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Monthly Archives: December 2009

Happy holidays!

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Christmas is come and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now
E’en want will dry its tears in mirth
And crown him wi’ a holly bough
Tho tramping ‘neath a winters sky
O’er snow track paths and rhymey stiles
The huswife sets her spining bye
And bids him welcome wi’ her smiles
Each house is swept the day before
And windows stuck wi’ evergreens
The snow is beesom’d from the door
And comfort crowns the cottage scenes
Gilt holly wi’ its thorny pricks
And yew and box wi’ berrys small
These deck the unus’d candlesticks
And pictures hanging by the wall …read more

Christmas by John Clare

Come bring the noise,
My merry, merry boys,
The Christmas log to the firing;
While my good dame, she
Bids ye all be free,
And drink to your heart’s desiring. …read more

Come bring the noise by Robert Herrick

Happy holidays, Risky friends.


Pictures: decorations at Riversdale House Museum

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A White Christmas

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As you know Washington DC joined the rest of the mid-Atlantic in experiencing a record-breaking December snowstorm. Here in the Northern Virginia suburbs, the snow started Friday night about 9 pm and didn’t stop until late afternoon Saturday. We got 2 feet of snow. Here is a view of our snow, taken from my upstairs window at 12 noon Saturday.

One nice thing about snow is it covers all the dirt and darkness in a blanket of pure white, everything becomes quiet and life, of necessity, slows down.

One can almost imagine what it would be to live in the country in Regency England, to take walks through the wood, perhaps even to go skating on the pond or zipping over to your neighbor’s house in a horse-drawn sleigh.

Of course, a Regency winter walk might be like this:

And zipping along in a vehicle, might be more like this:

In the newspaper you might read about stories like this one from the 1814 Annual Register:

Extraordinary Instance of the Sagacity of a Dog.—Mr. T. Rutherford, of Long Framlington, was, about a fortnight ago, overcome in a snow storm, near Alnwick, and fell. In this state he was exposed to all the horrors of the night, till seven o’clock in the morning. His faithful dog at this time observing a shepherd at a small distance, used every exertion to attract his attention, such as howling, going from and returning to the spot where his master lay. This induced the shepherd to follow the dog’s motions. Mr. Rutherford was found, (then covered by the snow,) carried to a neighbouring publichouse, and, after five hours’ exertion, life was restored, and he is now quite well.

On the other hand, one might have a lovely Regency Christmas, eating Christmas pudding, drinking wassail, playing Christmas music on the pianoforte, dancing or playing cards.

What do you imagine a Regency winter and Christmas to be like? What do you think you’d like best about it?

It’s been a great gift to have such a wonderful Risky Regencies community. I wish all my fellow Riskies and everyone else a very happy holiday season!

Marmion
by Sir Walter Scott

Heap on more wood! – the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.

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Jane Austen Week WINNERS

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Congratulations to our Jane Austen Week Winners, chosen at random from all the comments we received this week.

JANE AUSTEN wins a copy of A Charming Place: Bath in the Life and Novels of Jane Austen by Maggie Lane

LOIS wins signed copy of Carrie Bebris’s Mr. and Mrs. Darcy mystery Pride and Prescience

Email us at riskies@yahoo.com with your snail mail addresses!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to share our celebration of the incomparable Jane Austen!

The Riskies

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Jane Austen – Literary or Popular?

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I ran across this bit whilst reading Northanger Abbey with my budding Janeite:

“Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Stene, are eulogized by a thousand pens–there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.”

And I thought of it again at my friend Therese Walsh’s booksigning, where I found myself in an amicable debate with a stranger on the question of whether Jane Austen wrote literary or popular fiction. The other lady argued that of course Jane was literary, while I suggested that Jane was writing popular fiction of her time. Our discussion was pretty lively but we realized we didn’t have a good definition for what was literary versus popular, one that didn’t do injustice to one or the other.

I can’t remember all the ground we covered (I was drinking wine and enjoying myself) but here are some ideas I’ve seen or heard on the web and elsewhere. Please note I don’t necessarily agree with these definitions. Many are silly and I can come up with all sorts of counterexamples. Anyway, let’s see where Jane’s work fits.

The quality of writing is better in literary versus popular fiction.

I don’t necessarily agree, but by this rule Jane’s work is LITERARY.

Literary authors write for art’s sake; authors of popular fiction write for money.

I remember reading that Jane was glad that her earnings helped her family financially; on the other hand, profit wasn’t her sole motive. I’d say this test is inconclusive.

Literary novels are meant to elevate the mind; popular novels are meant to amuse.

Well, here’s another quote, from a letter Jane wrote to Mr. Clarke, librarian to the Prince Regent.

“I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or at other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter.

By this rule, I’d say Jane’s work is POPULAR.

Literary novels are good for you (like cod liver oil). Popular novels are what people actually want to read.

Easy answer here—Jane’s work is POPULAR.

Popular fiction is written to fit specific genre expectations, e.g. romance, horror, mystery. Literary fiction has no such constraints.

This is about the most sensible delineation I’ve seen anywhere. But back when Jane was writing, I think novels were novels and not pigeon-holed into genres the way they are now. And as the Northanger Abbey quote indicates, they weren’t as well-respected as other literary forms. So this test is inconclusive.

So much classic fiction fits well into modern genres. Novels by Jane Austen and the Brontes (romance/women’s fiction), Edgar Allen Poe (horror), Jules Verne (science fiction) are a few that come to mind. Which gets me to the next “rule”.

Literary fiction stands the test of time; popular fiction is ephemeral.

Not that I think this will be true (for instance, I think Harry Potter will endure) but in Jane’s case, this is a no-brainer. By this rule, her work is LITERARY.

So anyway, in this totally un-scholarly analysis, it comes to a tie. What do you think? Is Jane Austen’s work literary or popular? Or does her work transcend such categories?

Happy Birthday, Jane, and thanks for the hours of “extensive and unaffected pleasure”!

Elena

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A Woman’s Wit

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Happy Birthday Week, Jane!

This Wednesday, Jane’s actual birthday, I went to the Morgan Library to see the exhibit A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy. I went with two writer friends–Liz Maverick, whose new book Crimson & Steam features a historical section, and Elizabeth Mahon, who is hard at work on her non-fiction book Scandalous Women (and who also does a blog with the same name).

The exhibition combines Jane’s correspondence–both from and to her–with prints of James Gillray, one of the caricaturists who lampooned society and politics with as broad a wit as Jane’s was subtle.

As might be expected, Jane’s letters were gently mocking of the life she observed around her, sharing candid appraisals of her friends, family and neighbors. But–and this is true of her writing, as well–she is never mean-spirited. Honest, direct, even blunt, but never mean. That delicate line is one of the things that makes her writing so special; yes, Mr. Collins is a pompous ass, for example, but she doesn’t exaggerate the ludicrousness of his personality, just describes it. That is damning enough.

If you click through to the exhibition, you can see samples of the letters, as well as a draft of Lady Susan, the only surviving complete manuscript in her hand. That is neat to see, because she writes with as firm a hand in her fiction as she does in her letters–no cross-outs, or scribbles, or anything that would indicate she had doubts about what the final version of the manuscript should be.

In addition to the prints and printed material, the exhibit featured a short film with reflections on Jane from a variety of intriguing sources: Cornel West, Siri Hustvedt and Fran Lebowitz, among others. My favorite was West, who was almost elfishly delighted with talking about how much he loved Jane. He came to her late, he said, only starting to read her in graduate school, but he clearly adored her work.

Like Jane herself, the exhibit was small but all-encompassing, revealing a witty, clever, loving woman who had a lot to share to a very intimate group. That group has expanded in the 200 or so years since her works were first given to the public, but that feeling of intimacy remains. Who among us, reading Jane, hasn’t felt as if she were sharing a private joke with us alone?

Thanks for sharing your wit, Miss Austen, and Many Happy Returns!

Megan

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