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'Robert Martin and the English Yeoman'
Marjorie Jones
Presented to the JASA meeting 19 June 1999
The yeomanry is precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to
do. A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me; I might hope to
be useful to their families in some way or other. But a farmer can need none of my help,
and is therefore in one sense as much above my notice, as in every other way he is below
it.
This is Emma, speaking to Harriet of Robert Martin.
Who and what is Robert Martin, what is his place in Highbury society and what, if
anything, does he have in common with yeomen of the past? Jane Austen began writing Emma
in 1813 and Robert is ‘four and twenty’ when the story opens. This puts the date
of his birth at about 1790. Mr Knightley describes him as ‘a respectable,
intelligent, gentleman-farmer’ but is this the same thing as a yeoman? He is Mr
Knightley's tenant and may or may not have any land of his own.
In medieval times the legal definition of a yeoman was a ‘freeholder with land to
the value of 40s per annum’. There are instances in the past of men owning freehold
land and renting other land as tenant farmers and this may be the case with Mr Martin. If
he has no land of his own, he is not, strictly speaking, a yeoman in the ancient legal
sense of the word. But what struck me on reading more on the subject was the way in which
the meaning of the word has been changing over the years. In the 13th and 14th centuries
it was principally applied to a knight's servants or retainers, although in the Royal
household the minor officials under the Chamberlain were ‘yeomen’. Christopher
Hibbert, in his The English - A Social History 1066-1945, describes a Norman
castle, with its army of ‘yeomen servants’, such as the Yeoman of the Pantry,
the Yeoman of the Buttery and the Yeoman of the Cellar. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary also
mentions a burlesque title - The Yeoman of the Cord, ie the Hangman. The word itself
appears in Middle English as ‘yeman’ or ‘yoman’, probably a
contraction of ‘young man’. Its first general usage appears to have been as a
term of service. In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales there are many references to yeomen.
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'Jane Austen’s Grotesque Characters'
Pamela Nutt
A talk given to JASA, 21 August 1999
In Jane Austen’s Sanditon, Charlotte Heywood is amazed by Sir Edward
Denham’s taste in novels. Sir Edward’s favourite novels display human nature
through
the progress of strong passion from the first germ of incipient susceptibility to the
utmost energies of reason half-dethroned; (and a) woman’s captivations elicit such
fire in the soul of man as leads him … to hazard all, dare all, achieve all to obtain
her. (S Ch 8)
Charlotte’s comment is that 'our taste in novels is not at all the same', and Jane
Austen’s is that 'Sir Edward ... had read more sentimental novels than had agreed
with him.' Richardson and his imitators had influenced him too greatly; they had, in fact,
'formed his character'. An important aspect of Jane Austen’s criticism of Sir
Edward’s taste was that 'the graces, the spirit, the sagacity and the perseverance of
the villain of the story outweighed all his absurdities and all his atrocities'. Quite
clearly, Jane Austen has in mind Dr Johnson’s comments in The Rambler. In writing
about works of fiction, he argues that 'these books ... serve as lectures of conduct and
introductions into life', particularly for the young. Works of fiction 'convey the
knowledge of vice and virtue' effectively. Thus he argues that an artist, in selecting
detail, should 'distinguish those parts of nature which are most proper for imitation', so
that prudence may be increased, without virtue being impaired. He objects to those writers
who 'so mingle good and bad qualities in their principal personages that they are both
equally conspicuous' in so far as readers 'lose abhorrence of their faults …or
perhaps regard them with some kindness for being united with so much merit'.
Rather, Dr Johnson would prefer that 'the most perfect idea of virtue' should be
exhibited, 'the highest and purest that humanity can reach'. Vice 'should always disgust
…it is the natural consequence of narrow thoughts; … it begins in mistake and
ends in ignominy'.
Fortunately Jane Austen did not see the world, or her representation of it, in such
black-and-white terms. She does not avoid heroes and heroines with faults as well as
strengths. Only the presence of faults in an Emma, an Elizabeth or a Darcy can allow Jane
Austen to demonstrate what qualities of mind allow a person to learn and grow, to become
the 'ideal' against which other characters can be measured. She certainly follows
Johnson’s advice, however, and does not allow the reader to accept the faults of such
characters as harmless mannerisms, because they are 'united with such merit.'
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'Northanger Abbey: The Gothic And The Real'
Alan Dilnot
It is part of received wisdom that Northanger Abbey is a satire on Gothic
tales of horror. The Oxford Companion to English Literature (1985) says that 'the
purpose of the novel is to ridicule the popular tales of romance and terror, such as Mrs
Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, while the Cambridge Guide to English
Literature (1983) says bluntly that Catherine Morland 'has read too many of Mrs
Radcliffe's Gothic novels'. Approaching the matter from another direction, M. H. Abrams,
in A Glossary of Literary Terms (1999 ed.) under 'Gothic Novel' remarks that Jane
Austen 'made good humoured fun of the more decorous instances of the Gothic vogue in Northanger
Abbey'.
At the same time, any history of the English novel is likely to quote from Chapter 5 of
Northanger Abbey the passage which begins
only a novel ... only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed,
in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its
varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best
chosen language.' (22)
This praise of the novel genre comes immediately after Jane Austen has told us that
Catherine and Isabella are shutting themselves up to read novels, but before she tells us
of what sort these novels are.
We might resolve this apparent paradox by saying that in Northanger Abbey Jane Austen
celebrates novels and novel-reading as pinnacles of human culture and cultivation, except
when a novel assumes Gothic dress. The trouble is that this solution does not agree with
what we actually find in Northanger Abbey. For there, I believe, Jane Austen
shows that learning to appreciate the Gothic actually opens the way to moral growth
because it refines the reader’s imaginative sympathies. To support this argument I am
proposing to look closely at who reads what, and to judge how their lives are affected by
their reading.
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'Northanger Abbey and the Theatrical World'
Penny Gay
The period of Jane Austen’s adult life coincided with the heyday of the Gothic
drama, a style of play and theatrical presentation that depended strongly on heightened
emotional situations, their effectiveness reinforced by exotic and spectacular locations.
Paul Ranger1 lists ‘major gothic plays’ beginning with John Hume’s Douglas
of 1756 (mentioned in Mansfield Park as a possible piece for the Mansfield
theatricals) - but the heyday of Gothic theatre really was 1790-1810. The defining
characteristics of Gothic theatre are: a setting in ‘the past of an indeterminate,
quasi-mediaeval Europe’(4), spectacular geo-graphical and/or architectural stage sets
- ‘dungeons damp, Drear forests, ruin’d aisles, and haunted towers’ (Lewis,
prologue to The Castle Spectre (1797)); ‘Lightning and Thunder, Flames,
Daggers and Rage’ (Lewis’s epilogue to Holcroft’s Knave or Not
(1798)). Sophisticated and experienced theatre-goers would recognise, as Ranger puts it,
the gothic quality of a play and it was only to be expected that stock characters would
perform within these locations .... the romantic hero and heroine; the villain, a
personification of relentless greed or self-devouring jealousy ...(10).
Catherine Morland, however, has never been in a theatre before her experiences in Bath,
and when she is there she is much more interested in catching Henry Tilney’s eye than
watching the action on stage (which Henry, theatre aficionado, is riveted by). So she does
not recognise the pervasive theatricality of Bath life (most notably in Isabella
Thorpe’s posturings of sensibility), nor, at Northanger, does she realise that she is
creating her own private theatre (in which she is both heroine and horrified audience) out
of her only imaginative experience, the reading of Mrs Radcliffe’s novels:
it had been all a voluntary, self-created delusion, each trifling circumstance
receiving importance from an imagination resolved on alarm, and every thing forced to bend
to one purpose by a mind which, before she entered the Abbey [or theatre], had been
craving to be frightened. (173, my emphasis)
**********
[The paper delivered at the Conference also described, with excerpts performed by
Susannah Fullerton and Jon Spence, Fountainville Forest, James Boaden’s 1794
adaptation of Anne Radcliffe’s popular Gothic novel, The Romance of the Forest
(1791), which had its premiere performances at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden in March
1794. This material, which was first presented at the 1998 JASNA conference in Quebec
city, can be read in Persuasions, no. 20 (1998), pp. 175-184.]
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Desperately Seeking Susan
Jon Spence
Those of you who are followers of the pop scene will be intrigued or appalled,
according to taste, by my title, which you’ll recognise as the name of Madonna’s
first film. My only justification in using it is that I think the title fits. I’m
going to try to follow the trail that led to Jane Austen’s writing Northanger
Abbey, which was first entitled Susan, the original name of the heroine of
the novel, and to suggest Austen’s private reasons for calling her heroine Susan.
The name Susan makes its first appearance in 'Jack & Alice,' probably written in
1787, soon after Jane’s glamorous cousin, Eliza de Feuillide, entered her life. Susan
was the name Jane Austen most closely associated with Eliza, and so in pursuit of Susan we
must follow Austen’s relationship with Eliza.
Eliza was almost exactly fourteen years older than Jane, and they met at Christmas 1786
when Jane had just turned eleven and Eliza twenty-five. Eliza had been in France since
about the time Jane was born, had married a French count, and had only returned to England
in 1786 to have her first child. Eliza was beautiful, charming, rich and a countess.
Initially Jane might have been fascinated by Eliza’s rank, wealth and experience,
but Eliza’s profound attraction was her personal charm, her talent for being natural
and obliging. She put the eleven year old Jane at her ease, talked to her, amused her,
made her feel unselfconscious, made her feel that she herself was clever and charming.
Eliza fitted comfortably into the Steventon family circle, and entered into their spirited
conversations. She made it her business to be agreeable to everyone, and Jane was not the
only member of the family who was captivated by her. So was her brother Henry. He was
clever, lively, open and affectionate - very like Eliza.
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'Jane Austen and the Furniture of Northanger Abbey'
Julian Bickersteth
Jane Austen lived and died entirely within the reign of George III. In discussing
therefore the furniture of her times, we would instinctively look at what is broadly
termed Georgian furniture. However, furniture historians no longer divide furniture
periods according to the reigning monarch, but do so by the predominant timber of the
time. Thus, we talk of the Age of Oak, the Age of Walnut and, relevant to us, the Age of
Mahogany, which covers the period 1720 to 1780, and the Age of Satinwood from 1770 into
the early 19th century. At that stage, contrary to the earlier statement, a defined time
based on the state of the monarchy, and known as the Regency, is used to describe the
style of furniture.
Being born in 1775, Jane Austen therefore just catches the end of the Age of Mahogany,
lives through the Age of Satinwood into the Regency. Northanger Abbey, I understand dates
from about 1798. With that brief introduction to locate the timing of my paper, let us
turn to the subject, the furniture of Northanger Abbey.
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