I am sure Pmath has lots of lovely links for you all but here are my contributions to the first chapter.
The first lines of the book refer to 'Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon...[who] had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park in the county of Northamptonshire' and later mention is made of Woolwich and Portsmouth, home of the Price family.
Huntingdon is a pleasant market town in Rutland (formerly Huntingdonshire), which adjoins Northamptonshire. Click around this website to see some nice photos and sketches:-
http://www.huntingdon-town.info/
There is a beautiful old Water Mill near to Huntingdon which used to be a Youth Hostel, where I stayed on a number of occasions when cycling in that area (which is very flat, so easy cycling country):-
http://www.houghtonandwyton.co.uk/mill.php
Huntingdon is just up the railway line from where I live and I went through it when I recently went to meet Danielle. My eldest daughter nearly bought a house with a granny-flat there, so I might have lived there too.
Northamptonshire is still a fairly rural county in the Midlands and there are a number of 'stately homes' there which could have been the model for Mansfield Park. (The mining town of Mansfield is much further north so I do not think Austen is referring to that location.) The most famous stately home in Northants is Althorp Park which was the family home of Lady Diana Spencer who, of course, became the late Princess Diana of Wales.
http://www.statelyhomes.com/areas/default.asp?ID=4
The reference to Woolwich is to the Royal Naval Dockyard on the River Thames, south of London, built in the 16C and still used in Austen's time:-
http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/Co
Portsmouth is a naval town in Hampshire on the south coast of England. Its main claim to fame is that Admiral Lord Nelson's ship Victory is kept there and is a popular tourist attraction. (Lord Nelson was the hero who defeated Napoleon in 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar.) There is a 'virtual tour' of it on this website:-
http://www.vrportsmouth.co.uk/
The first lines of the book refer to 'Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon...[who] had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park in the county of Northamptonshire' and later mention is made of Woolwich and Portsmouth, home of the Price family.
Huntingdon is a pleasant market town in Rutland (formerly Huntingdonshire), which adjoins Northamptonshire. Click around this website to see some nice photos and sketches:-
http://www.huntingdon-town.info/
There is a beautiful old Water Mill near to Huntingdon which used to be a Youth Hostel, where I stayed on a number of occasions when cycling in that area (which is very flat, so easy cycling country):-
http://www.houghtonandwyton.co.uk/mill.php
Huntingdon is just up the railway line from where I live and I went through it when I recently went to meet Danielle. My eldest daughter nearly bought a house with a granny-flat there, so I might have lived there too.
Northamptonshire is still a fairly rural county in the Midlands and there are a number of 'stately homes' there which could have been the model for Mansfield Park. (The mining town of Mansfield is much further north so I do not think Austen is referring to that location.) The most famous stately home in Northants is Althorp Park which was the family home of Lady Diana Spencer who, of course, became the late Princess Diana of Wales.
http://www.statelyhomes.com/areas/default.asp?ID=4
The reference to Woolwich is to the Royal Naval Dockyard on the River Thames, south of London, built in the 16C and still used in Austen's time:-
http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/Co
Portsmouth is a naval town in Hampshire on the south coast of England. Its main claim to fame is that Admiral Lord Nelson's ship Victory is kept there and is a popular tourist attraction. (Lord Nelson was the hero who defeated Napoleon in 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar.) There is a 'virtual tour' of it on this website:-
http://www.vrportsmouth.co.uk/
Message Edited by Choisya on 03-31-200712:51 AM
Here is another little vacation for you: Originally a convent, and home to Oliver Cromwell, Hinchinbrooke House is now a school. A stone bridge in the grounds was a secret meeting place for a nun and a monk, who were punished by death - it is now reputedly haunted by the nun
(See Wikipedia below, Legends.) Click on the Pupil's quick tour for an excellent video of the house:-http://www.hinchhouse.org.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntingdon
jd wrote:
c- thank you for the tour, I feel like I was on vacation - jd
Message Edited by Choisya on 03-31-200708:15 PM
For me, it is fitting that we are discussing Mansfield Park at the end of a month in which we in the UK have been commemmorating the Act abolishing the Slave Trade (March 25th 1807). All month we have had marches and other demonstrations about this event and the BBC have broadcast daily radio and TV programmes about various aspects of slavery and the fight for abolition. For those interested here are some BBC links:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/
Reference to the island of Antigua and to slavery occur throughout Mansfield Park and of course it is a subject that would have been familiar to Jane Austen as her father purchased a plantation in Antigua in 1797. Indeed the entire action of the novel place takes place in the period after the passage of the Act that abolished the 'abominable traffic' and during a time of widespread agitation for a bill enacting full emancipation. According to Southam the novel 'unfolds in the three years between the autumn of 1810 and the summer of 1813...[and] we may assign Bertram's Caribbean itinerary to the period from October, 1810 to October, 1812, with his son's premature return falling in September of 1811. This internal calendar overlaps with the novel's actual time of composition and its publication in 1814.'
Another significant link relates to the naval career of Jane's sailor brother, Commander Francis Austen, whom she admired and with whom she maintained a long-lasting correspondence. He wrote recording his reactions to an encounter with a Portuguese slaver that he had intercepted in Caribbean waters, as one of his responsibilities was to engage in policing activities under the Act of Abolition. He reported his deep revulsion not merely at the inhumane and heinous treatment of the African slave cargo on the Middle Passage, but also at the entire slave system, which he observed at first hand in other parts of the world as well. Commenting on the 'harshness and despotism' of landholders and their managers in the West Indian context he writes that 'slavery however it may be modified is still slavery'. Southam also writes: 'It is clear from his letters that Francis Austen was, to his credit, truly appalled by the institution of slavery and in this respect he was considerably ahead of his time. In view of the close relationship Austen had with her sailor brothers, the elder Francis and the younger Charles, it is highly probable that she shared the former's unequivocal antipathy to the system. [My italics.] (Incidentally, Francis served for many years under Lord Horatio Nelson whose ship The Victory is still on view at Portsmouth and to which I have given a panoramic hyperlink elsewhere.)
There is firm documentary evidence from Jane Austen's correspondence that she was strongly attracted to abolitionist literature. In a famous and often cited letter to her mother, Cassandra, she confides her 'love' for the writings of William Clarkson, the prominent abolitionist. Also listed among her favorite authors was the Progessive William Cowper, whose poem, 'The Negro's Complaint' acquired immense contemporary popularity.
For various reasons, which will become apparent as we read the novel, Mansfield Park can be interpreted as having an ethical subtext conveying a progressive viewpoint on the humanitarian issue of slavery and for this, if not for other things, I commend Jane Austen who, as some readers here may know, is not one of my favourite novelists.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/
Reference to the island of Antigua and to slavery occur throughout Mansfield Park and of course it is a subject that would have been familiar to Jane Austen as her father purchased a plantation in Antigua in 1797. Indeed the entire action of the novel place takes place in the period after the passage of the Act that abolished the 'abominable traffic' and during a time of widespread agitation for a bill enacting full emancipation. According to Southam the novel 'unfolds in the three years between the autumn of 1810 and the summer of 1813...[and] we may assign Bertram's Caribbean itinerary to the period from October, 1810 to October, 1812, with his son's premature return falling in September of 1811. This internal calendar overlaps with the novel's actual time of composition and its publication in 1814.'
Another significant link relates to the naval career of Jane's sailor brother, Commander Francis Austen, whom she admired and with whom she maintained a long-lasting correspondence. He wrote recording his reactions to an encounter with a Portuguese slaver that he had intercepted in Caribbean waters, as one of his responsibilities was to engage in policing activities under the Act of Abolition. He reported his deep revulsion not merely at the inhumane and heinous treatment of the African slave cargo on the Middle Passage, but also at the entire slave system, which he observed at first hand in other parts of the world as well. Commenting on the 'harshness and despotism' of landholders and their managers in the West Indian context he writes that 'slavery however it may be modified is still slavery'. Southam also writes: 'It is clear from his letters that Francis Austen was, to his credit, truly appalled by the institution of slavery and in this respect he was considerably ahead of his time. In view of the close relationship Austen had with her sailor brothers, the elder Francis and the younger Charles, it is highly probable that she shared the former's unequivocal antipathy to the system. [My italics.] (Incidentally, Francis served for many years under Lord Horatio Nelson whose ship The Victory is still on view at Portsmouth and to which I have given a panoramic hyperlink elsewhere.)
There is firm documentary evidence from Jane Austen's correspondence that she was strongly attracted to abolitionist literature. In a famous and often cited letter to her mother, Cassandra, she confides her 'love' for the writings of William Clarkson, the prominent abolitionist. Also listed among her favorite authors was the Progessive William Cowper, whose poem, 'The Negro's Complaint' acquired immense contemporary popularity.
For various reasons, which will become apparent as we read the novel, Mansfield Park can be interpreted as having an ethical subtext conveying a progressive viewpoint on the humanitarian issue of slavery and for this, if not for other things, I commend Jane Austen who, as some readers here may know, is not one of my favourite novelists
.Message Edited by Choisya on 04-02-200702:19 PM
Thanks Bill - interesting post. I am not an Austen lover but MP is my favourite of her novels just because it is 'dark' and has more 'meat' in it. It is the product of a more mature mind than P&P and S&S and I think it shows. I am not sure, however, that Sir B does get a 'good father' treatment from Austen, who is notoriously hard on her fathers.
.
Bill_T wrote:
Reading some of the posts in this thread about how this is a hard Austen to like, I'm remembering the movie Metropolitan -- don't know if any of you saw it. There's a wonderful exchange between an anxious young man and the girl he winds up in love with. She mentions liking MP and he says something to the effect that it's impossible to like it as it's too moralistic. But he reveals that he's never actually read the book -- only a famous critic on the subject.
That said, I used to have a hard time with this one, for the reasons everyone else cites. Fanny is not as resilient or witty as Elizabeth Bennett or the elder Miss Dashwood. She's pretty much the opposite of Emma, and while Anne Eliot in Persuasion (my favorite of Austen's novels) share's something of Fanny's quieter and self-denying disposition, Anne and Fanny aren't otherwise much alike.
But I've come to love Mansfield Park on its own terms. I love flawed Sir Thomas and the whole sad comedy of the group trying to put on "Lovers' Vows." What a collection of narcissists! I also love the interesting picture of Portsmouth life we get when Fanny goes back for her unhappy visit to her family. For whatever reason, Fanny never loses my sympathy -- as "wimpy" as she might be, somehow I still find myself rooting for her.
Beginning another re-read, I came across this revealing passage, from the opening backstory exchange between Sir Thomas and the loathsome Mrs. Norris (surely one of the most harshly-drawn villainesses in Austen's novels). Sir Thomas and Mrs. Norris are discussing the possible complications inherent in bringing Fanny to live with them. Mrs. Norris dismisses Sir Thomas's concerns, and Sir Thomas replies:
“There is a great deal of truth in what you say,” replied Sir Thomas, “and far be it from me to throw any fanciful impediment in the way of a plan which would be so consistent with the relative situations of each. I only meant to observe that it ought not to be lightly engaged in, and that to make it really serviceable to Mrs. Price, and creditable to ourselves, we must secure to the child, or consider ourselves engaged to secure to her hereafter, as circumstances may arise, the provision of a gentlewoman, if no such establishment should offer as you are so sanguine in expecting.”
What I noticed for the first time here is an early indication of ST's big failing -- because there's no real follow-through here. No more than Mrs. Norris does ST want to imagine the child of his poor sister-in-law attracting the affections of one of his sons. He recognizes that his responsibility will be to help her find "the provision of a gentlewoman" if he first brings her into their circle.
In the first place, he's not (yet) considering Fanny as a human being with the desire for happiness -- just as a charity case who needs to be socially and economically provided for. But this might be natural given that she's just an abstraction to him now. What becomes apparent later is how much he passes what he really should recognize as his responsibility off to Mrs. N. There's a gap between Sir Thomas's general principles and intelligence, and his ability to apply that at the human level, which I find very compelling, and unusual in the portrait of a father figure in Austen -- because unlike all the other fathers in her novels, Sir Thomas is given a chance to work it out and evolve.
Now I have to look more closely for those Lear parallels...
