Lecture+and+Discussion+Notes+for+Persuasion

=Dr. Lake's Lecture Notes:=

Lecture 1 for Persuasion


 * Biographical information about Jane Austen**

Jane Austen was born in 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire (a village in southern England). Financially, her family was modestly comfortable. They were considered part of the landed gentry, which means they owned land. However, they were not wealthy, but neither were they struggling and poor. Austen’s father, George, was a rector – which meant that he oversaw the administrative duties of the churches in the area. He also made money by farming and teaching boys who would board at the Austens’ home. Little is known about Austen’s mother. Their financial status makes them an interesting case study in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century social norms and mores. They were wealthier than the vast amount of Britain’s population. At the same time, however, they were poorer – way, way poorer – that the richest members of the aristocracy. The Austen’s were essentially part of a growing middle class that found itself increasingly able to control things like taste (or what literature, for example, counted as good and popular) and morality, but who were not yet in control of things like laws, courts, etc.

Jane Austen had six brothers and one sister. Their family appears to have been a close-knit one. Henry Austen was the brother Austen was closest too – he negotiated with the publishers once she started writing on her behalf since it would have been improper for Austen, or any woman, to this for herself. Austen was especially close to her sister, Cassandra. The little we know about Austen’s life comes from the letters she and Cassandra exchanged – famously, though, Cassandra burned most of them when Jane Austen died, per Jane’s request. For example, researchers think that there were originally about 3000 letters; we only have 160 now. Many of these have been edited by Cassandra who blacked or cut out sections.

Jane Austen was educated both at home and at boarding schools, receiving a mix of the kind of education you might expect for a young woman in the late eighteenth century. That is to say, she was instructed in niceties – dance, French, drawing, music, needlecraft – all things designed to make her a good marriage partner, mother, and woman. Austen’s father and brothers directed some of her education and allowed her to read books that might have been considered inappropriate for a woman. The family enjoyed performing plays at home.

Beginning at least at the age of 12, Jane Austen began to write. Her writings composed between 1787 and 1793 are known as her Juvenalia. She apparently worked on many of these pieces over a long period of time, copying them all into three journals. Her Juvenalia is diverse, and includes a history of England (that makes fun of other histories and historical figures), a novel called Love and Friendship (which makes fun of other novels), poems addressed to her siblings, and plays. Many of the works are parodies or satires – they are funny, comedic jokes made at the expense of other authors or books.

Austen continued to live at home and socialize with her close-knit community: attending balls, dinners, and church. She appears to have started writing seriously around 1793, and between 1793 and 1795 she wrote what scholars consider her first mature work, Lady Susan. Lady Susan is an epistolary novel, which means it’s told as a series of letters. Its protagonist – or main character, Lady Susan – is awful and a seductress. Around 1795, it’s assumed that Austen had a brief, romantic courtship with Tom LeFoy.

According to Cassandra’s recollections, Austen began work on a novel called Elinor and Marianne before 1796, reading passages of it out loud to family members. Beginning around 1796, Austen started writing another novel called //First Impressions//. She completed it in 1797, and her father tried to help her get it published. Initial attempts at publishing the novel were unsuccessful. Austen returned to Elinor and Marianne and finished it in 1798, at which time she started another novel titled Susan, which she finished around 1799.

In 1800, the Austen family moved, rather abruptly, to Bath, and Austen’s biographers generally consider this to have been a bad time for her writing. Austen appears to have written little between 1800 and 1805, although Austen did work on a novel titled The Watsons. In 1802, Austen received and declined her only confirmed marriage proposal. When Austen’s father died in 1805, she found herself, her mother, and her sister in a financial lurch. They bounced around between relatives’ houses. In 1809, Austen’s brother Edward settled them at a house in Chawton, England.

Once established at Chawton, Austen worked hard to revise her novels and to get them published. Her brother, Henry, helped her negotiate with publishers. Elinor and Marianne became //Sense and Sensibility// in 1811. It was relatively successful, and First Impressions became //Pride and Prejudice// in 1813. Around 1812, Austen started work on a new novel which was published as //Mansfield Park// in 1814. //Emma// was published in 1815. She began writing The Elliots the same year.

In 1816, Austen became ill. She continued to work on The Elliots, finishing it, and then she started work on a new novel, Sanditon. Her health deteriorated in 1816; she died in 1817. Various theories have been put forward to explain Austen’s early death at the age of 41: Addison’s Disease and Hodgkin’s Disease seem to be the most popularly accepted possibilities.

Austen’s literary success was modest in her own lifetime. She received generally favourable reviews and her works sold moderately well. The first edition of //Sense and Sensibility// sold out; //Pride and Prejudice// sold out and a second edition was issued; //Mansfield Park// sold out as well. Austen learned that the Prince Regent (later George IV) liked her novels; she dedicated //Emma// to him. It also sold well. The Elliots was published posthumously in 1818 as Persuasion alongside the novel Susan she had been working on in 1798 and completed in 1799, which was published as Northanger Abbey. Sales were okay, but not as excellent as they had been for her previous novels.

All of Austen’s novels were published anonymously – she was not known as the author of the works in her own lifetime.

Austen’s novels received brief reviews from critics; they were successful, but not overwhelmingly so. She made little profit on them. Sir Walter Scott – considered one of the most important arbiters of literary taste in his day – praised //Emma// in an anonymous review in 1816. In 1821, Richard Whateley – another reviewer – compared Austen to Homer and Shakespeare.

Several mid nineteenth-century writers approved of Austen, including Henry James. She didn’t really become a celebrated author, however, until her nephew, Edward Austen-Leigh published //A Memoir of Jane Austen// in 1869. The memoir characterized Austen as a loving, feminine, “dear Aunt Jane” who hid her writing under knitting. Her work has popular ever since.


 * Persuasion Summary**

Persuasion tells the story of two lovers: Anne Elliott and Captain Frederick Wentworth. They met eight years before the novel began and fell in love. Anne, however, was persuaded to not marry Wentworth because her family felt that he was below her.

The novel begins with Anne’s father, Sir Walter Elliott, reading about his family history in a who’s who book of rich and noble people. Readers learn that Sir Walter Elliott has three daughters: Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary. For Sir Walter, getting those daughters married to rich and important husbands is important as a way to both maintain the reputation of his family and to add to the family’s wealth – which has been mismanaged by Sir Walter since the death of his wife. Elizabeth, the oldest and prettiest daughter, was set to marry her cousin, Mr. Elliott, but the arrangement fell through. Marrying Mr. Elliott would have been great, though. Since Sir Walter Elliott has only daughters and since women couldn’t own property in the early nineteenth century, the estate would have gone to his nearest male relative – Mr. Elliott. Mary has married Charles Musgrove – a good match, financially – although who could live with Mary is another question. Anne has never married and has, apparently, carried a torch for Wentworth.

When the novel opens, we find that the Elliott’s financial situation is so perilous that they need to rent out their big house – Kellynch Hall – and move to a more affordable place in the popular spa town of Bath, England. They are doing this under the advisement of their family friend, Lady Russell, who had also given Anne a lot of advice (bad advice it turns out) on marrying Wentworth. Sir Walter, because he is obsessed with looks and status, doesn’t want to rent the house out to anyone who is unattractive. When he finds out that a wealthy navy man and his wife want to rent the place, he is unsure. Luckily, Admiral Croft looks good and he and Lady Croft decide to rent Kellynch Hall. While Elizabeth and her friend, Mrs. Clay, go with Sir Walter to relocate to Bath. Anne stays behind to help Mary and Lady Russell and finalize the renting of Kellynch.

Lady Croft is Wentworth’s sister, and the fact that the Crofts are renting Kellynch reminds Anne about her past heartache and promises to bring Anne and Wentworth back into contact. Since Anne and Wentworth last saw each other, Wentworth has been wildly successful – financially, he would now be a good match for Anne. But he’s mad that she rejected him all those years ago. Anne continues to stay at Mary’s house in Uppercross, visiting frequently with Mary’s in-laws, the Musgroves. The Musgroves have lots of children, but only three attract the reader’s attention: Charles (who is Mary’s husband) and two unmarried daughters, Louisa and Henrietta. Because Wentworth is rich and looking for a wife, both daughters seem like potential objects of his affection. Anne enjoys walking and dining with the Musgrove family but remains anxious about running into Wentworth; Mary is annoying – there is one important scene where Mary’s son falls from a tree and Anne takes care of him while Mary goes out to dinner. Essentially, Mary says she’s too sad about her son being hurt to take care of him, so she’s going to dinner. Because Wentworth will be at this dinner, Anne takes the opportunity to avoid him by caring for her nephew – and she comes off looking very kind and generous in the mix.

Eventually, though, Wentworth and Anne have to meet – not least because Wentworth comes to the Musgrove’s a lot to flirt with Louisa and Henrietta. He is cold and detached to Anne who is, I think, a character notable for saying little in the novel. Henrietta has had a standing flirtation with a neighbour boy, Charles Hayter, and so Louisa seems to be the one destined for Wentworth. This becomes especially true after Anne overhears a conversation in the garden between Louisa and Wentworth where Louisa exclaims, essentially, that it’s wrong to let other people persuade you if you have your heart set on someone. Oh how Wentworth agrees! “Let those who would be happy be firm. Here is a nut," said he, catching one down from an upper bough, "to exemplify: a beautiful glossy nut, which, blessed with original strength, has outlived all the storms of autumn. Not a puncture, not a weak spot any where. This nut," he continued, with playful solemnity, "while so many of its brethren have fallen and been trodden under foot, is still in possession of all the happiness that a hazel nut can be supposed capable of." Then returning to his former earnest tone -- "My first wish for all whom I am interested in, is that they should be firm. If Louisa Musgrove would be beautiful and happy in her November of life, she will cherish all her present powers of mind."

Wentworth proposes that they all take a trip to Lyme to visit his navy friends the Harville’s and Captain Benwick – Benwick was engaged to the Harville’s sister, but she died when Benwick was at sea. He’s heartbroken, melancholy, and has developed a pension for reading and reciting poems and taking walks on dark, brooding misty beaches. Anne and Benwick hit it off. Anne also attracts the attention of a very nice looking man, who turns out to be none other than her cousin (and her father’s heir), Mr. Elliott.

At Lyme, though, we get a taste of what Louisa’s hard-headedness entails: she jumps off of a seawall when she’s flirting with Wentworth and sustains a head injury. Anne takes control of the situation, captivating Wentworth’s attention. Louisa must stay in Lyme to recover while the rest of the travelling party return home.

Once they are back, Anne has to finally join her family in Bath. She and Lady Russell travel to Bath and witness the sheer obnoxiousness of Anne’s family. Sir Walter Elliott is obsessed with being seen with his very rich very aristocratic kind of distant relatives: Lady Dalrymple and her boring daughter. Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s friend, Mrs. Clay, may be a gold-digger who has designs on Sir Walter. They are wildly socially inappropriate and embarrassing. In Bath, Anne has more occasions to meet with Mr. Elliott, who seems to be smitten with her, and although she seems intrigued, she is also suspicious. She also reacquaints herself with an old friend, Mrs. Smith.

Soon, the Crofts come to Bath with some surprising news: Henrietta Musgrove is engaged to Charles Hayter, and Louisa Musgrove is engaged (gasp!) to Captain Benwick! Wentworth is available again! But he thinks that Mr. Elliot and Anne are an item. Wentworth is also, rather grudgingly, allowed to socialize with Anne’s high-falutin family. Meanwhile, Anne visits her friend, Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith is an impoverished widow who had the misfortune of being married to an awful man who spent all their money on wine and gambling. It turns out that his friend, one Mr. Elliot, goaded him along in his ruin and that Mr. Elliot continues to control purse-strings in such a way that keeps Mrs. Smith impoverished. Also strangely, Anne and others keep seeing Mr. Elliot hanging out with Mrs. Clay when he’s supposed to be somewhere else.

Anne finds herself in a conversation about love and marriage (and being married particularly to a navy man) with Captain Harville while Wentworth is in earshot. Anne says that women who love their men never forget them. Anne claims that “ We certainly do not forget [men] so soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. [Men] are forced on exertion. You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions." Harville maintains that men love women more intensely, more strongly than women love men. Anne argues that “[Men’s] feelings may be the strongest...but...ours are the most tender.”

Wentworth overhears it all and starts frantically writing a letter. It’s a love letter to Anne. They end up talking, confessing their love, and.....getting married (awwwe). Mr. Elliot seems to have run of with Mrs. Clay. Wentworth helps Mrs. Smith get her money. And they all live happily ever after...except (dum dum dum dum)...for Anne, “the dread of a future war all that could dim her sunshine. She gloried in being a sailor's wife, but she must pay the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its national importance.”


 * Importance of Persuasion**

Most critics believe that the novel might be characterized as dark: Anne borders perilously close to being a sad, lonely spinster in the context of nineteenth-century ideals of marriage. Charles and Mary’s son experiences a bad fall that could have likely killed him. The same is true of Louisa. Mr. Elliot is corrupt and unfeeling, looking for love a mere six months after his wife’s death. Captain Benwick’s fiancé died and Benwick himself seems stuck in a melancholic rut. And it’s hard to avoid the spectre of war since so many characters are in the navy – and, of course, Louisa and Henrietta’s brother, Richard, had died at sea. In 1862, one reader wrote that the novel presents “the first genuine picture of that silent torture of an unloved woman.” I like the emphasis here on silence and torture – the novel is a quiet novel (and Anne has little dialogue for the first half) and the torture of love and war and foolhardiness seep throughout the text.

The novel, as Patricia Meyers Spacks observes, is a tense commingling of the everyday, individual, and competing desires of characters with the demands of social conventions and political developments. This permeates its theme of persuasion: how do we make decisions? What influence do others or things out of our control have on those decisions? How responsible are we each individually for our feelings and our actions?

One persistent question that preoccupies readers of all of Austen’s novels is the question of how does Austen feel about her characters? In some cases in Persuasion, Austen can seem downright cruel – witness, for example, her depiction of Richard Musgrove in Chapter 6: “the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a very troublesome, hopeless son, and the good fortune to lose him before he reached his twentieth year; that he had been sent to sea, because he was stupid and unmanageable on shore; that he had been very little cared for at any time by his family, though quite as much as he deserved; seldom heard of, and scarcely at all regretted, when the intelligence of his death abroad had worked its way to Uppercross, two years before. He had, in fact, though his sisters were now doing all they could for him, by calling him "poor Richard," been nothing better than a thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done any thing to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name, living or dead.”

Likewise, Austen’s depiction of Sir William Elliot, Mrs. Clay, Elizabeth Elliot, Mary Musgrove, and Mr. Elliot are all biting. And there are times when her depictions of even Louisa Musgrove, Captain Benwick, and Lady Russell leave a bad taste in the reader’s mouth. These, combined with the theme of silent, tortured love, would seem to make this Cinderella story less fairy-talesque than we might expect.

For Spacks, this correlates to one of the novel’s central themes: that of “self love.” What obligations do we have to follow our own desires, and what obligations to we have to others. Anne is consistently self-sacrificing where her family is frustratingly selfish. At the same time, however, Anne’s self-sacrifices have cost her and another’s happiness – she and Wentworth will never get those eight lost years back. Both have suffered as a result of her deferral to her family. And might there have been some merit at least in her family’s disapproval of her and Wentworth’s match? He wasn’t socially well positioned to be her husband, and he was a navy man – what kinds of tortures might have happened had they married eight years ago?

For Spacks, the novel solves this conundrum in part not through its depiction of true, lasting love, but through its depiction of the navy. The navy becomes, ironically, a better model of sociability and community than the aristocracy courted by the likes of Sir William and Mr. Elliott. The Harville’s are thoughtful and kind; the Crofts have an ideal marriage. And as Meyers puts it, “being a sailor, or a sailor’s wife, allows for intricate balances between loving and being loved, between pride and fear, but also between personal absorption and public responsibility.” After all, a sailor has two obligations: his family and his nation. Where the aristocracy takes and takes and takes, the sailor serves. The sailor can love his wife and children, but his “absorption” – as Meyers calls it – can never be entire because he has a continuing duty to the greater good of the nation. Similarly, the sailor lives with the risks of war, but these can help him to take greater risks in love, to overcome the fear of rejection as Wentworth does one more time at the end of the novel when he writes the letter to Anne.

All of these concerns and themes take us back around to the question of character. How are we to interpret Austen’s characters? Do we like them, hate them, feel ambivalent about them? Does she like them, hate them, or feel ambivalent about them? What kinds of models for action and feelings do they provide us with? What do their concerns say about the concerns of nineteenth-century readers? Can we still relate to them and how? And what might considering Austen’s characters reveal to us about the role of literature?


 * Questions to Consider**

1) What, do you think, is the significance of the title: //Persuasion//? Working with your group, consider how the term is used throughout the novel – who is persuaded? What is persuasive? Do you think that the novel thinks being persuaded is a good or a bad thing? Under what conditions? How does the ability to be persuaded (or to be firm) affect our idea of a person or a character in the novel? In other words, do you think that being able to be persuaded is a good character-quality to have? Or should one always act independently and strongly? 2) Leaving aside Anne and Captain Wentworth, who are the most important characters in the novel? In other words, if we were ranking characters from 1-10, 1 being the most important and ten being the least important, we would put Anne and Wentworth at 1 and 2 (or 2 and 1?). But who would we put at 3, 4, 5, etc? Justify your ranking. 3) Which character do you like or identify more: Anne or Wentworth? Which one seems to you to be the better character, or which one seems to have the most accurate outlook on life and love and to take the most appropriate actions? Why?

Persuasion Lecture 2


 * Nineteenth-Century Marriage**

Marriage in the early nineteenth century found itself caught in an unholy, well marriage, of sorts between the idea of marriage as a business transaction and the idea of marriage as a love match: on the one hand, marriages in which one or both of the spouses had access to property and money needed to be handled carefully from a business perspective. In these types of marriages, you wanted to make sure that the match brought profit to both spouses. On the other hand, people were starting to talk more and more about love and true love and schmoopie soul mates, yaddi yaddi yada. Let’s save schmoopie soul mates for later and look at the business-logistics of the nineteenth-century marriage.

In the nineteenth century, primogeniture still mattered. Primogeniture is a system for passing along inheritance to your children: namely, if primogeniture is in place it means that the oldest, male son inherits all the money and property. Everyone else is left to fend for themselves to some degree. Second sons might join a profession (such as the law or church) or receive some small stipend or annual payment in lieu of owning land and the bulk of the wealth it produces through farming and rent payments. Primogeniture primarily applies to families that have money and property – it’s obviously less of a concern if you have little or none of those things. And it was still very much in place in the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century among the landed gentry and aristocracy. In addition to inheriting money and property, the sons of aristocrats who were nobles, lords, baronets, marquis, and whatnots inherited the title. That is, the oldest son of a lord got the title of Lord of X or Sir Y, while the younger sons might have received lesser or no titles.

Traditionally, men made money in one of two ways in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries. The first way was the oldest and most respected way: they already had it and had inherited it from their fathers. Usually, money was based in land ownership – so a wealthy person’s annual income came from renting out their land to farmers and tenants. The other way that men made money was through business – this was considered a less respectable way of earning money. Under most circumstances, a self-made man would not have had a title; a land-owning man very well might have.

Women could not own property or really control their or their family’s wealth during Austen’s life. Women could have annuities – a set sum of money that they would receive from their fathers, brothers, or husbands each year. These could be small or big piles of cash. However, usually, the annuity only kicked in once the woman was married and at that point it was controlled and managed by her husband – so a bigger pile of cash would seem to attract a better husband, but it might also make some women attractive to men coming from cash-strapped families. Regardless, even though it was the woman’s money, it was really her husband’s. Similarly, women might have a dowry – a lump sum of money that would be given to her husband when they married. And finally, a woman’s father might have a title and in the absence of a male heir, it could be arranged for that title to be bestowed on the woman’s husband, but this was rarer and usually required some negotiating (i.e. the husband would pay the woman’s father for the title and agree, in most cases, to take his wife’s family name rather than retain his own).

All of this made getting married very, very complicated. And probably sucked a love of the soul-mate schmoopie out of courtship. Marriages, especially between folks who had money, property, or titles, were business transactions designed to get everyone the best possible and most profitable deal, and required one to be careful about who exactly they married and for what reason. A wealthy, titled man would want to marry a woman who would bring more money to his estate. A titled but no longer wealthy family would want their son to marry a wealthy woman. An untitled but wealthy man might try to marry a woman who could bring her family’s title to him. In sum, lord help you if you were a woman without money to bring to the marriage.

Of course, there is one small sticking point. If you are participating in a system where the oldest son inherits everything, you kind of want to make sure – if you’re the husband and would-be father in this situation – that the son is yours. Because if your wife gets pregnant by someone else, it sort of throws a whole wrench into the system. It doesn’t just make you sad that you’ve been cheated on, it means your family’s financial legacy is no longer, well, exactly in the family. For this reason, there was a premium put on a woman’s virginity going into the marriage and on her fidelity and conduct in the marriage. A husband wanted to make sure that any babies, or at the very least the first son, was definitely his. This could be achieved, on the one hand, by treating the marriage as a love match rather than a business transaction – the idea being that people who are in love are less likely to cheat on their spouses. And women who are well behaved might be less inclined to cheat on their spouses. In short, women were frequently caught in a bind: your sole job was to attract a great husband; but you also had to be careful to avoid being “too” attractive.

Consequently, there was a lot – and I mean a lot – of guidebooks written that explicitly told women how to behave. One example of such a guidebook is George Fordyce’s //Sermons to Young Women// (1766). I mention this text because it’s one that we know that Jane Austen knew of for sure – because she references it directly in her novel, //Pride and Prejudice//.

Here are some examples of how Fordyce talks to his female readers:

"The world, I know not how, overlooks in [the male] sex a thousand irregularities, which it never forgives in [the female sex]; so that the honor and peace of a family are, in this view, much more dependent on the conduct of daughters than of sons" (1:17)

If a woman "make[s] a dangerous connexion [with a man]... [her] folly is without excuse, and [her] destruction without alleviation" (1:129).

“[Women’s] business chiefly is to read men [not novels!], in order to make yourselves agreeable and useful” (11).

Women who are flirty or vain threaten to bring about “the disgrace of our country...the destruction of health, fortune, decency, refinement, rectitude of mind, and dignity of manners!”

When women flirt with me, “[men’s] blood bois: the tavern, the streets, the stews, eke out the evening; riot and madness conclude the cene...[or] dissipation...naturally grow[s]” among the entire male population of the nation.

“When a daughter...turns out unruly, foolish, wanton; when she disobeys her parents, disgraces her education, dishonours her sex, disappoints the hopes she had raised; when she throws herself away on a man unworthy of her, or...unqualified to make her happy...her parents...suffer...The world...overlooks [in men] a thousand irregularities, which it never forgives in women; so that the honour and peace of a family are, in this view, much more dependent on the conduct of daughters than of sons; and one young lady going astray shall subject her relations to such discredit and distress, as the united good conduct of all her brothers and sisters, supposing them numerous, shall scarce ever be able to repair.”

Why do I mention this? Well, because it helps puts Anne’s persuasion into perspective. Austen lived in a culture where women were expected to be eminently persuadable to always do the most modest, most appropriate thing for the betterment of their families and their families’ financial situation. At the same time, however, they were also implicitly encouraged to pursue marital matches based on their own desires. How was Anne to decide? How was Wentworth to persuade her? What impossible ideals were always/already placed on their relationship?


 * Navy and Napoleonic Wars**

Mary Favret, a researcher who works on Austen, has noted that the novel is set in the midst of war. For Favret, //Persuasion// seems relatively innocuous at first – which is to say, that it seems to have little to do with the Napoleonic Wars that linger in its background. Yet she senses a lingering darkness in the novel as each character tries to understand what it means to understand one’s duty to one’s family, and one’s larger community. Which is to say, Favret wonders if Anne’s silent torture isn’t to some extent a result of the kinds of anxiety a person experiences when they live in a country at war.

The Napoleonic wars were, frankly, scary and all consuming for the British nation at the time Persuasion was written and during which it is set. That Richard Musgrove died at war is not surprising; that Wentworth could meet a similar fate is a very real possibility. The Napoleonic Wars are complicated. In 1789, there was a revolution in France: essentially, the French people revolted against the monarchy, slaughtering the king and queen and a number of rich, important people in France as a way of expressing popular displeasure with the power and privilege that the rich lorded over the poor. But in the process, a power vacuum was created in which France had no real government. Consequently, ten years later in 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte seized power. If at first, this seems like it should have little to do with England, in reality, it had a lot to do with England. For one thing, England also had a monarchy – the British were seriously, very seriously, concerned that the masses in England might get the same idea and kill all the people in power. And once the power vacuum happened in France and Napoleon stepped up to fill it, he did so with pretty grand ideas: namely, world domination. So the British wanted to, first, put the kibbitz on the Revolution and then, second, stop Napoleon from attacking them. So they went on the offensive. By 1803, the only thing stopping Napoleon from invading England was England’s navy. Meanwhile, the British and the French were also vying for power over colonial outposts: control over places in Africa, America, and Asia. All of this had the effect of making “war” and everyday experience in Jane Austen’s lifetime as daily reports of battles and death alongside calls for patriotic support became commonplace. Moreover, almost everyone in Britain at the time had a family member involved in the war. Two of Austen’s brothers were in the navy. Simon Bainbridge, another researcher, gives us some startling statistics: the army grew from 40,000 men in 1793 to 250,000 in 1813; the navy from 45,000 in 1793 to 145,000 in 1812. 400,000 men in England were volunteers in the armed forced in 1803 (source: Gates). According to Bainbridge, “It has been estimated that during this period of invasion crisis, from 1797 to 1804, as many as one in six, or even one in five, of all adult males was involved in the armed forces in either a voluntary or an enrolled position” (6).

For many researchers, this new emphasis on war had profound effects on literature like that by Jane Austen. Even though we might not recognize it at first, there are subtle ways in which the literature tried to negotiate and reconfigure the everyday experiences of the individuals who were living in a nation at war. With specific regards to //Persuasion,// new research asks us to think about what any particular character’s “duties” are – to themselves, to their family, to their lovers, to their nation. Women were especially encouraged, as you might have noticed in the passages I quoted from Fordyce, to see themselves as responsible for making sure that Britons were morally upstanding and superior to other the individuals in other nations – not least as a way to justify military actions against those nations. Moreover, researchers like Mary Favret and Stephen Bainbridge link the theme of persuasion to the new propaganda inspired by war: the government, in other words, was newly inspired and even required to convince the nation to get behind a war. How might this form of persuasion change our ideas about the novel?


 * Quick Review of Arguments in the Articles**

Litz’s essay, “New Landscapes,” pays particular attention to depictions of landscapes in //Persuasion//, arguing that //Persuasion// is unique from other Austen novels in its linking of the autumnal season to Anne’s temperament. This happens not only with regards to the fact that Anne is no longer in the Spring of her womanhood by nineteenth-century standards, Litz argues, but also happens because Austen has been newly influenced by Romanticism: a new literary emphasis on a poetry of feeling and nature that exists in contrast to the eighteenth-century emphasis on rationality, logic, politics, and civil/polite discourse. One of the most useful elements of Litz’s essay is that he identifies the ways in which Austen satirizes this poetry while she is also clearly compelled by it – a good way of understanding the complexity of how she represents characters as well.

Marilyn Butler’s essay on //Persuasion// argues that the novel provide s readers with two, often incompatible “planes of reality.” On the one hand, Austen presents us with an intimate and interior view of Anne’s feelings – novels that came before //Persuasion//, Butler implies, never quite achieved this kind of privileged vantage point of a heroine’s inner life. On the other hand, however, Butler finds that Austen’s way of narrating these interior feelings is strangely still objective and exterior – as if the reader and author alike have a uniquely privileged and distant perspective on the things that affect Anne’s heart the most. This tension emerges in other places in the novel as well: if it would have us believe that Wentworth is the protagonist, we recognize that the novel is all about Anne. Even as we recognize that the novel is all about Anne, Anne’s voice is rarely heard. For Butler, this tension is also expressed in the two competing endings for the novel – the original and then the final.

Tony Tanner’s “In Between //Persuasion//” considers how Austen’s novel is more about dissuasion rather than persuasion – which is to say, that the novel constantly narrates how it is that Anne is discouraged from doing the thing(s) that she really wants to do – she isn’t persuaded to take a certain action, in other words, she’s dissuaded from taking the action she desires to take. One aspect of the novel that Tanner finds particularly compelling is the absence of an authority figure who could be responsible for reliably persuading someone like Anne to take action. Anne’s mother is dead; her father is, well, Sir Walter; Lady Russell’s advice is bad and her authority consequently called into question. The novel, Tanner argues, is a novel about change and the indeterminate space one inhabits during times of change both personal and cultural.

Robert Hopkins’s “Moral Luck and Judgment in Jane Austen’s //Persuasion//” hinges on one line in the novel where Anne suggests to Wentworth that her earlier decision to be persuaded by Lady Russell may have been neither an intrinsically good nor intrinsically bad decision – instead, unforeseeable circumstances that developed determined the moral judgment of her decision. For Hopkins’ this is an incredibly radical and surprising statement that reveals the novel to be an extended meditation on how much (or how very little) control individuals have over not only their own lives, but even the intrinsic rightness or wrongness of the moral decisions about those lives they might make.

Ann W. Estell’s “Anne Elliot’s Education: The Learning of Romance in //Persuasion//” disagrees with earlier critics of the novel who argued that the novel essentially traces the development and change in Wentworth and not Anne. Anne, Estell finds, learns romance throughout the course of the novel. For Estell, this romantic education is significant and it entails an engagement with Romanticism and its emphasis on inner and intense feelings. Anne would seem to learn throughout the novel to control her emotions, Estell suggests, and turn them, on the one hand, into a kindness to others in her community and, on the other hand, to own them enough in a self-sustaining kind of way to love Wentworth “whether or not he returns her love.”

Claudia Johnson’s “//Persuasion//: The ‘Unfeudal Tone of the Present Day’ argues that Austen’s novel is a significant and sustained criticism of the landed classes. Johnson connects this criticism to two historical events going on in Austen’s lifetime: class tension (made especially palpable by the French revolution) and the insistence that women be domestic, and morally-upstanding at all times to the exclusion of being independent. Both contexts would seem to jut uncomfortably against notions of authority – who has the right to determine how others should act, and how should one submit to (or resist) authority figures – be they parents, the government, the church, etc.? Johnson argues that //Persuasion// doesn’t solve these issues so much as raise them. In other words, Austen calls a lot of her cultural norms and mores into question without outright rejecting them, according to Johnson.

Cheryl Ann Weissman’s “Doubleness and Refrain in Jane Austen’s //Persuasion//” considers how many doubles or pairs there are in //Persuasion –// not only do the characters seem linked in twos and not only do plot events double up (think fall at Lyme / fall at Uppercross) but even the sentences seem remarkably doubled, according to Weissman. For WEissman, this doubling reminds us of the novel’s larger thematic concerns, namely its concern over how an individual achieves change (or movement from one thing to another) and its attempt to represent in full and rich detail the complexity of an individual’s inner life and grapple with the conflict we experience between knowing a person’s character and perceiving it.

Addition Notes Provided by Students:
Lecture 1 (date: M 9/12) examples of persuasion in the novel: 1)Mr Shepherd convinces the family they must cut spending, goes to Lady Russell for assistance. The original plan of Anne (sought by Lady Russell) was rejected in lieu of renting Kellynch to a sailor ---Shows how the leaders of the family need to be guided by outsiders for their best interests 2) Lady Russell convinces the family to settle in Bath shows her efforts in preventing Mrs Clay from winning Sir Walter's affections 3) Anne convinces Mary (not a difficult task) to go on to dinner while she stayed with little Charles ---shows her unwilllingness to face her feelings about Wentworth 4) Louisa convinces Henrietta to see Charles Hayter ---shows her ulterior motives: not only does it give her private time with Wentworth, but also helps renew Henrietta's romance, thus eliminating the competition 5)Wentworth convinces the Crofts to specifically urge Anne to ride in the carriage shows both his kindness towards Anne personally, as she must be tired, and socially, as Anne was "the seventh wheel", being the only one not in a couple of the group. I wonder which reason swayed him more?? There are many more examples, but they all have the ability to illustrate the character's motives. It also seems that many of Anne's kindnesses are an attempt to avoid awkward situations. She later attends to Little Charles in an attempt to avoid conversation with Wentworth. She also throws herself into the business of readying her family for their trip to Bath earlier, which seems to be an attempt to avoid thinking about the move and Wentworth 1315973017Tera Winchek

It seems to me that Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Clay were working together to stop Sir Walter from having a child. Especially at the part where he was suppose to be somewhere else and they were caught walking together, then her excuse afterward made no sense. That at the end of the book they both leave Bath1316039422

Persuasion is an epistolary novel that uses satire and parody frequently. 1316059357