British Literature Up to 1800

Last class, Dr. Mathur asked us to think about how Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews would have influenced Jane Austen.  When she first told us this I blew it off.  They are so different.  How could this story about the pursuit of purity in Joseph influence the writings of Jane Austen, writings about “true love”?  After considering her question for some time, I began to dig deeper and realized it was not the story topic that would have had an influence.

            Both authors play with the idea that things are not always what they seem.  What you expect is true is not always true.  For example, in Northanger Abbey (by Jane Austen), the main character is so caught up about the mysteries in novels that she does not pay attention to the realities around her.  When she visits her friend in a castle, she makes assumptions based on this fantasy.  Reality is completely opposite of what she thinks it is.  In Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen), Darcy is not the proud man he appears to be.  In Joseph Andrews, one would expect that it is the women who have to fight to preserve their chastity.  However, it is Joseph that fights to remain pure.  He appears as an effeminate character.  However, in Book IV, he physically fights for the honor of Fanny, whom he loves.  Their relationship isn’t even what it appears to be.  We find out that they are in fact brother and sister.  In all three cases, it is not only through the actions, but through the dialogue and descriptions as well.

            It is in the very beginnings of the novel (such novels such as Joseph Andrews) that all novels, even those of Jane Austen and perhaps today have their background.  The twists common and expected in novels were not always expected in previous literature.  The poems would not all of the sudden reject an idea for the sake of another in the middle of it.  That would be confusing in that style of writing.  Previous styles of literature did not contain actions, dialogue, and descriptions in equal proportions.  These elements allow for the audience to understand the difference between appearance and reality while the characters do not necessarily understand it.

The representations of men in both The Convent of Pleasure and The Rape of the Lock are strikingly similar.  Both portray men as being after one thing: the pleasure of a woman.  In The Convent of  Pleasure, the men are shocked and upset at the fact that Lady Happy decides to form a convent, particularly because men are not allowed.  In The Rape of the Lock, the Baron continually lusts after Belinda to the point where having a lock of her hair reaches the point of ecstasy.  What is the purpose of having men portrayed this way in two distinctly different texts?

 In The Convent of Pleasure, the men in the story are all after one thing, or rather, one person: Lady Happy.  Lady Happy has just been given a great inheritance from Lord Fortunate that increases her wealth enormously.  When the men learn that Lady Happy is using this newfound wealth and land to open and join a convent, they are upset because each one is seeking her hand in marriage.  They even go so far as to devise a scheme in which they will go into the convent disguised; the Prince even goes so far as to carry it out.  Through these actions, the men in the story prove they are after one thing: Lady Happy and her wealth.  The desire for power in this case manifests itself in sexual desire for Lady Happy, showing that men are lusty and unable to control their desires.

A similar point is made in The Rape of the Lock.  The Baron wishes and desires after Belinda.  When he steals a lock of her hair he reaches a point of ecstasy that is perhaps sexual in nature.  The idea that men are not able to hold back their lusty desires manifests itself in the action the Baron takes of taking a lock of Belinda’s hair and treasuring it. 

We normally do not look at how men are criticized in a text, but normally to women.  These texts present some issues regarding women’s chastity, but more about the uncontrollable desires of men.  Both the Prince and the Baron are unable to hold back their desires for the women they are seeking.  They pursue them until they are obtained, showing that men are powerful and dominate, but also that men do not necessarily have self-control as most texts would suggest.   

God is ruler of Heaven.  Satan is the leader of the rebellion against God and consequently the ruler of Hell.  God is the symbol of everything good and holy.  Satan is the symbol of everything evil.  Heaven is the symbol of the ultimate paradise and peace while Hell is the symbol of torture and damnation. Despite all their obvious differences, God and Satan, Heaven and Hell there are many parallels between them. 

                                                 In Book 2, Beelzebub makes a proposal to go to earth and tempt the humans, making them rebel against what God had told them to do.  In this proposal, he is very charismatic.  He expects someone “To second, or oppose, or undertake / The perilous attempt” (2.419-420).  However, no one responds to the scheme, negatively or positively.  Satan volunteers himself.  At this, they rose in admiration and worship and made a sound like thunder then proceeded to rejoice at their plan.

                                                 Similarly, in Book 3 God predicts the fall of man and proposes a way to save man by having someone go to earth and make a sacrifice.  The reaction of the Heavenly beings to this proposal is strikingly similar to the reaction to Beelzebub’s proposal in Hell: “He asked, but all the heav’nly choir stood mute, / And silence was in Heav’n” (3.217-218).  The Son at last volunteers himself.  The reaction to this is similar to the reaction Satan received in Hell: “Admiration seized / All Heav’n” (3.271-272). And, also similar to the reaction in Hell, the angels celebrated.

            So why make these similarities? What is
Milton trying to accomplish through these parallels between Heaven and Hell?  From what I understand, the text makes these parallels because Satan and all the demons have fallen from Heaven.  Because they are from Heaven and made by God, just as the angels are made by God, they will have similar reactions in similar situations.  This challenges the notion that Heaven and Hell come from completely different origins.

In Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, there are many things that occur in doubles.  One set of doubles is the Arcasia’s Bower of Bliss and The Garden of Adonis.  Both are gardens that are at in the hands of a single woman, who themselves are parallel characters.  Arcasia tends the Bower of Bliss and Venus tends theGarden of
Adonis.  Arcasia is a beautiful woman that uses her beauty to test the temperance of men.  She lures men in, lets them look, but does not let them completely fulfill their desires.  Venus, the goddess of love, is also very beautiful. However, she does not use her beauty to purposely test and trap men as Arcasia does in the Bower of Bliss.      

            The different roles of these women are reflected in their gardens.  The Bower of Bliss is a trap.  It has thin walls all around that lets men get in but does not allow them to go out.  The garden itself appears to be natural, but in reality is merely art.  Like Arcasia (Arcasia’s use of beauty to trap men), the beauty of art is pleasing to the eye but the actual fruits are not good for you.  Unlike the Bower of Bliss, however, theGarden of
Adonis has strong walls on two sides and gates on the other two.  The walls are strong and thick, unlike those in the Bower of Bliss: one wall is made of gold, and one is made of iron.  The gates allow for passage in and out.  When you enter the garden, (when you are old), you are allowed to leave it again once you have regenerated.  It is not a trap and what is in it is natural, like the natural beauty of Venus. With both cases, the garden is directly related to the woman who tends it.

The Tragedy of Mariam by Elizabeth Carry focuses on the marriages of two couples: the marriage of Solome and Constabarus and the marriage of Mariam and Herod.  Neither marriage is what I would consider ideal.  Mariam and Herod are both fickle about whether or not they love each other; even after Maraim’s death, Herod wonders why he questioned her enough to put her to death. Solome wishes to leave Constabarus for Silleus, an Arab.  Constabarus comes to the conclusion that marriage is a bad thing: “The least of goods, the worst of evils; / Your best are worst than men, your worst than devils” (4.6.71-71).  The idea that marriage is a good and perfect institution is constantly refuted throughout the play.          

In response to Constabarus’s complaints about his marriage to Solome, Babas’s Second Son said, “And this I vow; that, had I leave to live / I would forever lead a single life / And never venture on a devilish wife” (4.6.76-78).  These three line sums up Elizabeth Carry’s view on marriage.  Having gone through a rough marriage herself, she is giving her readers a warning on marriage: it is not as wonderful as it seems.  Even Babas’s Second Son would rather be single than take a wife and be betrayed as Solome has betrayed Josephus and Constabarus and as Herod has betrayed both Doris and Mariam.  Should we take Carry’s advice about marriage?  Perhaps; however, I believe her caution is more along the line of: be careful before you jump into something as life changing as marriage.  You don’t know how the future will turn out.   

        For the Puritans, the theater presented many plays that would be objectionable to their moral standards.  One of these plays is Twelfth Night.  There are many issues in Twelfth Night that would go against the Puritan way of thinking.  First, the blatant drunkenness of Sir Toby would have disgusted them.  The Puritans believed that the body was a temple for God and drinking defiles the body.  The second thing that the Puritans would have been appalled by is the sexual puns used throughout the play.  The best example of this kind of pun occurs when Malvolio finds the letter that he thinks is from Olivia.  He says, “These be her very c’s, her u’s, and her t’s…” (Act 2.5 line 88).  According to the footnote in the Norton text, this spells the word cut, the slang word for the female genitalia.  The Puritans thought that this kind of language did not support the Christian way of life.  These were matters that were inappropriate for a public setting, or even a private one.  A Christian, according to the Puritans would not wish to address sexuality.   

            On that note, the Puritans would also have objected to the relationships that were part of the main plot of the story of Twelfth Night.  Orsino, presumably in love with Olivia, has also taken a liking to Cesario (whom we know to also be Viola).  In the final act, when he finds out that Cesario is in fact a woman, he appears to be relieved.  This implies that he might have taken a homosexual type of liking to Cesario.  According to the Puritans, this would be highly inexcusable.  There is also the appearance of a love relationship between Antonio and Sebastian.  These relationships would be against the Puritan belief that love is only between a man and a woman.  By keeping in mind that all of these violations of Puritan belief are found in Twelfth Night and that these violations are found in many of the plays in Shakespeare’s day, one can understand why the Puritans would find many plays objectionable.

            In the middle ages women had the expectation to remain chaste for one husband.  The Wife of Bath challenges this idea by having been married to five husbands and explicitly stating the notions of her sexuality in her prologue.  Beautiful language is used to describe her justification of sex.  In lines 121 to 144 she challenges chastity by saying the sexual organs were not only made for urination, but also for procreation; procreation was ordained by God, therefore sex is not necessarily a bad thing.  However, if said aloud or read without any idea of the meaning, the language is beautiful, even though the subject itself is not beautiful. For example, lines 131 to 134:

“So that the clerkes be nat with me wrothe,

I saye this, that they been maad for bothe—

That is to sayn, for office, and for ese

Of engendrure, there we nat God displese.”

            The rhyme scheme is set up as AABB, making the verse pleasing to the ear.  The rhythm is easy and flowing, as with all of Chaucer’s text.  But why not make the language less pleasing when such a subject is discussed?    

            Part of the reason may be that the subject is being spoken of by a woman. Women are stereotypically less course than men.  The Wife of Bath, not being outwardly gorgeous finds the need to use beautiful language.  If the narrator was in fact a man, the language might be a courser, less refined, even if merely the diction were changed.  The beauty of the language perhaps makes the Wife of Bath a bit less ugly in the eyes of the reader, however much she challenges the stereotypical beauty of a woman inwardly and outwardly.            

     Beowulf is set in a pagan culture that does not know Christ, yet it was written down during a time when Christianity was thriving.  It is because of this layering the readers are able to make parallels between the story of Christ and the story of Beowulf, particularly when Beowulf is in the process of fighting the dragon.  In preparation to fight the dragon, he selects twelve of his best warrior to come with him to help much like Jesus selected twelve followers to help carry out his mission.  At the time near his death, the time when he needs his warriors most, eleven of them flee the scene and seek shelter; only one stays.  This is similar to what happened during Christ’s death.  Only one of the twelve was brave enough to stand by him and say that he was in fact a follower of Christ, much like stayed with Beowulf.  Beowulf also makes self-sacrifice for what he believes is the good of the people he serves.  He believes the dragon to be evil and sets out to destroy that evil.  Christ sacrifices himself for the good of mankind and also fights evil.  While some may argue that Beowulf’s sacrifice was not completely self-less, they have to keep in mind that the poet was writing of a pagan culture.  Furthermore, Beowulf would not be elevated to the same level of Christ.  While Beowulf may not perfectly represent Christ, there are significant parallels between both stories.