1. JANE AUSTEN: “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE”.
Published “anonymously” in 1813, it might be safe to assume nowadays that Jane Austen (*1775–†1817) could never have imagined that this novel would become one of the most read, and adored, in the history of English literature. First painful confession: I read it, thoroughly, for the first time in the year 2015. One of the many “late encounters” in my personal library, which more often than not tend to be the most enjoyable.
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The first impulse towards an intimate relationship with the authoress emerged in 2010, thanks to Charlotte Brontë (*1816–†1855), whose Jane Eyre, also published “anonymously” in 1847, landed on my hands very much by accident, in a remote village in southern Spain. I was so impressed by the construction of the narrative, tense and tight, as well as its insight into the dire conditions of female orphans at that time, that I promised myself to devote more time to the femmes de lettres in Great Britain between the end of the 18th and of the 19th centuries.
The final impulse came from watching, many times, the BBC six-episode television drama of 1995[1]. It represents quite possibly one of the most accomplished symbiosis of a literary text (the original novel by Austen, not debased by the screenplay, rather enhanced by it), suitable and sumptuous location, superb acting, and a sound track largely inspired by chamber music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert, providing most of the leitmotivs in the film, with three timely apparitions of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Perhaps one of the reasons for the success of this serial adaptation is that almost every so-called “secondary actor” is as good, and as relevant, as the so-called “principal” actors”. Of the more than ten adaptations for film, television and theatre, I may mention the 2005 film with Keira Knightley[2]; above all the 1940 black-and-white version with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier[3]. The female wardrobe in the latter includes some of the most spectacular and oddest bonnets and hats ever to appear on a screen.
It has been, first, a “screen-to-book” journey. Then it became, many times, a “book-to-screen” promenade, pinpointing the differences, underlying the–mostly nuanced– language changes and actualizations. I am glad to be able to report that, up to now, there has been no disappointment. The landscapes and sounds of the film (mainly the 1995 version) seem to be fit unobtrusively into the original text, the dialogues of the latter, uttered by performers of our time, maintain their early 19th century idiosyncrasy and robustness, remaining comprehensible. Yet, as usual, the richness, density of the dialogues, carrying well-camouflaged understatements, and the bare display of the most inner thoughts in the soul of women, cannot be exhaustively transposed onto the screen. Such a task would require at least six hours more.
What’s it all about? To begin with, a craftily constructed “story”. A married couple of the rural gentry in Hertfordshire, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, who have five–yes, five...–daughters, “all ignorant and silly, like other girls, but Lizzy has more of quickness than her sisters”. The lack of a male heir implies that the property of the family, once Mr. Bennet were to leave the earthly life, is to be entailed to the clergyman Mr. Collins, a cousin of the five girls. Who en earth is going to marry those ladies with such paltry dowry? To compound the drama, the cleverest of the five daughters, Miss Elisabeth Bennet, first rejects the marriage proposal of her cousin, the supercilious and ridiculous Mr. Collins (“...not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature has been but little assisted by education and society…”), a settlement that would have rescued the ladies from a dignified yet humiliating poverty. She later also rejects the marriage proposal of one of the richest, youngest and handsomest bachelors in the whole country, Mr. Darcy. What a courage! A cynical observer at that time would have said: “What a suicidal stubbornness and lack of common sense!” Right until the end of the novel, there are enough unexpected events and well-placed twists to sustain the narrative.
Yet it is the language that counts. An elegant, clean, witty English, which sedates the most satirical and ironical descriptions of characters and situations. There is no malice, just a tranquil enjoyment in portraying men and women amidst their contradictions, frustrations and unfulfillable expectations. For Miss Elizabeth Bennet, perhaps the alter ego of the youngish Jane Austen, constrained by birth and society into blind alleys, has no other option than to use the only weapon available to her, to defend her integrity and independence, as well as–eventually–to attain happiness: the power of words. Thus she goes into society, articulating phrases which act both as swords and shields, making sure that they obey the rules of grammar and elegance, conveying meanings which may take a while to decipher, yet they go straight to the heart of the matter. And to the core of the person addressed to. To Mr. Bingley:
“Would Mr. Darcy then consider the rashness of your original intention as atoned for by your obstinacy in adhering to it?”
There are many reasons why Mr. Darcy would fall in love with Miss Elizabeth Benet. The most important, according to this humble scribbler, is that one could converse with her, for hours and hours, without getting bored.
Ever since my intimate liaison with Jane Austen became warm and continuous, I have recommended her to my students (learning subjects far detached from literature) in many parts of the world, as the best tool to improve their English, and to make it as “elegant and relevant” as possible. On occasions I quote by heart some of the most biting and scintillating dialogues, those peppering the first dance between “Lizzy” and Mr. Darcy, or the refined but steely rejection of Mr. Collin’s marriage proposal. In his first ever visit to Russia, Moscow, in 1987, John Le Carré notices that “one woman student retorts proudly in fractured Jane Austen English”[4] If the Soviets were then using Jane Austen as a suitable–and ideologically not too contaminating–model for well-articulated and sympathetic English, why cannot we use it now? No doubt, the “Jane Austen English” would appear in our time to many, I fear, perhaps to too many, as “too long, twisted, pretentious, hard to decipher...” A few would add: “...and it does have too many words from Greek-Latin origin, which nowadays sound archaic and snobbish...” Let it be so, if they happen to insist upon apparent oddities, yet there is another reason for reading Jane Austen and re-learning her English: At the end of the book, one is left with an unforced, and unrequested, feeling of well-being.That is, even today, one of the main purposes of a work of art.
Thousands of books and essays have been written, in many languages, on Jane Austen and her novels. Issues of society and gender figured prominently. Speaking now as an economic historian, with a not too despicable record, I mentioned many times to my students that “the novels of Jane Austen, plus some of Charles Dickens, will give you a penetrating and detail-relevant analysis of how did capitalist society work in England, at the beginning of the 19th century. Much more so than any textbook or scholarly treatise”.
Not long ago, a new 20-pound note was issued in Great Britain, carrying the portrait of Jane Austen. Perhaps one of the few sensible and future-relevant decisions taken by any British government, over the last decades.
The edition we used is that of Penguin Classics, 1996, “edited with an introduction and notes by Vivien Jones”, carrying also the original Penguin Classics by Tony Tanner, plus useful appendixes and chronology. Cover: Detail from “Double Portrait of the Fullerton Sisters” by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
[1]Directed
by Simon Langton, screenplay by Andrew Davies, starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin
Firth, music by Carl Davis.
[2]Directed
by Joe Wright, screenplay by Deborah Moggach, starring Keira Knightly and
Matthew Macfadyen, music by Dario Marianelli.
[3]Directed
by Robert Z. Leonard, screenplay by Aldous Huxley, Helen Jerome, Jane Murfin,
music by Herbert Stothart.
[4]Le
Carre, John, The Pigeon Tunnel. Stories from My Life, Penguin, 2016, p.
124.
