The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

Edition: The Way We Live Now (Oxford World's Classics)

PUBLICATION HISTORY:

Trollope's The Way We Live Now was published in twenty monthly parts between 1874 to 1875 (serialization in parts was, by this time, anachronistic). The title references contemporary discussions on whether society was improving from a moral point of view or degenerating. Trollope's Autobiography situates his own commentary alongside that of contemporaries like Carlyle and Ruskin. Also in the Autobiography, Trollope writes that as he "ventured to take the whip of the satirist" in writing The Way We Live Now, he found himself satirizing more than just the "iniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody," but also "intrigues of girls who want to get married, the luxury of young men who prefer to remain single, and...the puffing propensities of authors who desire to cheat the public into buying their volumes." Reception of Trollope's novel was actually fairly negative, critics often charging it with poor form, despite current views of the work as possibly his best--more on this in the critical analysis section (Source: Lindsay Sullivan, LitEncyc). 

SUMMARY:

The novel begins with three letters written by Lady Carbury to three editors: Mr. Broune of the "Morning Breakfast Table," Mr. Booker of the "Literary Chronicle," and Mr. Alf of the "Evening Pulpit." She has recently completed a book called Criminal Queens and wishes for favorable reviews. Lady Carbury is a widow, whose son Sir Felix squandered away his inheritance, spending much of his time gambling and dining at the Beargarden club. Lady Carbury has high hopes, however, that Sir Felix will marry Marie Melmotte, the daughter of Mr. Augustus Melmotte, a wealthy financier of foreign origins with a "Bohemian Jewess" as a wife, and who had settled comfortably into the society of Grosvenor Square within a single year. Although it seems that the Melmottes have come to their money in shady ways (there were rumors of their being kicked out of Paris), all the important members of the aristocracy (including the Prince himself!) attend Madame Melmotte's ball. At the ball, Sir Felix makes some overtures towards Marie, though he isn't particularly enthusiastic: Marie is rather plain and unremarkable, after all. After the ball, Lady Carbury berates her daughter, Henrietta, for dancing with Paul Montague, a young man without immediate fortunes, but who is a partner along with his uncle and an American named Mr. Fisker at an investment firm. Lady Carbury wants Henrietta to marry Roger Carbury, a forty-year old cousin who owns a large country estate--in a word, a figure of "old money" who finds the wealth of "new money" like Melmotte's to be of disreputable character.

Roger Carbury and Paul Montague are also distantly related, and Roger has been something of a guardian figure for Paul in the absence of his deceased father and mother. The two are both in love with Henrietta, and so their relationship became strained. Henrietta has not admitted to loving Paul, but she steadily refuses Roger, telling him that she only likes him as a cousin. Meanwhile, Lady Carbury tries to get Roger to help her to regulate Felix's reckless gambling, but Felix is disrespectful to both his mother and Roger. Paul's partner Fisker has suddenly come to England, having decided independently of Paul that he wished to engage Melmotte in an investment scheme for a new railroad from San Francisco to Vera Cruz. Fisker uses Paul to get an invitation to see Melmotte, who ends up agreeing to putting his name to the scheme, since it is understood that he would not really be investing in the railroad per se but merely aiding in floating the shares of the railroad. Melmotte inspires confidence amongst other investors, and the scheme takes off, and ostensibly, the men will make money by puffing up the railroad and selling their shares for profit. Before leaving to go back to San Francisco, Fisker attends the Beargarden club and wins some money from gambling. Because Fisker clearly doesn't take the claims of I.O.U.s very seriously, he is happy to leave without collecting money from his English friends, but many of the Englishmen are anxious to send him off with something more than I.O.Us. The English lords manage to get together some money nevertheless.

Lady Carbury soon receives some bad news: Mr. Alf has allowed one of his staff to write an exceedingly crushing review of her book (this is, however, what Mr. Alf does because only bad reviews sell). The review points out all of the historical inaccuracies of her work. Mr. Broune and Mr. Booker, however, have done their duty and praised her book. To keep up appearances, Lady Carbury still extends an invitation to Mr. Alf to come to her house along with other literati. Mr. Alf makes as if he didn't know that such a review would be published, but this too is keeping up appearances. Lady Carbury writes to visit with Roger Carbury at Whitsuntide, largely because she has heard that the Melmottes will be visiting the Longestaffe's who live in an estate near Roger's. It seems that the Longestaffes have run into some money troubles, and are trying to get the Melmottes to buy one of their properties, the Pickering Estate. Dolly (Adolphus) Longestaffe, Mr. Longestaffe's son, is resistant to the idea. We find out later that the Longestaffes are in a much worse position than might be supposed at first; Mr. Longestaffe says they must give up their London townhouse. When Georgiana Longstaffe, his younger daughter, throws a fit because she will not be able to participate in London life during the "season" and hence will not be able to secure a husband, he agrees that she may go live with the Melmottes when in London (even though she declares them "vulgar"). 

When Roger's relatives arrive, he gives a dinner party, his choice of guests showing something of his independent character--he tries to bring together a Protestant Bishop and Roman Catholic priest. Sir Felix arrives at the Carbury estate as well, urged on by his mother to make inroads with Marie. Though Felix does in fact make some progress as far as winning Marie Melmotte goes, he also takes the opportunity of being at Carbury to meet up with Ruby Ruggles, a previous love interest who lives with her grandfather at Sheep's Acre nearby. Her grandfather wishes her to be engaged to John Crumb, a sort of country bumpkin but a good man whom Ruby shuns in favor of the good-looking, city-mannered Sir Felix. When Sir Felix gets up the courage to ask Melmotte for Marie's hand in marriage, Melmotte shoots off a barrage of questions at Felix as to his financial matters, and the conversation does not go well for Felix because he has nothing more than his baronet title. Melmotte has decided his daughter will be engaged to Lord Nidderdale, son of a Marquis. When Felix finds out that others involved with the railway are selling shares in order to profit, he thinks that he too would like to do so, perhaps by using the I.O.U.s he won from gambling to purchase shares. 

Though Paul Montague is partial to Hetta Carbury, he has had a prior relation with one Mrs. Hurtle, an American widower, who causes trouble for him because she has followed him to London. It turns out that Paul had once been engaged to her, before hearing rumors about her having shot a man in Oregon, and of her husband potentially still being alive. Mrs. Hurtle is clearly a savvy woman, and she manages to guilt Paul into spending time with her.  Marie, her heart won by Felix, tells him that even if her father resists the marriage, she actually has some money of her own that he had put in her name for his own financial security. She is confident that should they run away, she might draw from this stash. Meanwhile, Lady Carbury also trues to make inroads with Melmotte by introducing him to her editor friends trying to suggest that she might of help to him in making these introductions; Melmotte pays very little attention to her machinations. Lady Carbury, though, gets her own proposal from Mr. Broune, whom she rejects (on second thought, Mr. Broune is relieved when he sees just how dissipated and irresponsible Sir Felix is). At Sheep's Acre, Ruby rejects John Crumb's proposal for marriage, and her grandfather beats her, resulting in Ruby running away to live with her Aunt Pipkin in London. There, she has further liaisons with Sir Felix.  

Meanwhile, Melmotte's financial success means that he will welcome the Emperor of China to his house for dinner and a party. People fight for tickets to these events, and Melmotte is pretty much at the apex of his power and influence, though some still consider him "vulgar," including Lady Monogram, who snubs her friend Georgiana for living with them. At a Board Meeting, however, Melmotte's shady dealings are underscored when he doesn't let Paul speak out his objections and reservations about the ethicality of their investments. He even tries to bribe Paul but this scheme fails. After the meeting, he gets Felix to sign away rights to Marie, promising that in return, he would help make Felix some money. The Longestaffe's Pickering Estate is sold to Melmotte, which he intends for Marie and Nidderdale after they get married. Back, briefly, to the Hetta, Paul, Mrs. Hurtle storyline, Paul finds Ruby Ruggles when he goes to visit with Mrs. Hurtle--it turns out that both women are lodging with Mrs. Pipkin. Paul reports Ruby to Roger Carbury, and resolves to himself that he will let Mrs. Hurtle go. This turns out to be ineffectual because Mrs. Hurtle is really good at guilt-tripping him; instead, Paul agrees to take her to Lowestoffe, a seaside town, on account of her health. Unfortunately, at Lowestoffe, they run into Roger Carbury, who is angry at Paul for Hetta's sake. 

Marie soon convinces Felix to run away with her to New York; Felix agrees, despite the waiver he has just signed. The plan is to meet in Liverpool after getting their separately. Marie and her maid, Didon, make it onto the train to Liverpool, but they are intercepted--Marie is sent home and Didon takes the opportunity to continue onwards and move on from the Melmotte family. Felix, on the other hand, doesn't keep his side of the bargain because he got drunk and gambled the night away. Melmotte's success continues to grow, to the point where he actually runs for the Westminster Conservative seat in Parliament against Mr. Alf, the editor of the "Evening Pulpit." At Melmotte's dinner for the Emperor, however, several important attendees cancel at the last minute, largely because of some fresh rumors circulating of a potential forgery he had committed. These rumors were precipitated by Dolly Longestaffe, who has employed a new laywer, Mr. Squercum (his father's lawyers are Bideawhile and Sloe, not unexpectedly, rather useless), to look into a title-deed for Pickering which he did not sign but which yet had his signature on it. At the party following the dinner, the Emperor leaves early, and other guests take the cue and do so as well. Melmotte's downfall now seems impending, but he maintains his cool. 

Georgiana Longestaffe is busy meanwhile, engaging herself to a Jewish banker named Brehgert.  Mr. and Mrs. Longestaffe are horrified, and they forbid her engagement. In the end, Georgiana loses Brehgert. Montague finally having cast off Mrs. Hurtle, proposes to Hetta, but unfortunately, when visiting Ruby at Mrs. Pipkin's, Sir Felix learns about Paul's prior engagement to Mrs. Hurtle, and tells Hetta before Paul has told her. Sir Felix soon runs into his own troubles, however, when he goes out with Ruby again, and encounters John Crumb, who, fancying Ruby in trouble, beats Felix to a pulp. Crumb is arrested, and Felix carted off to recover at his mother's home. Hetta seeks advice from Roger, who tells her to go ask Montague herself. In an exchange of letters, Paul tries to explain himself to Hetta but to no avail--Hetta rejects him. Ruby, finally, is forced to accept Crumb, finally, when her aunt and Mrs. Hurtle contrive a plan in which she either accepts Crumb, or has to seek service as a nursemaid and live off of her own means  

A rather humorous scene depicts Melmotte's first time in Parliament, in which he breaks a bunch of procedural rules and is clearly unfit for the role. Feeling the crunch from Dolly's investigations, and the fall in the value of his railway stocks as a result of plummeting confidence in his schemes, Melmotte tries to convince Marie to sign over her money to him. She refuses, and Melmotte commits yet another set of forgeries, signing for Marie and his own clerk, Herr Croll. People start defecting from Melmotte, and despite the greater and greater certainty that he will be arrested for his forgeries, he remains adamant about keeping up appearances in an almost heroic fashion. Marie, her father's daughter, also perseveres, visiting Lady Carbury and Felix to see if Felix might still marry him even when it is fairly clear that Melmotte's ruin would soon be a reality and not a rumor. The Carburys snub her. In Melmotte's final "performance" before the House, he gets up to address Parliament, but being drunk, falls over. Later that night, he is found dead, having ingested Prussic acid. Nidderdale is one of the first outsiders to find out about Melmotte's death because Marie asks him to come over. Dolly and the lawyers, Squercum, Bideawhile, and Sloe, find out about death when they arrive for a meeting with Melmotte. Nidderdale helps Marie and mother get in contact with lawyers, but everyone else pretty much leaves the two of them to fend for themselves. 

Paul appeals to Roger for help with Hetta and Roger begrudgingly gives it. Hetta decides in the end to see Mrs. Hurtle, who, in speaking badly of Paul's treatment of herself, actually vindicates him to Hetta. This is her giving in, and a testimony to her strength, since Paul hasn't really been fair to her, shunning her primarily because of rumors in the first place. The rest of the novel feels like the tying up of "loose ends." Mr. Melmotte's debts are settled, Hamilton Fisker returns for a visit and makes inroads with Madame and Marie, eventually asking Marie to marry him. Paul decides to dissolve his share of the partnership with Fisker, and finally reconciles with Hetta and are engaged. Ruby and Crumb get married, and Georgiana finally settles on running away with a clergyman. The Bear Garden Club is closed for good. Mrs. Hurtle does manage to have a final interview with Paul, in which she again demonstrates her continuing influence on him--it is clear, at this point, that Paul isn't really capable of handling someone as complicated as Mrs. Hurtle, the innocent Hetta is probably the better match. Madame Melmotte engages herself to Herr Croll, Melmotte's clerk, and the whole lot of them--Marie, Fisker, Madame, Croll, and Mrs. Hurtle set sail for New York. Marie, having learned her lessons in love, makes sure to tell Fisker that their engagement is contingent on how she feels about his financial situation once she has seen his houses in San Francisco. Back in London, Lady Carbury finally accepts Mr. Broune when he proposes again. In a sort of odd chapter which seems to stand entirely on its own, apparently Lady Carbury has been writing a novel called "The Wheel of Fortune" this entire time. Mr. Broune reads it and encourages her not to continue writing. Mr. Broune really seems to have taken over everything for Lady Carbury at this point, even arranging for Felix to go abroad with a clergyman to Germany so that he will stay out of trouble. The novel ends with the happiness of Hetta and Paul, and Roger's decision to settle his estate on the couple, promising Hetta's son Carbury as his willful act of continuing to love her, though as a father-figure. 

CRITICAL ANALYSIS/APPROACH:

John Sutherland does a detailed analysis of The Way We Live Now's serialization and Trollope's writing schedule (Nineteenth-Century Fiction 37:3). A few of the key points are that Trollope worked on a really tight calendar (pretty much completing the entire manuscript in approximately 30 weeks), didn't go back to for  revision as a result, and that although he kept to strict metrics (unlike Dickens and Thackeray) in that he wrote exactly 100 chapters, with 5 to each number, and later 50 per volume, a comparison between his plans and the eventual publication shows Trollope's flexibility in decisions as far as plot and character development go. 

With respect to this last point, one particularly striking example of his improvisational methods was his decision, fairly late in his writing process, to kill off Melmotte. Sutherland shows Trollope's decision as not only having to do with considerations of dramatic or novelistic effects but also plot considerations, in this case, whether or not to avoid a trial scene. Overall, the flexibility evident from a work that came out so quickly offers an interesting view into what plot lines and characters Trollope takes up, even if not part of the original plan. Sutherland points out that there were originally three main theaters for Trollope's social commentary, but that the third one ended up overshadowing the other two. They are: 1) the publishing and literary world, kicked off by the novel's beginning with Lady Carbury and her "scene"; 2) the religious and political landscape of the countryside, as represented by the long section on the Carbury and Longestaffe estates during Whitsuntide; and finally, 3) the corrupt world of social climbing via the new professions in finance in London embodied by Melmotte. If there is a "hero" (or anti-hero) of The Way We Live Now, it has to be Melmotte because he is hands down the most psychologically complex and interesting character in the novel, and it seems Trollope knew it, in allowing Melmotte's theater to overshadow the others. Trollope's decision, when commissioning a cover for the monthly issues, to have the picture illustrate Melmotte's rise and fall seems to show a clear awareness of Melmotte's imaginative impact. (Roger, by contrast, seems hopelessly and disturbingly bland, even if meant as the most moral agent in the work). 

I want to focus then, on a couple of passages on Melmotte that struck me as particularly revealing of how Trollope generates interest in him beyond his serving as an object of his "satirizing whip." The first is from the narrator's psychological explication of Melmotte as he contemplates his nearly certain downfall:

"Judging of himself, as though he were standing outside himself and looking on to another man's work, he pointed out to himself his own shortcomings...No idea ever crossed his mind of what might have been the result had he lived the life of an honest man. Though he was inquiring into himself as closely as he could, he never even told himself that he had been dishonest. Fraud and dishonesty had been the very principle of his life, and had so become a part of his blood and bones that even in this extremity of his misery he made no question within himself as to his right judgment in regard to them."

This description of Melmotte says that he possesses a completely different and radical system of morality than everyone else and that he simply cannot think himself out of his warped system. "Fraud and dishonesty" are so ingrained in him that they are normal, everyday operations. As far as such operations go, Melmotte actually does a pretty good job of being objective about how well he performs these operations; he's able to "stand outside himself" and "point out to himself his own shortcomings." This reflexivity is a trait which most other characters sorely lack. Though Melmotte's reflexivity is limited to his warped outlook on what constitutes the norm for morality, it works rather well as far as the operations of his own out-of-joint system go. This internal portrait of Melmotte as essentially different from everyone else seems strongly suggestive of madness, a concept which the narrator ponders in an extended passage on madness and suicide later on. Essentially, the narrator points out that no one says Melmotte is "mad," only because they don't find the reasons that he kills himself to be sympathetic from a conventional point of view (because, in this view, he brought about his own downfall). But what if, as I think the description of his radical difference (and even embodied difference, as suggested by the blood and bones) in orientation towards morality suggests, his madness is this difference, which he has no power to control or get outside of? Thus, the passage above seems in a way to exonerate more than condemn Melmotte. And finally, is there not something clearly seductive and heroic (yet full of pathos) attached to Melmotte's death, as depicted by the following lines? "Drunk as he had been,--more drunk as he probably became during the night,--still he was able to deliver himself from the indignities and penalties to which the law might have subjected him by a dose of prussic acid." In the words I have italicized, the narrator seems to go into free-indirect discourse, directly sympathizing with Melmotte's sense of "indignities" and "penalties," rather than with everyone else who would probably call these things "justice." 

   

Selections from Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems and Ballads, 1866)

PUBLICATION HISTORY:
The first series of Poems and Ballads was published in 1866 and immediately met with considerable controversy and scandal largely because of its subject matter. Swinburne boldly covered topics like lesbianism, hermaphroditism, necrophilia and sadomasochism, and also made clear expressions of antitheism and pessimism more generally. In a famous review for the Saturday Review, John Morley called Swinburne a "scornful apostle of a crushing iron-shod despair" or "the libidinous laureate of a pack of satyrs." Swinburne's publisher withdrew the work, but Swinburne reprinted the text under another publisher accompanied by a personal justification of the work.

SUMMARY/THEMES:

A Ballad of Life
The collection begins with "A Ballad of Life" followed by "A Ballad of Death." Swinburne's imagery is immediately unexpected; in "A Ballad of Life," a woman has sorrow in her eyelids, holds a cithern of a dead lute player, and is surrounded by three men: Lust, Shame, and Fear. As he looks upon this scene, the speaker realizes that lust was love, shame was sorrow comforted, and fear was pity that was dead. Here, Swinburne revises orthodox conceptions of love, sorrow, and pity, showing their close relation to other values which may seem much more negative.
A Ballad of Death
"A Ballad of Death" continues the subject matter from "A Ballad of Life" but here, the lady has died and the speaker laments. He imagines seeing Venus, who tells him to "Arise, lift up thine eyes and see / if  any glad thing be or good / Now the best thing is taken forth of us." In the rest of the poem, the speaker fondly describes in detail the beautiful sight of the lady's corpse, with lips "Sweet still, but not now red."    
Laus Veneris (The Praise of Venus)
This poem is based on the medieval Tannhauser legend, in which the poet Tannhauser spends time with Venus in her subterranean home, emerging to seek absolution from the Pope. The Pope doesn't grant it, but later realizes that he should have when the papal staff breaks out in flowers. Tannhauser has returned to Venus by that time. Edward Burne-Jones created a painting in 1879 to accompany Swinburne's poem. In the poem, the speaker can't escape his desire, though he wants escape, through death:  "Ah yet would God this flesh of mine might be / Where air might wash and long leaves cover me, / Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers, / Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea." The speaker also reveals clearly sadomasochistic tendencies: "Ah, with blind lips I felt for you, and found / About my neck your hands and hair enwound. / The hands that stifle and the hair that stings / I felt them fasten sharply without sound." The sharpness of desire, and its imbrication with pain directly has bearing on how the poet views his faith. Going before Christ, he realizes that he cannot receive mercy because he feels that the burning love which he feels is "more beautiful than God." The poet ultimately suggests that the intensity of his sensory and sensual experience communicated in violent yet sensual recurring images of "crushed fruit" and flames is like the intensity of Hell's fires, so what might he care that he should burn in Hell for enjoying erotic experiences in the present? Vividly, he writes, "And I forget tear and all weary things / All ended prayers and perished thanksgivings, / Feeling her face with all her eager hair / Cleave to me, clinging as a fire that clings..." This fire is clearly akin to "such-like flame / Shall cleave to me for ever; yea, what care, / Albeit I burn then, having felt the same?" The idea that there might be pleasure in Hell fire, if it should be like love's fire seems to be the logical extension of Swinburne's unprecedented ideas.

Isobel Armstrong succinctly reads the poem as presenting "two equally unsatisfying poles of Eros and Christ," though Eros is strong, it is not necessarily stronger than God. The matching of Hell fire with love's fire certainly suggests a kind of equality in inflicting pain.

The Triumph of Time
Written in ababccab stanzas. The speaker reproaches an unnamed lover for her infidelity: "We had grown as gods, as the gods above, / Filled from the heart to the lips with love, / Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings, / O love, my love, had you loved but me!" He reflects on how time triumphs in that it perpetuates the transitoriness of all strong feelings. He laments beautifully that "It is not much that a man can save / On the sands of life, in the straits of time...Some waif washed up with the strays and spars / That ebb-tide  shows to the shore and the stars; / Weed from the water, grass from a grave, / A broken blossom, a ruined rhyme." Eventually he reaches a kind of pessimistic resolution, saying that he will surrender himself by drowning in the sea, "the great sweet mother, / Mother and lover of men, the sea." This is kind of a scary sweetness, though, as she is "fed with the lives of men," "subtle and cruel of heart." The speaker's reasoning, however, is that death "is the worst that comes of thee," referring to the sea, and that although she feeds on the dead, his lover has done worse by feeding on his heart. Near the end of the poem, the speaker moves abruptly to talk about how he would rather be a "singer in France of old" who had  a woman who loved him, bade him to live, and then who died right afterwards because for the speaker, "Love will not come to me now though I die, / As love came close to you, breast to breast." Ultimately though, the speaker's seemingly defiant acceptance of death doesn't really cement itself, he wonders longingly in the final lines, in reference to his lover, "...in heaven, / If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?"


Anactoria
Extreme, sadomasochistic desires are expressed in this poem which imagines Sappho's lesbian love of Anactoria: "I would my love could kill thee; I am satiated / With seeing thee live, and fain would have thee dead." Desire only grows, and having been satisfied, must now seek a realm beyond--the wish that the beloved may suffer pain and die: "I would find grievous ways to have thee slain, / Intense device, and superflux of pain / Vex thee with amorous agonies, and shake / Life at thy lips, and leave it there to ache." Cannibalism also forms a part of the speaker's desire, she expresses of Anactoria, "That I could drink thy veins as wine, and eat / Thy breasts like honey! that from face to feet / And in my flesh thy very flesh entombed!" As suggested also in "Laus Veneris," this kind of intense love imbricated by pain is all the more attractive because it seems to rival the intensity of God: it is "crueller than Hell," "crueller than God." Ultimately it is even a resistance to God, in that the speaker refuses to be suppliant and satiated with the little things that God generally allots us with: she refuses to be "like those herds of his / Who laugh and live a little, and their kiss / Contents them, and their loves are swift and sweet..."


The Leper
In simple tetrameter lines rhymed abab, the speaker details his love of a woman who has gotten leprosy. Again his desire is in resistance to God: "Yea, though God always hated me, / And hates me now that I can kiss / Her eyes..." after she is a corpse. Everyone casts her out when she gets leprosy, but he takes her in, giving her water and bread because "such joy I had / To do the service God forbids." The poem ends with some ghastly images of her being dead for six months, while the speaker still holds "In two cold palms her cold two feet." "Her hair, half grey half ruined gold, / Thrills me and burns me in kissing it." Still, his dominion over her isn't quite enough for him, despite the radical intensity of his desire and devotion. At the end of the poem, he still envisions that "she kept at heart that other man's," and this undoubtedly yet bothers him.

Fragoletta
This poem unrestrainedly celebrates the unorthodox beauty of androgyny which the speaker claims is beautiful because of its strangeness: "I dreamed of strange lips yesterday / And cheeks wherein the ambiguous blood / Was like a rose's--yea, / A rose's when it lay / Within the bud." There's something deliciously transgressive about someone who isn't just man or woman, and the speaker feels oddly reverent towards the genitalia of a hermaphroditic individual, while also expressing sexually explicit desires without much abandon: "I dare not kiss it, lest my lip / Press harder than an indrawn breath, / And all the sweet life slip / Forth, and the sweet leaves drip, / Bloodlike, in death." The poem also connects something virginal to the strangeness ("virginal strange air") further signaling the pleasure in transgression.

Hermaphroditus
Written as four stanzas, each a modified Petrarchan love sonnet: abbaabbacdcdcd. The final sestet "cdcdcd" strongly suggests entanglement rather than the push forward of the traditional cdecde. The first sonnet describes the struggle at the center of the hermaphroditic experience: "Two loves at either blossom of thy breast / Strive until one be under and one above." There is actually quite a bit of despair in this, and the sense of entrapment paints a very different picture of hermaphroditism than "Fragoletta": "A strong desire begot on great despair, / A great despair cast out by strong desire." The second sonnet imagines a hermaphrodites as "a pleasure house" made by Love "for all the loves his kin" but ultimately a kind of mistake on Love's part because the unresolved struggle leads to Love himself not really wanting to enter in to this "pleasure house." The third sonnet offers some measure of redemption, admitting that there is yet something beautiful, other-worldly about hermaphroditism: "To what strange end hath some strange god made fair / The double blossom of two fruitless flowers?" (Yet, note that the flowers are "fruitless"). Finally, in the fourth sonnet, the speaker can't decide how he feels about hermaphrodite: there's kind of a both a love and a fear, "So dreadful, so desirable, so dear?"


Dolores (Notre-Dame Des Sept Douleurs - Our Lady of Seven Sorrows)
This poem is written in anapestic trimeter, usually a comic and light meter but in Swinburne's poem, clearly feels serious, struggling, desirous yet reverentially restrained. It is essentially an ode to Dolores, "Our Lady of Pain" (this address ends each stanza). Subtitled "Our Lady of Seven Sorrows," Swinburne makes the controversial move of linking an epithet for Virgin Mary to this pagan goddess of pain. The poet imagines briefly Dolores's origins, wondering: "Wert thou pure and a maiden, Dolores, / When desire took thee first by the throat?" This might suggest a development from Virgin Mary to Dolores, signaling that Dolores occupies a more advanced, mature, and ultimately more desirable way of living. Most of the poem spends time detailing the sadomasochistic pleasures that Dolores is goddess of, and prays to her to bring these pagan pleasures back to the Christ-loving world. In Blakean fashion, the speaker reverses traditional notions of virtue as a good and turns it into a vice. For example, he prefers the "raptures and roses of vice" to the "lilies and languors of virtue," associating happiness and passino with vice and laziness and wasting away with virtue. The novelty of inflicting or receiving pain is at the heart of the speaker's eagerness in what he feels to be a stilted modern age: "what new work wilt thou find for thy lover, / What new passions for daytime or night?" Here he is almost obsessive and can't help repeating the word "new" over and over again almost like a child awaiting gifts. Importantly, though, such eagerness is a result not of childishness but of great maturity: he is "wearied of sorrow and joy," key concepts of Christian morality and faith which no longer have the power to hold him. He suggests a need for a reversion back to classical times, when "the gladiator, pale for thy pleasure, / Drew bitter and perilous breath;...when the world was a steed for thy rein; / when the nations lay prone in thy porches." The speaker laments quite explicitly the Christian creed when he calls directly upon Dolores to "redeem" them, as if standing in for Christ: " What ailed us, O gods, to desert you / For creeds that refuse and restrain? / Come and redeem us from virtue / Our Lady of Pain." The final line, celebrating the "Joys of thee seventy times seven" directly beats out the "seven sorrows" of Mary.

The Garden of Proserpine
This is a poem of negation in that the speaker says he is "tired of tears and laughter, / And men that laugh and weep; / Of that may come hereafter / For men that sow to reap." He rejects any sense of futurity and wishes just to sleep, the state of being which the Garden of Proserpine offers. The garden is described by a list of things that do NOT grow there, except poppies (signaling forgetfulness). Unlike many of the other poems described so far, this speaker seems completely exhausted from the intense desires which have held such a fascination before: "From too much love of living / From hope and fear set free, / We thank with brief thanksgiving / Whatever gods may be / That no life lives for ever..." Read in conjunction with poems which deal primarily with the fiery and powerful intensity of unorthodox love and its capacity for wrestling with God himself, this poem acknowledges that such intensity isn't sustainable, and calmly finds comfort in death's release from such passions.

Herland Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Edition: Herland and Selected Stories (Signet classics)
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
Herland published in 1915 in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's own Forerunner Magazine (written, edited, and published all by Gilman herself--at its height of circulation, it had a readership of about 1,500), was the second of her three "Utopian" novels espousing her feminist and socialist commitments. Herland was preceded by Moving the Mountain (1911) and followed by With Her in Ourland (1916).

Gilman's commitments to feminist and socialist causes began around the time that she moved to California with her friend Grace Channing, in order to escape an unhappy first marriage. There, Gilman came into contact with the likes of Edward Bellamy, Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Her subequent travels also put her into contact with the Fabians, in particular, George Bernard Shaw and Beatrice and Sidney Webb. Gilman herself became a popular essayist and lecturer on her social and political beliefs.

SUMMARY:
The account is written from memory by one of three male explorers, Vandyck Jennings. Jennings tells the reader that he will not divulge any specifics about the location of their adventures, "for fear some self-appointed missionaries, or traders, or land-greedy expansionists, will take it upon themselves to push in." Jennings begins by introducing himself and his fellow explorers: Terry O. Nicholson is a well-off individual who enjoyed exploration and was good at mechanics and electricity, Jeff Margrave was a poet and a botanist, though he had taken the profession of a doctor. The narrator perceives himself to be the most "scientific" of the bunch; majoring in sociology with a wide interest in all sciences. Terry presents the most problems during their discovery of Herland, a civilization of only women, because of his man's man sexist attitudes towards women.

The idea to find Herland came to them during another expedition the men had been a part of. They had heard from the "savages" that there was such a place and decided to see for themselves. They indeed fly in on their biplane to a civilization of all women. The first women they encounter are three younger women in trees, who outrun the men when Terry has the idea of trapping them by using a necklace to lure them. The narrator describes these women as more like mischievous little boys than shy girls. More breaking of gender stereotypes occur when the men are easily captured by a bunch of older women, made comfortable, and enjoined to learn the women's language and to teach them their own. As comfortable as the women make the men, they decide to escape, through tying together bedclothes and other linen to lower out of the window. The men imagine having made their escape successfully, but it turns out that the women have been surveying their movement and they are brought back and made to understand that they will be treated as guests as long as they promise non-violence and cooperation. The men then apply themselves in greater earnest to their studies. During the course of their studies, they find out that Herland has not had men for two-thousand years: their civilization began with a group of captured women who rose up against male tormentors (who in turn had been enslaved by men who died out from wars and natural disasters). These women created a cooperative society based on united action and sisterhood, and soon a miracle happened: one of their women became pregnant with a girl child. This original mother brought forth four more girlchildren, who in turn brought forth more girlchildren when they reached adulthood. Apparently, parthenogenesis was spontaneously evolved, and this is how Herland came about without men.

As the exchange of information continues between the women and the explorers, it becomes more and more awkward for the men to explain some of their own practices, which clearly shock the women (though they are not judgmental or arrogant). The notions of taking milk away from cattle, killing them for meat, chaining up dogs, women confined to domestic duties, class distinctions, Darwinian economics, and competitive work are completely alien to this utopian, cooperative civilization. Instead, these women are what the narrator terms "Conscious Makers of People" - for them, motherhood and the growth and progress of their civilization make up the raison d'etre of their lives. Of course, not everyone can be mothers in the sense of bearing children; this problem of population is solved by women directing their mothering instincts towards raising children rather than bearing them. As the narrator learns more and more about their society, the more appreciation he has for their ingenuity. As far as education goes, they cultivated two kinds of minds, critics and inventors. The task of educating children is a privileged task reserved for only a chosen elite as education was seen as an essential part of motherhood and people making. As far as innovations in food supply, the women have found a way to enrich soil with waste products, thus preventing depletion.  When the narrator asks about criminality, he is told that criminality has been eradicated by a negative eugenics, in which women with flawed tendencies are asked not to bear children.

When the men invited to lecture to young girls so that they might learn about other civilizations, it doesn't go too well for Terry; his narrow conceptions of gender leads him to think them all too boy like. Terry's rigid notions of gender presents significant problems later on when the women allow the possibility of restoring a bi-sexual civilization. The men end up naturally developing attractions for the three women which they encountered in the trees the day they "landed" in Herland. Jennings starts to develop a friendship with Ellador, Jeff with Celis, and Terry with Alima. Terry, seeing girls as a sexual conquest, ends up in many quarrels with the strong-willed Alima. Jeff is another kind of extreme as far as how he views women--he likes to play the role of gallant male, and hence deems women as a sex to be idolized and worshipped. Jennings strongly suggests that his and Ellador's relationship is the most healthful one; the two of them develop a natural friendship consolidated by mutual respect.

Through Ellador, Jennings continues to gain more and more intimacy with Herland. Education is not forced or compulsory, and there are no schools. Everyone learns a set of common knowledge, and then a separate set of specialized knowledge. To check the mind-narrowing aspects of specialization, everyone also takes on a few other branches of knowledge on the side. Because everything is geared towards growth, Jennings finds it odd that there is no real reverence for the past. Hence, their religion is very different, because like everything else, it has thrown of what it has deemed to be "backwards" ideas. Ellador is shocked, for example, to think of a belief in God as polluting infants with original sin as a lasting one. Additionally, the concept of eternal life sounds odious to her because of how natural it is to think of growth and progress through generations. The primary difficulty for the narrator after marrying Ellador is that she has no sense of male-female love. There is only love as mothers, and consequently they assign to fatherhood a similar importance. Try as he might to explain the mutual love between lovers to Ellador, she doesn't feel it. This problem manifests itself much more problematically for Terry, who tries one night to rape Alima because of his belief in having the right to "master" his wife in bed. He is successfully repulsed by Alima and a cadre of strong women, who subsequently decide that he must be sent home. In the end, it is decided that Terry, the narrator, and Ellador will all go to America, while Jeff will stay with his now pregnant wife Celis. The women of Herland also decide that there will be no bridge between the worlds established until Ellador brings back report; after all, they decide that though there are many wonders about the world from which the men came, there seems to be a lot of problems as well which they would best keep themselves apart from until there is more information.

CRITICAL APPROACH/ANALYSIS:
It is clear that for Gilman in these novels, fiction is more of a vehicle for social and political commentary; the story barely matters--the plot isn't particularly riveting or novel, the characters are rather flat caricatures, and formally, the first-person retrospective account of an adventurer is hardly a new format. This is something which Gilman's novels share with the utopian tradition more generally though, in which the conveyance of ideals of that utopian society reigns supreme. Gilman's most famous American antecedent is Edward Bellamy's Looking Backwards (1888) which featured a socialist utopia and which was second only to Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben-Hur in popularity.

Gilman's utopia distinguishes itself in two major ways: first, she envisions a true socialist utopia as led by women, and second, for Gilman, the bringing about of a cooperative society requires first an intellectual awakening. Whereas novels like Bellamy's envision utopian social institutions that will carry out the necessary reform, Gilman's Herland advocates changes in thinking within each individual. The major change which she advocates is can be fairly straightforwardly gleaned from Herland: The basis of an ideal society must be cooperative rather than competitive, a shift in thinking which requires a revaluing of women's innate leadership as far as cooperation goes. In other words, the realization of a socialist utopia requires both men and women to re-orient themselves away from notions of marriage and female education that designate women to the domestic sphere and a support to men who accomplish the building of society outside of the home. Though Gilman clearly thinks of women as better at cooperation than men, she claims to have a greater commitment to humanity than a narrow "feminism"--she means to deconstruct false gendered binaries in order that both men and women can come together as people to recognize the constructive properties of cooperative society. When the women recognize Jennings as more like themselves than the other men, they clarify that they mean he is more like a person rather than a male (after all, Jeff and Terry are less whole people because of their stereotypical male behavior as the gallant and the cad, respectively).  

The Way of all Flesh by Samuel Butler

PUBLICATION HISTORY:
The Way of All Flesh, though written in the years between 1872 and 1884, was not published until 1903, after Butler's death. This was likely because the novel drew heavily from Butler's own upbringing in a strictly religious and patriarchal household. At the same time he was writing The Way of All Flesh, Butler was working on Life and Habit, a scientific work which challenges the assumption of random variation in Darwin's Origin of Species. Though an orthodox Darwinian in earlier years, Butler came to believe in the idea of "hereditary memory," unconsciously inherited from one's parents and shaped/modified throughout the generations. R.A. Streatfield, friend of Butler's and first publisher of The Way of All Flesh, suggests that the novel "ight be "taken as a practical illustration of the theory of heredity embodied in that book."


The publication ushered in Butler's reputation as an "anti-Victorian" and a "proto-modernist." His admirers have included late Victorians George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells as well as D.H. Lawrence, Wyndham Lewis, and James Joyce.

SUMMARY:
The Way of All Flesh is narrated by a family friend of the Pontifexes, one Mr. Overton who came to be a sort of guardian and friend of Ernest Pontifex, the oldest son of Theobald Pontifex, himself the son of George Pontifex, who made a sizable fortune as a publisher and savvy advertiser of religious texts. Though Ernest is the novel's hero, the first part of the book expends a considerable amount of space to introduce Theobald Pontifex. Theobald was the second son of George, whose strained relations with his father are in part told by the inclusion of letters between father and son. George wanted Theobald to be a clergyman, and when Theobald weakly protests, George quashes his rebellion with a threat of disinheritance. Theobald give in, and soon becomes trapped by the matchmaking Mrs. Allaby into a marriage with Christina Allaby, a woman of rather overblown romantic attachments to religion which the narrator constantly ironizes. Theobald gains a position as the rector at Battersby, and the narrator strongly suggests that Theobald isn't particularly happy with his position or his marriage, but as a generally timid character, finds a way to settle into it.

Ernest was born to Christina and Theobald in 1835. In a rather pathetic scene, George Pontifex rushes into the cellar to retrieve some water from Jordan which he had collected for the purposes of baptizing his first grandson, only to trip on a hamper and break the bottle in his haste. George's servant resourcefully sops up the water with a sponge, and at a ridiculously pompous dinner to celebrate the occasion of Ernest's birth, George pretends like nothing of the sort has happened. At this point, the somewhat secretive narrator reveals that he was in love with Alethea, Theobald's sister, but that "it is impossible for me to explain how it was that she and I never married" though "we knew that neither of us would marry anyone else." The narrator is severely critical of Ernest's upbringing: "Before Ernest could well crawl he was taught to kneel; before he could well speak he was taught to lisp the Lord's prayer, and the general confession." He offers an instance of Theobald's unjust cruelty when he beats Ernest for his inability to pronounce the word "come" (the young boy was only able to stammer out "tum"). Nevertheless, the narrator does allow that Theobald and Christina brought him up as they thought best for him.  

Christina had two more children, Joseph and Charlotte. During the unsuccessful birth of her fourth, she writes an overblown and highly melodramatic letter to Ernest and Joseph, entreating them to be pious and dutiful to their father and their God because she thought she might die. It is later revealed that Ernest wanted the narrator to include this letter (which Ernest eventually gets after Christina's actual death much later) in his account, so he does so--next to the narrator's commentary, Christina's letter is severely undercut and made light of. Soon, the Pontifexes decide to send the young Ernest to study with Dr. Skinner, the Cambridge man whom everyone knew to be a "genius" (though really a pedant, as the narrator reveals). At Dr. Skinner's in Roughborough, Ernest is subjected to monotonous and strict training in Latin and Greek. While Ernest is at Roughborough, his aunt Alethea decides to visit him, and determines also to take him on as one of her own cares. The two of them bond over their mutual interest in music, and Alethea encourages Ernest to build his own organ (hoping, secretly, that this will also help him bulk up a little and have a little more confidence as a result). Alethea even decides to move to Roughborough to further suss out if Ernest might be worthy of receiving her own money upon her death.

When Alethea falls ill suddenly, the narrator is called upon to be the executor of her will. Her conditions are that Mr. Overton would accept in trust everything which she had minus £5000 until Ernest reached the age of twenty-eight. If Ernest were to go bankrupt before then, Mr. Overton could keep the money. Additionally, Mr. Overton would be charged with investing the remaining £5000 in ways that he sees fit; these earnings would go to Ernest with Mr. Overton taking a small cut for his troubles. Back at Battersby after Alethea's death, the Pontifexes all believe that Alethea has left everything to Overton, and Theobald berates Ernest for not earning his aunt's trust enough to get her money. Ernest has some trouble in school, spending his pocket money on drinking and smoking and receiving less than ideal report cards (which the narrator includes as part of his account). Back at home for the holidays, Ernest meets a pretty servant named Ellen who, during the time when Ernest is home, gets pregnant and is sent away. Ernest doesn't know why she has been sent away, but feels bad for her, deciding to give her a silver watch (which his aunt gave him) and some money. Unfortunately, Ernest lies about what happened to the watch and his money, and his father finds out later what has happened through a pawnbroker who has received the watch from Ellen. Needless to say, he gets in no small amount of trouble with his father.


Ernest manages to make his way to Cambridge, where he does much better than at Roughborough. The narrator relays that Cambridge in 1858 was a time of relative calm, though Ernest would encounter a low-church, religiously evangelical group known as the Simeonites. Ernest at first makes fun of the Simeonites for their deliberately poor dress and austere ways, until he hears a sermon by a characteristic preacher. Ernest suddenly becomes intensely evangelical himself, experiencing a sort of sudden religious awakening which alarms his father. Ernest is soon ordained a deacon, but his religious beliefs again take a dramatic turn when he falls prey to a boy named Pryer's high church ideas when he serves as a curate. Along with Pryer, Ernest wholeheartedly embraces the idea that the masses need priestly mediation, that an elite should only have access to the Bible, and that a spiritual transformation of society on a grand scale was necessary. Their idea is to erect a "College of Spiritual Pathology" founded on systematic, scientific notions of how best to spiritually transform society. Ernest idealistically takes himself up amongst the London poor, comically trying to convert his neighbors, one of whom ends up knowing more than he does about theology. Things take a bad turn when the money Ernest gives to Pryer to put into the stock exchange is squandered and when Ernest visits a prostitute in hopes to "convert" her. In a misunderstanding of the situation, Ernest gets arrested and sentenced to six months labor. In prison, he falls ill and learns that Pryer has not only lost all of his money but also disappeared. 


In prison, Ernest turns to a more rationalistic way of looking at life. He also importantly comes to the realization that he must cut off ties with his parents, who have been responsible for his inability to have an independent mind of his own. The narrator concurs, and contends that this is actually the most Christian thing that Ernest has ever done: he was "giving up [his] father and mother for Christ's sake." After he leaves prison, Ernest decides to work his way up from the bottom of the social ladder, learning how to be a tailor. He experiences some slow but steady success. Back in London, Ernest runs into Ellen, and he ends up marrying her. The narrator reveals that he and Ellen "instinctively" don't get along; affirming how homosocial bonds inevitably become frayed when either member of a homosocial bond gets married. This antagonism that the narrator has against Ellen seems to one of the most psychologically and emotionally revealing aspects of his character thus far. The narrator's "instincts" toward Ellen turn out to be correct when Ellen ends up being an alcoholic and a bigamist--she had already been married to (and pregnant by) John, Theobald's former coachman. Between himself and Ellen, Ernest has two children, whom he sends away to be cared for, using money which Overton tell him as being from his aunt's estate. With the financial support of Overton, Ernest gets along okay, turning his attention to building up his income again and turning to literary pursuits in his spare time. Ernest even ends up making enough money to travel on the continent, and to engage in a brief (but failed) stint writing for the periodical press. Ernest is soon twenty-eight, and he inherits the money from his aunt's estate plus the profits from Overton's smart and steady investment, totaling £70,000. 


Soon after he has been made comfortable by his inheritance, Ernest receives a letter from his dying mother. He decides to visit Battersby, and finds that everything there seems the same, whereas he has changed much. He finds that subtle cutting remarks from Charlotte, Joey, or his father no longer affect him. Back in London after his mother's death, Ernest turns to writing unorthodox books "in which he insisted on saying things which no one else would say even if they could, or could even if they would." His first book proves the most successful, an anonymous collection of essays on theological and social subjects "purporting to have been written by six or seven different people," because the reviews were kept guessing that it might have been written by someone famous. Ernest books don't turn out to be successful, the narrator says, because they are "impractical," and because he didn't belong to any sort of literary "set" or "club." Ernest's only response is "wait," signaling his belief that his writings will be important to later generations. The novel concludes with the narrator calling Ernest an "advanced Radical," the first to have broken free from the molds and conventions which have shaped his family through the generations.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS/APPROACH:
Butler's "anti-Victorianisms" are fairly apparent: he critiques patriarchal austerity (Theobald and George), romantic religiosity (Christina), family and marriage (tellingly, both Ernest and the narrator end up bachelors), educational systems which stunt natural development (Dr. Skinner), religious movements/fads amongst university elites (Simeonites, Pryer), and the periodical press and its reviewers, to name just a few of Butler's obvious major targets.

Butler's "proto-modernism," however, seems less apparent. I want to approach the question of The Way of All Flesh's purported proto-modernism through a view of its form. I will focus particularly on its first person narrator, his compilation techniques of letters and other historical documents from Ernest Pontifex's life, and the ways in which the account is a "bildungsroman" of Ernest Pontifex. Overall, while these different aspects of the text contribute to a potential sense of its fragmentary nature, to place Butler's work into a genealogy which culminates in Woolf or Joyce seems a bit forced. However, to say, at least, that experimental elements in Butler's novel loosens the conventions of the Victorian novel seems appropriate to what Ernest ends up doing in becoming an "advanced Radical."

The First-Person Narrator/Chronicler: All that we really know about the narrator is that he is a bachelor (though it's "impossible" for him to say why), a writer of popular burlesque drama, godfather to Ernest, and someone who has always taken a critical view of how things were done in the Pontifex family. It isn't clear why he should turn family chronicler, or why he should offer this account of Ernest as his "hero" at all. For the most part, the narrator tries to maintain some sense of distance from the story, in his telling the story through the inclusion of documents, or withholding information about his own romantic attachment to Alethea. The moment where he seems the most emotionally invested and close is his anger when Ernest marries Ellen. He concludes that his hatred for her is "instinctive" and seems to strongly indicate that he favors homosocial relationships between bachelors, and more specifically, seems to regard his relationship with Ernest as one such homosocial relationship (before this moment, the narrator styles his role as primarily guardian to Ernest). Additionally, the narrrator's attitude towards Ellen's demise is fairly callous; indeed his portrayals of other women (Christina and Charlotte, for example), with the exception of the unmarried Alethea, seem equally callous and unsympathetic. We can safely say, I think, that the narrator favors homosocial relationships between bachelors as the most enabling relationships. The homosocial desire of the narrator complicates our view of his account of Ernest: how much influence does Mr. Overton in fact have on Ernest? He suggests that Ernest ends up a bachelor free-thinker on his own, that Mr. Overton lets him "fall," and simply helps him along when it becomes absolutely necessary to do so. That Ernest ends up exactly as the narrator does, however, tends to cast some suspicion on Mr. Overton as being much more of a "guardian" than he might admit to. One wonders, finally, how sufficient of a substitute "family" this kind of homosocial community might be--after all, Alethea's bequeathal is a necessary part of what makes this possible, and also it seems good that Ernest has children who end up being productive member of society in "conventional" ways (George becomes a bargeman, and Alice marries well).

Compilations/Documents: The narrator compiles letters, report cards, sermons, musical notations, and epitaphs to support his chronicle. One letter in particular, Christina's to her sons when she thought she was going to die, is one which Ernest tells the narrator to include, which suggests a kind of collaborative aspect to the work (this notion is strengthened by the various moments where the narrator tells of how Ernest "winces" at the narrator's inclusions, as if Ernest had much to do with the narrator's writing process). This suggestion of collaboration and the inclusion of other documents don't really contribute to an overall sense of greater objectivity--practically without exception, the documents occupy a place in the narrator's text as caricatures of people who produce them or the ideologies that they represent. Christina's letter caricatures her own melodramatic religiosity, and the report card from Skinner's school tallying the number of times each boy drank or smoked satirizes its own strict inflexibility. Thus The Way of All Flesh fails to be heteroglossic in the way that many Victorian realist novels strive to be--the account is through and through Mr. Overton's because his editorship and controlling commentary subordinate these lesser texts to his master narrative.

Bildungsroman: The irony with which Overton treats Ernest's development from Roughborough to Cambridge to his "epiphany" in prison and finally to his failed marriage makes the account feel much like Joyce's Portrait of an Artist at times. Like Stephen Dedalus, Ernest gets really into certain beliefs (his Simeonite period, his high-church principles, the collaborative marriage with Ellen), only to realize suddenly that these beliefs are false. The ending reveals Ernest to be triumphant in his artistic self, a bachelor and an "advanced Radical" who cared not for the market or the present-day audience, but only to convey the ideas which he thought right despite their being likely too unorthodox for the current generation. Ernest's triumph and final incarnation is actually much more certain than Dedalus's; there isn't a "fall" coded into his name. The only potential check to this triumph is that as in the case of Bulwer-Lytton's comedy, Ernest is only finally be the kind of independent artist that he wants to be because he has the money to do so, which came to him through no exertions of his own.

  

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

PUBLICATION HISTORY:
The Importance of Being Earnest was Wilde's final play: it opened on Valentine's day in 1895 at St. James's theater in the West End. Having achieved much success with previous plays, Earnest was an immediate hit. Its success, however, was interrupted by Wilde's conviction, brought on by Lord Alfred Douglas's father, of homosexual offenses. The play stopped running prematurely as a result of the scandal caused by Wide's trial.

SUMMARY;
Act I: It is morning in Algernon Moncrieff's flat in the West End. His manservant, Lane, allows him to eat cucumber sandwiches that have been prepared for Lady Augusta Bracknell, his aunt. Jack Worthing appears, whom Algernon knows as Ernest. Jack has come to propose to Gwedolyn, Augusta's niece. Algernon makes some critical remarks on marriage, and then tells Jack that he needs to clear up some issue about one Cecily. Algernon brings out the cigarette case which Jack has left there, and demands to know why it says "From little Cecily with her fondest love to her uncle Jack." Jack confesses that she is the granddaughter of Mr. Thomas Cardew, the man who adopted him. She is his charge, and because one has to adopt a "high moral tone" when a guardian, Jack has invented a brother named Ernest as an excuse for him to visit town. Algernon says that he is a "Bunburyist," which refers to his own similar ruse to get out of unpleasant engagements--"Bunbury" is his fake invalid country friend, whom Algernon uses when Lady Bracknell comes in and asks him to dinner. Lane lies to Augusta about the cucumber sandwiches, saying that there were none at the market. While Augusta and Alberta go to the music room, Jack propose to Gwendolyn, who agrees to marry him because she likes the name Ernest. Lady Bracknell quizzes Jack on his background to determine if he is an worthy match for her niece. She is horrified when he tells her that he was left in a handbag at Victoria station and then taken up by Thomas Cardew. Gwendolyn tells Jack that she may not be able to marry him, but that she is eternally devoted. She asks for his country address, which Algernon takes down.

Act II: This act opens with Cecily in conversation with Miss Prism, her governess. Miss Prism acts prim, strict, and proper, but it is clear that she is interested in one Dr. Chasuble, the rector, as she talks to him about the ills of celibate life, encouraging him to marry. Cecily suggests that the two take a walk together. As Cecily is alone, Mr. Ernest Worthing (who is actually Algernon) arrives. They are taken up with each other. Meanwhile, Jack has come back and encounters Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism outside. Jack tells the two of them that Ernest as died of a severe chill while in Paris. Cecily emerges from the house, announcing that Jack's brother, Ernest, has come. Cecily makes Jack and Algernon reconcile, and when the two shake hands, she is pleased. Though Jack wants him to leave, Algernon stays on and proposes to Cecily. Cecily lets him know that they are actually already engaged--prior to their even meeting, she has written fantasy love letters and made records in her diary of their engagement. Realizing that she, like Gwendolyn, is in love with the name Ernest, decides to leave to get christened as Ernest. While he is gone, Gwendolyn arrives, seeking Jack (whom she thinks is Ernest). At first the women take well to each other, until there is the misunderstanding that they are both engaged to Ernest Worthing. At that point, the women view each other with barely veiled hatred over tea and cake, until Jack and Algernon both come in. At this point, the men have to admit that neither of them are named Ernest. The women immediately run to each others' side and leave the men. Algernon begins to eat muffins in his distress, while Jack looks on, disgusted.

Act III: Gwendolyn and Cecily decide to confront Algernon and Jack. They decide to forgive the men, who say that they will make the sacrifice of christening themselves Ernest. Lady Bracknell suddenly arrives at the country manor, causing problems because she will not sanction a marriage between Jack and Gwendolyn. After finding out that Cecily is well off, she does encourage Algernon to marry Cecily, however. Jack counters Lady Bracknell by saying that he will only countenance the marriage of Algernon and Cecily if she will countenance his marriage to Gwendolyn. They are at an impasse until Miss Prism's name comes up. Lady Bracknell demands to see her. It is revealed that Miss Prism, twenty-eight years ago, accidentally put her three-volume novel into a baby carriage, and a baby into a handbag, which she left at Victoria station. That baby was Jack, and belonged to Mrs. Moncrieff, Lady Bracknell's sister. It turns out then, that Algernon and Jack are brothers. Jack additionally finds out that his name is indeed Ernest (which is also the name of Jack and Algernon's biological father). The play ends with reconciliation: Jack will marry his cousin Gwendolyn, and Algernon will marry Cecily. Chasuble and Miss Prism also finally reveal their attachments to one another.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS/APPROACH:
Like many of Wilde's other works, the characters in Earnest challenge traditional notions of morality with sayings that turn traditional morality on its head. The women marry not for love, for romance, or for sentiment, but for a name. Each of the characters spout witticisms which say the opposite of what is to be expected. There are countless examples, but here are just a few:

-Algernon on the lower classes: "Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?"
-Jack on truth and courtship: "My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice sweet refined girl."
-Gwendolyn to Jack: "The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me."
-Cecily regarding her diary: "It is simply a very young girl's record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication."

All of these examples are certainly humorous, but they also do the work of revealing the traditional morality which they refer to to be equally absurd. In the first quotation, the traditional morality being mocked is the notion that the upper classes ought to set an example for the lower classes. The second quotation mocks the hypocrisy of the "sweet" and "refined"; indeed, these are rather social "lies" themselves and so ought to be treated in kind. The third quotation reverses the notion that those who are simple, frank, and candid are comprehensible, again revealing potential hypocrisies in those who like to pose as "simple." Finally, the fourth quotation critiques traditional notions of what ought to be private and public. Cecily is by no means a young, innocent girl whose thoughts and impressions ought to be protected from the vulgar public eye--in fact, she desires that these thoughts to be widely seen.

Thus, the "serious" work (the play was subtitled "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People") that Earnest does is to explode myths of traditional morality, and in doing so, level a charge against hypocrisy. The main characters in the play may be liars and primarily concerned with money, their names, eating well, and other aspects of life that are generally considered "superficial" but they are not hypocrites like many who espouse traditional morality. Even those that adopt more traditionally "moral" stances, Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble, come around in the end. The importance of being "earnest," then, is the importance of not being a hypocrite.

Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster

PUBLICATION HISTORY:
Forster's Aspects of the Novel was written for a series of lectures given at Trinity College in 1927, in connection with honoring William George Clark, a former fellow of the college. Forster praises Clark for his "integrity" in his academic career and strives to maintain a similar integrity in his lectures on the novel. These lectures were delivered after Forster himself was done with writing novels. The lectures were well-received, with some notable exceptions: F.R. Leavis is known to have considered them "intellectually null." Forster's lectures, however, were meant not as an academic treatise but more as literary reflection. (SOURCE: Childs, Literary Encyclopedia)

SUMMARY (with a few of my own comments, designated by **):
Introduction: Forster opens with a discussion of what he calls the "pseudo-scholar," who commits the crime of "class[ing] books before he has understood or read them" in order to delineate that his own goals will eschew classification by traditional categories of chronology (periodization) or even theme. In a word, he says we must think of novelists all in one room writing together, thus exempting them from the names, dates, places, and contexts that are "furniture of the method we are discarding." Forster envisions a kind of purist, formalist engagement or "struggle" with the texts that authors leave us with.

Story: The "story" is a kind of lowest common denominator in defining a novel. It involves little more than the notion of "what happens next" and suspense. Forster says that Sir Walter Scott tells a good story (but that there is nothing much more than the thrill of "what happens next" in his novels).

People: Forster explains that the major difference between "people in daily life" versus "people in books" (playfully, homo sapiens and homo fictus), is that "people in a novel can be understood completely by the reader...their inner as well as their outer life can be exposed." In daily life, we may only observe the actions and words of those around us, and there is no possibility of true access to their "secret" mental interiors. It is delightful to access these "secret interiorities"--in particular, Forster gives the example of Moll Flanders as one such character. Forster goes on to explain that the main facts of life are birth, food, sleep, love, and death, but that love becomes the most prevalent subject of novels because 1) it is important in the author's own mind 2) it seems like something that will be permanent (and that humans yearn for permanence).

Additionally, people in novels are either flat or round characters. Flat characters are "constructed round a single idea or quality," in other words, they are caricatures. Their advantages are that they are easily recognized, and that their lack of development makes them easily remembered. Again, the yearning for permanence makes flat characters pleasurable. Nevertheless, this isn't to say that flat characters can't sometimes have a certain force which makes you feel there is depth (for example, Forster suggests that characters in Dickens "borrow" a certain vitality from the author). Also, there are round characters that may be kind of flattish; Forster cites Austen's Lady Bertram. Round characters, in contrast, are "capable of surprising in a convincing way." (Interestingly, Forster's discussion of round characters is much shorter). Forster ends this section on people talking about shifting points of view as characteristic of novels (in other words, narration reveals "intermittent knowledge" of characters). If this kind of shifting is too intentionally done then the work becomes too much about the mind of the author. Forster also think that when the author directly takes the reader into confidence about a character, it's rather too much like "bar-parlour" chattiness or gossip. It is, however, okay to zoom out to talk about human condition more broadly, as in the case of Hardy or Conrad.

Fantasy: **The last few sections become markedly more qualitative and less technical. Oftentimes, it seems that what Forster tries to describe (and he himself admits this) in these sections is "beyond words."** Forster's definition of "fantasy" in some novels is that it "asks us to pay something extra." In other words, in addition to accepting that the book is not real, readers must accept the implication of the supernatural (that it is the "implication" of the supernatural is important because he includes works which have a fantastical element that don't explicitly, say, have ghosts or aliens). Forster also talks about parody and adaptation in this section, saying that these forms have a great advantage to novelists who "do not...take easily to creating characters." Joyce's Ulysses is his example. According to Forster, "it is of course more than a fantasy--it is an inverted Victorianism, an attempt to make crossness and dirt succeed where sweetness and light failed, a simplification of the human character in the interests of hell."

Prophecy: By "prophecy," Forster does not mean psychic foretelling, but "an accent in the novelist's voice," a "tone of voice" which may "imply any of the faiths that have haunted humanity...or the mere raising of human love and hatred to such a power that their normal receptacles no longer contain them." In order to recognize this tone, readers must be humble and to suspend their sense of humor. Prophecy is deeply serious, and moreover, it is different from "preaching" which he gives George Eliot as doing. Dostoevsky and Lawrence are prophets. Moby Dick has prophetic qualities, as does the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. There is something imprecise, unconscious, and inspirational in this prophet tone which Forster describes; Forster says that to have too clear or intentionalized a philosophy in writing as with Hardy and Conrad is too reflexive. "A prophet does not reflect."
 
Pattern and Rhythm: Forster's final lecture is on pattern and rhythm. Both appeal to a reader's aesthetic sense, while things like the plot appeal to a reader's intelligence. He describes the overall symmetry of plots in books like in Henry James's The Ambassadors in which Strether ahd Chad change places, implying a kind of "hourglass" shape (this is of course metaphorical rather than literal). However, patterns are deliberately made, and so while aesthetically pleasing, tend to take away from a certain richness. Rhythm, however, stitches a work together "internally" and thus might allow for both beauty and richness. Rhythm seems to be a kind of echo, "almost an actor, but not quite" that moves throughout the book. A "little phrase" (which happens to be musical) circulates throughout Proust's Remembrance and that is Forster's example. It isn't exactly a symbol, because a symbol is too present and durable.

Conclusion: Forster reflects on how novels are not likely to truly change because while history moves, "art stands still." Premising that since it seems impossible for humans to ultimately be completely self-reflexive, they must continue to imagine novelistically. Optimistically, perhaps if novels register any development in human consciousness towards greater reflexivity or some other novel way of seeing ourselves, it is a "crablike movement" that we can't really see everyday. Nonetheless, this makes thinking about the development of the novel a wondrous task for Forster, since it might actually mean the development of human consciousness.

**This kind of humanistic, almost spiritual optimism that novels might tell us something about about human progress seems both alien and refreshing to a deconstructed, post-everything world, though our own critical frameworks seem to be shifting again towards something more "productive" in affect or systems theory. Though I'm not sure these shifts have the same optimism and definitely don't seem to bear any analogously wide appeal outside of elite institutions.**


 

The Renaissance by Walter Pater

PUBLICATION HISTORY: Pater's The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry is a collection of critical essays first published together as a volume in 1873, originally titled Studies in the History of the Renaissance. The title change came after Pater's friend Frances Strong Pattison remarked that the title was "misleading" since the works are clearly not concerned with history as it was normally defined. Instead, as the summary below will show, Pater's Renaissance traces the existence of a certain temperament that is more primary than any temporal or spatial (historical) contingencies.

The various essays included in The Renaissance were first published in a variety of periodicals. Pater's "Winckelmann" (1867) appeared in the Westminster Review. "Leonardo da Vinci" (1869), "Sandro Botticelli" (1870), and "Michelangelo" (1871), and "The School of Giorgione" (1877, thus included in the second edition of The Renaissance only) were originally published in the Fornightly Review. Finally, Pater's conclusion, which became infamous because it was (mis)understood as advocacy for hedonism, drew material from the final paragraphs of a William Morris essay originally published in the Westminster Review. The publication of The Renaissance provoked strong reactions--it came to be regarded sharply by both critics and religious contingents as a kind of public apostasy (an important exception was John Morley, editor at the Fortnightly). For the most part, though this indubitably contributed to the strong public response, the male to male love which Pater points to tended not to be acknowledged publically by Victorian audiences.

SUMMARY:
Preface: According to Pater, the role of (aesthetic) critic was to "distinguish, to analyse, separate from its adjuncts, the virtue by which a [work of art] produce[s]this special impression of beauty or pleasure, to indicate what the source of that impression is, and under what conditions it is experienced." This is what he seeks to do in his collection of essays, which explore works of art and poetry spanning a historical period of over 500 years (the work is bracketed by explorations of what he sees as the spirit of the Renaissance from the 12th-century and the 18th-century).

Two Early French Stories: Pater makes the case that there were elements of what he considers to be the spirit of the Renaissance much before the traditionally understood Renaissance in fifteenth-century Italy. He cites two early 12th-century French stories as examples, Amis and Amile (the story of deep, male friendship and love, in which Amile is willing to slay his own children to cure Amis's leprosy) and Nicolette and Aucassin (the love story of a Saracen slave girl and the son of a Count).

Pico della Mirandola: Pater singles out Pico as a 15th-century Italian who sought to reconcile Christian and Pagan traditions. Pater particularly admires him for his non-historical/non-intellectual approach of making "Plato and Homer...speak agreeably to Moses." He evinces the spirit of looking for some kind of "diviner signification" than the temporally or spatially specific. Pater says it is not important that he was scientifically wrong about many things (for example, he thought the earth at the center of universe) but values him for his humanist spirit his passion for seeing the world as full of spiritual signification." For Pater, Pico was unmatched in his belief in "the spirit of order and beauty."  In a word, Pico represents how "Renaissance of the fifteenth century was...great rather by what it designed or aspired to do, than by what it actually achieved."

Sandro Botticelli: Botticelli, generally known in Pater's time as a minor artist, embodied for Pater an "undercurrent of original sentiment" which was distinct from the dramatic passion of Giotto's (Generally Pater was critical of dramatic, spectatorial passion and a proponent for an internally motivated passion). Pater describes Botticelli's aesthetic as containing something of exile and loss, as well as struggle (for example, Botticelli's paintings of those who struggle in Dante's Divine Comedy between heaven and hell).  "Sympathy for humanity in its uncertain condition" is what Botticelli captures.

Luca Della Robbia: Luca represents the "intense and individualized expression" of Tuscan 15th-century sculptors, shared by greats like Michelangelo. At the same time, Luca also manages to adhere to a sense of Hellenic "breadth, generality, universality."  For Pater, Luca's work in low relief particularly enabled this "middle-way" between individuality and universality, the form's incompletion relieving a sense of the "hard realism" which tended to inhere in Greek sculpture.

The poetry of Michelangelo: Pater mainly characterizes Michelangelo as someone who unites the seemingly paradoxical attributes of "strength and sweetness." Most of his disciples, he argues, are men that tend to recognize only his "strength" and not his "sweetness." Characteristic of Michelangelo is also a kind of "incompleteness, which...trusts to the spectator to complete the half emergent form." The "sweetness" comes in part from a humanistic preoccupation with creation of man (Michelangelo doesn't take forms of nature as subjects). Pater re-reads Michelangelo's poetry/sonnets as not really about Vittoria Collona, as is traditionally thought, but as the "disappointment" of affection that may yet "charm." Finally, within Michelangelo's aesthetic is a willful consideration of serious topics like death, often yielding a serious and dignified sentiment of pity (as embodied by his "Pieta"). Pater views the "Pieta" as not an expression primarily of religious sorrow, but an aesthetic one in which a mother struggles with physical reality of "the stiff limbs and colourless lips" of her son.

Leonardo da Vinci: For Pater, Leonardo is fascinating for the "enigmatical" in his work. Pater narrates different life stages of Leonardo from his apprenticeship to Verocchio, a period of discontentment in which he embarked upon a frenzied study of nature, to his recommendation to Ludovico Sforza in 1483. The fruit of Leonardo's discontentment and desire for knowing how nature (broadly defined, including man) worked, was a "curiosity often in conflict with the desire of beauty, but generating, in union with it, a type of subtle and curious grace." In his landscape paintings, Leonardo looked for the "bizarre" and also did the same with human personality. For example his type of female beauty was often "nervous, electric, faint" and "clairvoyant." The Mona Lisa has "something sinister in it" and though based on a specific Florentine, Pater compares her to a kind of vampire, who has "is older than the rocks among with she sits" and who rather uncannily contains all of human history.

The School of Giorgione: Pater begins with observations on how different arts (art, music, poetry) express via different sensory apparatuses and so they are not equivalent. Aesthetic criticism seeks, in part, to explain such distinctions. One of Pater's most famous theses is that "all art aspires toward the condition of music" because in music, form and matter are least distinct (matter being the subject, or content). Lyric poetry approaches closer to music than other forms of poetry. Pater's "Giorgionesque" (not attributable, necessarily, to Giorgione the man) encompasses the spirit which approaches this kind of identity of form and matter, through its focus on the decorative (colors, lines, sensory details). Pater further describes the "Giorgionesque" as having "tact in selecting such matter as lends itself most readily and entirely to pictorial form." Subjects often include people playing music, listening to something (either in music, in nature, or in poetry), and also pictures which unite landscape and persons.

Joachim du Bellay: Bellay, a literary from the 16th-century French Renaissance, was one who provided a "softening" touch to the hardened, Rabelaisian aesthetic of his contemporaries.  Bellay focused on form, trying to "ennoble the French language, to give it lustre" and to argue that contemporary French culture could be just as refined as classical culture. Bellay's aesthetic is representative of an age which "threw a large part of its energy into the work of decoration."

Winckelmann: This is the longest of the essays in The Renaissance and probably most completely reveals Pater's deep-seated Hellenism. In Protestant, eighteenth-century Germany, Winckelmann became interested in the "Hellenic ideal," finding in it, a more free way of living. Though Winckelmann never made it to Greece, Pater argues for affiliations of spirit rather than of nation: it is perfectly plausible that an individual growing up poor in Protestant Germany might feel a kinship with the artists of antiquity. This is an affinity of temperament, and it is with this kind of affinity that Pater concerns himself in his "history." Central to this Hellenic ideal were male-to-male love, as well as male beauty; Pater's extended musings on this topic is often drawn upon now to speak to Pater's gay sensibilties. Pater gives the interesting history of Winckelmann being murdered before getting a chance to meet Goethe on his return to Germany, but stresses that Goethe is to have been influenced by the Hellenic ideal via Winckelmann (again, affinities of temperament are available without physical meeting).

In delineating the Hellenic ideal, Pater describes "man at unity with himself, with his physical nature, with the outward world," something evident particularly in Greek sculpture which possesses a sensuousness that is not ashamed of itself as a Christian, ascetic might imagine. It is also not weighted down by worldly details that might be apparent from painting (the eyes are blank, the hair is like drapery). In a word, the human form is abstracted from the grossness of everyday life but yet intensely physical in an idealized way. 

The essay ends with Pater saying that the modern world can't have this kind of sculpture but instead needs poetry which he understands as "all literary production which attains the power of giving pleasure by its form, as distinct from its matter. Only in this varied literary form can art command that width, variety, delicacy of resoruces, which will enable it to deal with the conditions of modern life." According to Pater, freedom in modern life is only available through such channelsm and Pater singles out Goethe as one who tries to wrestle with whether the Hellenic ideal of unity, "blitheness and repose" might be brought to the modern world (I think, by the way, this "blitheness and repose" might be something like Bataille's notion of being in water like water).

Conclusion: Pater's conclusion was to become infamous because people thought it might be a call for hedonism. In it, he describes life as a bunch of forces coalescing for a moment, and so thoughts too should have the same existence. Life and thoughts contribute to a "strange perpetual weaving and unweaving of ourselves," and experiences become subordinated to "impressions" that they make within the mind. Freedom inheres in the individual mind reigning supreme while controlling its impressions. Like Arnold, Pater believes in avoiding the trap of stale orthodoxy, and this is why this "strange perpetual weaving and unweaving" is necessary (and besides, natural, as his imagery of all of life and nature as forces coalescing suggests).

CRITICAL APPROACH/ANALYSIS:
I rather like Pater's original title, because it signals his writing an alternate history--one based on aesthetic temperament as he so explicitly gives throughout his essays. It isn't misleading, then, but illuminating. Pater seeks to stand in place of traditional, scholarly understandings of an artist as constitutive of his biographical realities and sociocultural contexts. As Pater remarks in his chapter on Giorgione, he has no use for the scholars who would argue about whether or not any given painting is “authentic” or not—the point is that he is tracing a certain temperament or passion which he associates with the notion of a Renaissance. (Where Pater’s notions--and also Arnold--seem paradoxical is that he does in fact associate the “Renaissance” spirit with specific historical periods, antiquity, and also 15th-century Italy as somehow particularly productive of this temperament. Thus while writing against scholarly cultural or biographical histories, he acknowledges the effect of such histories on the production of this artistic spirit which he values).

In writing this kind of history of temperamental affiliation, Pater, like Matthew Arnold, envisions the existence of an ideal which stands apart from (or perhaps, takes root deeper than) historical contingencies like social, political, or religious identification. For both, Hellenism is a cornerstone of this ideal, though Pater calls the ideal art and Arnold "culture." Inhering in both Paterian and Arnoldian philosophy is a kind of dream of equality (and relatedly, of freedom) via this apartness from such historical contingencies. Hadley's critique of Arnold, that this kind of dream of equality and freedom is in fact contingent on the culturally specific language of liberalism might then also apply to Pater. Additionally, inhering in both is the notion of universality--the faith that there exists an aesthetic ideal or cultural ideal that is "the best" and which may be agreed upon, which might seem immediately suspect to our modern doubt that such claims can be made.

Wilde’s “Critic as Artist” offers a complementary framework for thinking about Pater’s work as alternate history. In acting as the aesthetic critic, Pater is himself the artist, making known the Renaissance ideal to modern audiences through the literary form of criticism. As Pater himself remarks in his chapter on Winckelmann, such art forms as sculpture don’t quite work anymore, because they can’t account for the “conflicting claims,” “entangled interest” and “distracted…sorrows” of a modern age. Pater’s criticism is an attempt at art in the modern era, which requires variety and reflexivity, but which nevertheless reaches towards the unity, “bliteness and repose” associated with the Hellenistic spirit.