when songs were deeply out of fashion. Yeah. I think it was 1630s. And she
is one of the people who have been rediscovered. I went by the people like
Catherine Phillips, writing poetry, which is good poetry, but it is rather
conservative in its forms. And so, as it was reduced down the syllabus,
some of these people, because they are, to some extent, they were included
because there's the female representations and there's nothing wrong with
that. But because they are rather out of their time period, whereas there's
no novelist in the neoclassical period who can compare with Jane Austen. So
it's completely legitimate to include. But literary periods are messy. I
think it's a miracle that humans like the category of their contributions.
I know. I mean, nobody at the same time, nobody achieved the level of
comedy and the incorporation of the amount of comedy that is in, especially
in the Queen's Bridge, which is perhaps more than her other novels. But I
think that that control of wit in the sense of irony and things, it
doesn't, nobody else does it as well. What genre does Pride and Prejudice
fall into? Fiction? Fiction is not a genre. I have four options. Build them
to a moan. Really to some extent, more so than Jane Eyre. Um. But because
Jane Eyre does sort of take you past her childhood. But there's an element
of this being the moment really of transition between a girl who thinks
she's a young woman actually becoming mature enough to be a young woman.
That period of transition, which is the fundamental focus of building this
moment. And. I mean, there's a lot of things that are happening. There's
nothing wrong with using the term to describe Jane Eyre. And this is one
area where you might, if you've got authentic, might want you to compare
the two things. So the, and we could even say, Pride and Prejudice are Rory
Lee and Jane Eyre as the woman's woman. And that would be really quite
interesting. That's interesting. But. Anyway. Um. We can see this is a
satirical novel. This is a satire going on here. A novel of manners that
were very, very much being described of how a particular social class
behaves. That's a very important part of it. And it, to some extent, is a
realist novel. It's most realist probably in the sense of how much the
dialogues and etc. are made believably. The way that people speak in
late-century novels is not as sophisticated and as believable as what we
get here. So there is an element of that. What aspects of the author's
personal life are relevant to the story? We have, we have basically about
seven minutes. So I don't know. I'll just tell you some of the other
questions that are here. And if anybody wants to talk about them, they can
say that one. Do any of the characters in the story corresponds to real
people? The answer is. The answer is in my notes. Is there a relationship
between the beginning and the end? Yes. This is a formalist approach would
be to say, how does the end of the novel relate to the beginning of the
novel? The same thing remains the same. It's the same thing like the
beginning of the same. Okay. What is. I don't know, but no, I think there
is a relationship, but I think it probably goes further than just saying
they talk about marriage in the end of the book. What are the major
misunderstandings that drive the story? Right. So the major
misunderstandings that drive the story. Right. So what does. What does she
misunderstand about the person? What does she what does she what are her
serious. Rights about Darcy? Why does she hate Darcy for the first time? I
mean, it's not really a question. Okay. I think also she feels like. She.
Her. Well, obviously your price. She has had her own self and on the night
of the whole. You've got to be. Interesting. I have three things that
relates directly to her. She's the. Bigly. Yes. She thinks that he has done
this because he despises the social position of the Bennetts, and it's not
the social position that motivates him. It's the fact that Mrs. Bennet is
unbearable. And so he can absolutely relate to Mr. Bennet, that's not the
problem. And can relate to the gardeners whose social positions lower the
Bennetts. And so, you know, the difference there is she realizes that the
mother surrogate in his life, Dathryn de Bourgh, is also an unbearable
woman, in a slightly different way, but they're both unbearable older
women. And she thinks that he has ruined Wickham's career without due
force. Because of those, her three misunderstandings of the nature of the
Bennetts. The drive, if you like, the story. So we gradually realize before
Elizabeth Blatt, which is one of the great things about the novel, that we
are a few steps ahead of her. We don't know, we're not on the crescent, but
we are a few steps ahead of her. Jane is so excessively demure, quite
preserved, you know, that Bingley does not know that she is in love with
him. So Jane has a responsibility in this situation. Two. The problem is
not with the Bingley's social class, but how uncommonly ill-bred Mrs.
Bennet, Lydia, Kitty and Mary are. So it's personal thing about Blatston.
And three. Dathryn's animosity to Wickham is amply justified. So it's the,
if you like, one way of understanding the novel is the process of clearing
up those misunderstandings. That is what happens. Two minutes to the noise.
You're on mute. You're disconvituated. Are there any coincidences? Yes,
coincidences. I think we're going to have to wait a little bit longer. Mr.
Collins just happens to be the clergyman of Zaza's Art. So the whole scene
in Cairns is set up. Good. Point two and point three. And point three. And
point three. The gardeners once lived in a small town near to the end.
Which is hundreds of miles away. But. Exactly. But within the
characteristics of novels of this time, that is not a terrible amount of
coincidence. That's compared to Dickens. I think that's a good point. That
is really quite a small amount of coincidence. That's pretty acceptable.
How does Boston use irony in Pride and Prejudice? That's too big a
question. You can read the notes. Can you identify any ambiguity or loose
ends in the text? So talking about the teleological paradox. That's the
word of the week. Are there any loose ends? Or is it sufficiently tied up?
Yeah. And there is a bit of a loose end as well. But it's reasonably well
tied up. Okay. So I have further questions in terms of meritology, the
philosophical approach, the psychological approach. The post-structuralist
approach, queer theory, echo criticism, all of which you can enjoy in the
notes which are in the post. Okay. I'm going to stop there.