EMMA: Guest Prof. Joan Ray (Wk. of 1/25-29/10)

[Joan-Ray]

Hello MKay VT, Happy memories of my September visit to Burlington abound! Thank you again for such a wonderful time!  As for Mr. Knightley as an "emotional teen basket case": what a provocative topic!  When Mr. Knightley says "badly done, indeed" to Emma, he is reprimanding her for her thoughtless and mean insult to Miss Bates at Box Hill, as we know, and there he is absolutely right to correct her. But when he does things like pick on Frank Churchill's handwriting, say Frank's letters disgust him, and keeps harping on Frank's being three or four-and twenty (as he does several times!), we know that Mr. Knightley, as he later admits, is acting jealously towards Emma as he thinks his beloved Emma will fall and has fallen in  love with Frank. So yes, he is a basket case as a man in love! Interestingly, while Emma acts like a sexually-over-imaginative 16-year-old, having never experienced mature heterosexual love herself, neither has Mr. Knightley at 35.  Hormones are really flowing in Highbury! So when it dawns on him that he loves Emma  just when it seems that he is about to lose her to Frank (Mr. Knightley has taken her for granted all along!), he does act  like a frustrated teen-age-lover who thinks he has lost the girl. Mr. Knightley may act maturely in many other parts of the novel, but when it comes to loving Emma in a romantic sense ("Brother and sister, no indeed!"), he is a wreck. Thanks for the question and have a wonderful time at the lovely Governor's House this weekend! Sending good cheer to you and all of my Vermont JASNA friends, Joan  PS JASNA is the Jane Austen Society of North America, which has over 60 regional groups: see www.jasna.org 

[Joan-Ray]

Hello ConnieK and gailfus,

Re gailfus' comment re Pride and Prejudice and Emma: the former is the book of my heart, while the latter is the book for my head. I agree that Emma is Austen's most complex heroine! 

Cheers,

Joan

[MissJoMay]

I've been a bit remiss in reading this thread, so if my thoughts and questions are jumbled, I apologize in advance!

First, Joan, your comment about Harriet's uncommonly kind father made me think of Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility.  Then I started thinking about other men of similar character in other Austen novels (Edmund in Mansfield Park, Darcy in Pride & Prejudice, Captain Wentworth in Persuasion), and it got me thinking.  I know that Austen thrills at presenting slightly (and sometimes more than slightly) ridiculous characters in her novel, and I think there is a consistent pattern of characters growing and maturing across her novels, but I think there is also a consistent pattern of kindness and goodness in her characters.  Characters such as Colonel Brandon and Elinor (they are the first to come to mind) display kindness towards others that is not necessary or expected, yet they give it nonetheless.  What are your thoughts on the role of kindness in Emma and Austen's other novels?

Secondly, I started thinking about Austen's statement that she was the only one who could truly love Emma.  Is it possible that Austen wanted us to experience a growth similar to the one that Emma experiences in the novel? Emma learns to move beyond what she (alone) considers right and good and starts to see things more as they really are.  We as readers do the same things as we get to know Emma and get to see her grow: she becomes more than a snotty know-it-all (I actually heard someone describe Emma as such) and starts to exercise compassion and the noblesse-oblige that you already mentioned

One of the things I love most about Austen's novels is that she doesn't give up on people that her society probably would have identified as goners.  She may not write about the impoverished  people of England (like Dickens), but she does choose to write about disadvantaged single women who are (mostly) on the express train to spinsterhood.  Was the fact that she wrote about these types of women with such frequency shocking at all?

[brave_new_world]

Dear Professor,

Thank you so much for your kind response. I am thrilled to learn that there are Jane Austen-related cook books out there - I had no idea! I will be looking into the titles that you suggested.

Moving from a gustatory question to a literary one: can you please discuss with us the names of Jane Austen's characters -- why does the word "wood" appear in Miss Woodhouse and the Miss Dashwoods? Why do so many of her "wicked" men have "W's" in their names like Weston (Churchill's original name), Wickham, and Willoughby. Were there any "W"-named men or women in Jane Austen's life?

Best regards,

Brave

[Joan-Ray]

Hello MissJoMay, Thanks for your comments and queries. Let's go through them individually. 

1. Kindness is, of course, a desirable trait. And even when Emma is busily interfering in others' lives, she has a kind streak. She is wonderfully patient with her demanding father; she visits the poor; she sends the whole "hind quarter" of pork to the Bateses, however much Miss Bates drives her crazy; and her desires for Harriet have a benevolent intention. When Mr. Knightley reprimands her about Box Hill, she truly feels terrible about her bad behavior. Austen's heroes and heroines are invariably kind: consider Mr. Knightley's dancing with Harriet; the improved (after his first bad proposal!) Darcy's helping in the Lydia / Wickham mess for Elizabeth's sake; Edmund's many kindnesses to Fanny Price; etc. 

2. While "reader-response criticism" (i.e., that the reader is an active agent contributing to the work) was unknown to Austen and during Austen's day, JA certainly wanted us to see her heroine, Emma, grow and mature; Emma learns from her mistakes, as I have written elsewhere in this series of replies. And we readers see Emma's errors and  flaws, even as we witness her improvement 

3. Austen, herself, as well as many women in her age bracket that she knew (including her sister, Cassandra), were from the gentry class, but facing economically hard times because of deaths of fathers. Furthermore, it was not unusual in the  courtship novels of her day, with the  young heroines entering into society,  to have such young women in them as heroines: after all, Emma, as she observes, does not HAVE to marry because she is well off, and this makes her unique. But the average woman of Austen's class had to marry to have a life at least as good as her life at home with her parents. This female situation was typical as women had no rights legally. 

Cheers,

Joan

[Joan-Ray]

Hi again, Brave,

Glad that the cookbook titles helped! I am unaware of any men in JA's life  with surnames beginning with W that would have influenced JA's naming of characters. I have always thought that Wickham and wicked were meant to go together. As for Frank Weston Churchill in Emma, it is not his middle and last names that capture me, but his first name: let's face it, Frank is anything but FRANK! George Knightley, of course, is a loaded name: George for England's Saint George and Knightley for knight. I am unaware of any special reason for Willoughby's being so named.

Cheers,

Joan

[SilkWorm]

Dear Joan, thank you. That does help. While I enjoy all of them, it is always interesting to see how the people interpreting the film create it for us. Sometimes that is very disappointing when you've read the book and have your own ideas, but at other times it is like reading the story with illustrations. I will watch with this in mind.

About modernizing Emma, though I didn't recognize her behavior as such, I felt it. When you mentioned it, then I understood. That "body language"-- felt it but didn't name it until you mentioned it. Familiar so we can relate, but without knowing it right away. Someone noted this behavior earlier on the forum. Emma, while Austen creates her to reflect a youthful foolishness. Not silly, but more a mix of naive, self centered, while reaching out to others. Harriet is one of her few friends her age... the rest are older. Now Knightly so far in this version, is sometimes frightening because he seems so angry. His brother too. I don't remember them being so violent in the book. John always seemed rather placid and level headed.

Thank you for the insights!

SilkWorm 

[ConnieAnnKirk]

I'd like to thank Joan Ray for answering the questions of our members here at the Classics Book Club all this week and also thank our members who asked questions and interacted with our guest.  It's been a pleasure to have Joan back with us this year for another Austen feature in our read-along with PBS Masterpiece Classic.

Everyone, please remember that not only is Joan a former president of JASNA, but she is also the author of this book:

Jane Austen For Dummies 

Members might like to be reminded that we have the pleasure of another guest here in Classics next week--Sandy Welch, the screenwriter of the very film version of EMMA that many of us are watching on Sunday evenings over the next couple of weeks (the film airs on 3 consecutive Sunday nights in most PBS markets; 1/31 will be the second night).  There is a new thread started for questions for Ms. Welch.  Please use that thread for your questions so that she does not have to search all over the board for our questions to her, and we can keep our conversation organized for everyone.

Thanks, again, Joan, and please do feel free to stay with us to "lurk" or participate in our discussions with Ms. Welch next week.  You are more than welcome!

[Joan-Ray]

Hi Silkworm,

I am back to the this site on Saturday morning (although my tenure as the "Austen expert" ended on Friday) just in case someone asked a question on Friday night that I did not see as I was away from my computer after 6 p.m. So I am glad I came back to read your question! Re Mr. Knightley: while in the book, he is not angry, per se, I think he is testy, so to speak, especially when it comes to Emma and Frank.. If you look at one of the other posts and my reply about Mr. Knightley, you will see that I wrote about  Mr. Knightley's admitted (later in the novel in 3: 13) jealousy of Frank and Emma :"He had been in love with Emma and jealous of Frank from about the same period. . . ." This jealousy manifests itself in his testiness about Frank's handwriting 2:16 ( "it's too small, wants strength--it's like a woman's") and Frank's  letters, which "disgust" (1:18) him; his indifference in 2:12 about the planned dance at the Crown Inn, which irritates Emma; etc. So Johnny Lee Miller in presenting this testiness born from jealousy  perhaps looks a little angry, though I personally find I like him in this performance. As for Mr. John Knightley, recall that in the novel 1:11, we read about Emma's feelings regarding John's temper and his tendency to make both rational criticisms and sharp retorts: reading about them in Emma's mind is one thing; hearing him stay them, as we do in the telecast, is perhaps more jarring to us as viewers than when we read about them as readers. I was delighted that the script kept at least part of John's complaint about having to go to the Westons' house on Christmas Eve at the end of 1: 13,  and his response to Mr. Woodhouse's wanting him  to take his family to a different sea-bathing site that is over 100 miles from London simply because Mr. Woodhouse's beloved Mr. Perry recommends it. Mr. John Knightley is cranky--rational and level-headed most of the time, true. But when he gets to Hartfield and has to live there for a time, his crankiness shows!

Hope this helps!

Joan 

[Joan-Ray]

Thanks, Connie.

 I love the give and take on this site!  Thanks for having me work on this--a total pleasure!

In fact, I was scrolling around to the time when the group was reading Emma and noted that someone asked about a good book on JA's life and times. Becoming Jane was mentioned. This is a fun book to read, but as the poster noted "it is not all that accurate." That's very true.

As a Professor of English, I write scholarly pieces as well as more popular pieces like Jane Austen for Dummies, which is a trade-book, of course. One of my scholarly articles deals with the Jane Austen / Tom Lefroy relationship, which is integral to the Becoming Jane book and the film. In that article (which is accessible at the website www.jasna.org if you go to Publications for "Persuasions-Online"), I point out that the author of the book never cited the most important (but now rare)  published source about Tom Lefroy, a 19th-century biography that includes letters by those who knew Lefroy as a young man, describing his personality. He was not at all as he was depicted in the film. In fact, for that film, just before its release, MIRAMAX had me work with them on the press book and also speak with Anne Hathaway about the true story of Jane and Tom. In the press book for that film, I note how the Lefroy character is based on several Austen characters, especially, P&P's Wickham, who, remember, was an irresponsible law student and left the law. (At the end of the film, there is a fictional scene of Tom telling JA that his daughter's name is Jane: it was, but she was named after her grandmother Jane!)

With my professorial, scholar hat on, I was the first person to bring forward the 19th-century biography, which was unknown to the author of the book on which the film was based.  With that said, readers who desire an accurate and highly readable biography of Jane Austen (but it reads almost like a novel), may I recommend PARK HONAN's JANE AUSTEN: HER LIFE. Yes, it's long and has may many endnotes, but this is reliable biography by an eminent scholar. It is available in paperback through Barnes and Noble. Type in Park Honan, and it is the second book of his to come up on the screen. This is the biography I recommend to my students at the University of Colorado. It is probably also in many local libraries.

Sending good cheer,

Joan

[ConnieAnnKirk]

---

Joan-Ray wrote:

Thanks, Connie.

  I love the give and take on this site!  Thanks for having me work on this--a total pleasure!

 In fact, I was scrolling around to the time when the group was reading Emma and noted that someone asked about a good book on JA's life and times. Becoming Jane was mentioned. This is a fun book to read, but as the poster noted "it is not all that accurate." That's very true.

 As a Professor of English, I write scholarly pieces as well as more popular pieces like Jane Austen for Dummies, which is a trade-book, of course. One of my scholarly articles deals with the Jane Austen / Tom Lefroy relationship, which is integral to the Becoming Jane book and the film. In that article (which is accessible at the website www.jasna.org if you go to Publications for "Persuasions-Online"), I point out that the author of the book never cited the most important (but now rare)  published source about Tom Lefroy, a 19th-century biography that includes letters by those who knew Lefroy as a young man, describing his personality. He was not at all as he was depicted in the film. In fact, for that film, just before its release, MIRAMAX had me work with them on the press book and also speak with Anne Hathaway about the true story of Jane and Tom. In the press book for that film, I note how the Lefroy character is based on several Austen characters, especially, P&P's Wickham, who, remember, was an irresponsible law student and left the law. (At the end of the film, there is a fictional scene of Tom telling JA that his daughter's name is Jane: it was, but she was named after her grandmother Jane!)

 With my professorial, scholar hat on, I was the first person to bring forward the 19th-century biography, which was unknown to the author of the book on which the film was based.  With that said, readers who desire an accurate and highly readable biography of Jane Austen (but it reads almost like a novel), may I recommend PARK HONAN's JANE AUSTEN: HER LIFE. Yes, it's long and has may many endnotes, but this is reliable biography by an eminent scholar. It is available in paperback through Barnes and Noble. Type in Park Honan, and it is the second book of his to come up on the screen. This is the biography I recommend to my students at the University of Colorado. It is probably also in many local libraries.

Sending good cheer,

Joan

---

It's our pleasure to have you, Joan, and thank you for stopping back by on Saturday morning to pick up any remaining Friday questions. That's thoughtful of you!  Thank you, too, for the book suggestions.

Thanks for telling us about your scholarly work as well.  I'm a (Visiting) English Prof. with a Ph.D. and an  active Emily Dickinson scholar myself, so I know about all the exciting writing and research discoveries that go on in academia that often don't make it out as far as we'd like to see to general readers.  I'm pleased that you pointed our readers to a place on the web where they can read your work. Most scholarly work, as you well know, ends up in obscure academic journals that small public libraries do not carry or are not available full-text online even in the databases.  Sigh.  Once in awhile there's a book from one of us published by academic presses, or maybe a collection of essays.  One of my own latest published essays is in this recently published book, edited by Martha Nell Smith:

A Companion to Emily Dickinson 

We often have a couple of your fellow "Janeites" at our meetings of the EDIS (Emily Dickinson International Society). Anyway, glad to have you with us again to interact, and please do feel free to drop in next week when we're talking with screenwriter, Sandy Welch.

[Joan-Ray]

Thanks, Connie, and I will find the book and read your essay! Joan