De Profundis: The Dark Side of Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) in 1882

Oscar Wilde was a flamboyant personality and a prolific writer towards the end of the nineteenth century, writing many plays, poems, fiction pieces and other essays. His writing is peppered with wit, humour and shows a great depth of understanding about the way people behave within society. He married Constance Lloyd in 1884, and had two sons (in 1885 and 1886).

Unfortunately, his glittering career was destined for a tragic and untimely end when he was accused of homosexuality.

…nothing in the whole world is meaningless, and suffering least of all.

In 1891, Wilde had met  a 21-year-old man called Lord Alfred Douglas and, becoming infatuated with him, began a stormy affair. Douglas was a spoilt, vain, extravagant young man, who was often insolent and demanding, and Wilde lavished large amounts of money and gifts on him. Their relationship was quite tumultuous, and was frequently punctuated with fights and disagreements, but always ended with reconciliations.

Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas in 1893

Whilst Wilde’s previous homosexual associations had been within his own social circle, Douglas began to introduce him to the underground gay prostitution scene in London. Soon he was regularly meeting and consorting with young, working class men, which was a sharp diversion from his previous pattern of behaviour, and probably indicates the level of influence that Douglas had over him, despite the 16-year age difference.

The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a flaneur, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation.

Douglas was reckless in public with his lack of discretion about his homosexual tendencies, and in this very conservative Victorian era it was an invitation for trouble. He and his father, the Marquess of Queensberry, had never had a good relationship, and the Marquess was vehemently opposed to his son’s lifestyle. After a while, the Marquess began to suspect that there was more than a mere friendship between Douglas and Wilde, and – in his brusque manner – began to make some very confronting allusions to his suspicions.

Exhibit A in the Trial: The Marquess of Queensberry's calling card

Wilde had managed to fend of several of these confrontations, but on 18th February, 1885, the Marquess of Queensberry left his card for Wilde at a club that he often frequented. It was inscribed with “For Oscar Wilde, posing Sodomite”. Wilde, at the insistence of Douglas and against the advice of several other friends, decided to sue the Marquess for libel. In order for the Marquess to be acquitted of this charge, he was required to prove that his statement was correct, so he hired private detectives to unearth any evidence of Wilde’s homosexual associations.

The subsequent evidence that was revealed led Wilde to drop his case against the Marquess, and the next day he was arrested and charged with gross indecency, a term then used to describe homosexual acts with other men. He was found guilty and sentenced to two years hard labour. His resulting legal costs decimated his fortune, and he never recovered financially.

Of course, once I had put into motion the forces of society, society turned on me and said, “Have you been living all this time in defiance of my laws, and do you now appeal to those laws for protection? You shall have those laws exercised to the full. You shall abide by what you have appealed to.” The result is that I am in gaol.

Wilde wrote De Profundis in 1897, while he was in prison, intending it as a letter to Douglas, however it is unclear whether he ever received it. De Profundis means “from the depths” and is taken from the first line of Psalm 130 of the Bible. Wilde’s writing provides an insight into the pain and suffering that he was feeling during this perilous period of his life.

For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us. Outside the day may be blue and gold, but the light that creeps down through the thickly muffled glass of the small iron barred window beneath which one sits is grey and niggard. It is always twilight in one’s cell, as it is always twilight in one’s heart. And in the sphere of thought, no less than the sphere of time, motion is no more. The thing that you personally have long ago forgotten, or can easily forget, is happening to me now, and will happen to me again tomorrow.

His mother, whom he was very close to, died whilst he was in prison, and his wife left him and refused to allow him to see his sons, whose surnames she changed to Holland. He also lost some friends and had to endure the jeering laughter of the public. He describes his despair in his moments of sorrow, but also reveals how he managed to move beyond the pain and bitterness to come to a greater understanding of himself and the world.

I am completely penniless, and absolutely homeless. Yet there are worse things in the world than that. I am quite candid when I say that rather than go out from this prison with bitterness in my heart against the world, I would gladly and readily beg my bread from door to door. If I got nothing from the house of the rich I would get something at the house of the poor. Those who have much are often greedy; those who have little always share.

He realised that life does not just contain pleasure, and that there is great importance in sorrow. He describes how moments of sorrow are really holy moments, whereby a person’s realisation of life and themselves grows deeper. Sorrow became his teacher, and taught him things that Pleasure never could. For this reason he believes there to be great value in suffering.

It is difficult for most people to grasp the idea. I dare say one has to go to prison to understand it. If so, it may be worthwhile going to prison.

Oscar Wilde had hope of recovering his “creative faculty” after his release, intending to pursue his artistic talents away from the spotlight of society, but he only managed to publish one piece of poetry before his death, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He died of meningitis while living in Paris, France, in 1900, aged only 46.

Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys where I may weep undisturbed.

After Wilde had died, De Profundis was edited and published by his friend Robert Ross in 1905, and did not appear in its entirety until 1962. Whilst I find it very sad that he did not live to publish more work on this new perspective on life, I think De Profundis demonstrates that he used his sorrow in the best way he could, to develop a wider awareness of life the way life is. He discovered a deeper truth and knowledge in a way that he could not without intense grief. For no one can escape suffering, but not everyone can accept it either.

But while to propose to be a better man is a piece of unscientific cant, to have become a deeper man is the privilege of those who have suffered. And such I think I have become.

De Profundis contains some profound insights into the power that intense sorrow has to transform, and I have hardly done justice to them here. It is definitely worth reading, but be prepared to read it twice, as it is heavy going!

Do you see the purpose in sorrow?

* All quotes are from Wilde’s De Profundis (1905).

Related Posts

An Ideal Husband: Is perfection best?

Lady Windermere’s Fan: Which character are you?

Sources and Relevant Links

De Profundis (1905) – read online

The 1962 complete edition of De Profundis is only available to buy, as it is still in copyright.

The works of Oscar Wilde – a searchable index of his published works with a brief biography of his life

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On Love, Shakespeare and Marianne Dashwood

Shakespeare is the author of over 150 sonnets, first published in 1609. My first introduction to the sonnets happened when I watched the 1995 movie of Sense and Sensibility, starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. Marianne Dashwood, the younger of two sisters, is a passionate girl with great sensibility, and has a great love of passionate poetry!

My favourite is, without doubt, number 116.

Marianne Dashwood, in Sense and Sensibility the movie (1995)

Sonnet 116

Let me not with the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments; love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

This sonnet talks about the nature of love, saying that love does not change, even when it finds changes in the one that it loves. Love is constant and never shaken. Love is likened to the guiding North star that ships used to estimate their position and direction. This star does not change position in the sky, and can therefore be relied upon to be constant.

Love will not be made a fool of by Time. Even though Time, like a harvester, brings his sickle to cut down and age youthful attractiveness, Love will not alter and instead bears it all despite the difficulties. The sonnet, by way of conclusion, declares that if these truths about Love are proved to be error, then no man has ever loved before (which they clearly have).

Mr Willoughby and Miss Marianne Dashwood, played by Greg Wise and Kate Winslet (1995)

The interesting thing about this sonnet, in the context of the movie, is that it represents the perspective of Marianne Dashwood perfectly. She believes love should be passionate and true to itself. Love should be constant and unwavering. It should be strong enough to bear all difficulties encountered in life.

Yet her first experience of love in her life, with Mr Willoughby, is quite different. He is initially all she could dream a suitor to be. He is handsome and rich, but what is even more important to Marianne is that he is passionate and does not hide his affection. When Willoughby is suddenly disinherited by a rich aunt, and having some very large existing debts, he is forced to reevaluate his love in the face of poverty. He sacrifices his love for Marianne – who has no dowry – to pursue marriage with Miss Grey and “her 50,000 pounds”.

Marianne is devastated. Her idealogical view of love has been pitted against the realism of life with the attractiveness of wealth and advantage and has come a miserable second.

However, despite her pain she rallies again and her passionate, wild, giddy love passes to one side, as she realises that Willoughby’s love was not really true at all. A more mature love takes its place within her; one that is calm and content; sober and soothing; reflective and restful. She marries the sedate, but chivalrous, Colonel Brandon.

So what is true love? Shakespeare’s sonnet seems to suggest that true love is of the realm of the divine, of heavenly substance, and hardly humanly possible. Is it attainable at all? Marianne seemed to think so.

Related Posts

A Recipe to Soften the Hardest Female Heart – a poem from 1765

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Lady Susan: an eighteenth century epistolary novella

Sources and Relevant Links

Shakespeare’s sonnets – online

Sense and Sensibility – the movie (1995)

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Kenilworth: Fact or Fiction?

Kenilworth is a historical romance novel written by Sir Walter Scott, and was first published in 1821. It is set in 1575 in England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

The story opens in an inn located in a village called Cumnor, Oxfordshire. A young traveller, Tressilian, is secretly looking for a woman, Miss Amy Robsart, to whom he is betrothed. He overhears a story about a beautiful woman secluded in a house in the neighbourhood, Cumnor Place, and there he finds his betrothed living there as a prisoner, but she refuses to escape with him.

“This house is mine,” said Amy – “mine while I choose to inhabit it. If it is my pleasure to live in seclusion, who shall gainsay me?” “Your father, maiden,” answered Tressilian, “your broken-hearted father…”

As he is leaving, Tressilian comes upon Richard Varney, who had been attending on Amy’s father before she disappeared, and Tressilian supposes that Varney must have kidnapped her from her father’s house to be his mistress.

Tressilian arrives at Sir Hugh Robsart’s house where they decide that the best thing to do is bring the matter before Queen Elizabeth. The Queen’s favourite is the Earl of Leicester, and it is known that Varney is in his employment.

On route to the Queen in London, Tressilan gets word that his friend Earl of Sussex is not well, and he rushes to his side. The Earl of Sussex is also a favourite of the Queen, and is a fierce rival to the Earl of Leicester, who is Elizabeth’s preferred. Sussex hears of Tressilian’s plan to plead the case to the Queen and supports him, hoping that the revelation may damage Leicester’s standing with the sovereign.

Joseph Fiennes as Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in the movie Elizabeth

Unknown to Tressilian, Amy Robsart has actually secretly married the Earl of Leicester, and NOT Richard Varney. Tressilian gains an interview with the Queen, where he accuses Varney of kidnapping Amy and holding her against her will, but Varney claims that there has been a legal marriage. The Queen then suggests that Leicester hold a royal party at his seat in Kenilworth, and that Amy attend so that she may see the new bride.

The Earl of Leicester is beginning to lament his hasty decision to marry Amy Robsart. The Queen is very attached to Leicester and the rumour is on everyone’s lips that they will marry. Varney is also regretting the Earl’s marriage, as his ambition is to climb as high as he can on the back of Leicester, hopefully being able to eventually influence him as King. They decide to try and persuade Amy to attend the revellings under the pretense of being Varney’s wife.

Varney travels to Cumnor Place with a letter from Leicester, telling Amy to attend the Kenilworth party as Varney’s bride. She is incensed, believing that Varney is lying and is not doing the will of Leicester, and then becomes afraid for her safety when her guards try to poison her. Her maid, seeing the mortal danger Amy is in from those men guarding her, helps her escape in the middle of the night with Tressilian’s servant, and they decide to travel directly to Kenilworth to plead her case with her husband, rather than going to her father’s house. They manage to gain admittance to the castle under the guise of entertainers, and Amy – secluded secretly in Tressilian’s chamber – writes a letter to Leicester, imploring his help.

Kenilworth Castle in the present day

The letter is stolen from the servant before it can be delivered, and the servant is accidentally evicted from the castle grounds. Tressilian, happening upon Amy in his chamber, is forced to promise not to intervene on her behalf for 24 hours, which closes all the avenues by which she can seek help.

The Queen arrives at the castle with all of the pomp and grandeur necessary, but the Earl of Leicester does not appear in Amy’s quarters, as he does not know she is there. The next morning she leaves her room and hides herself in a square within the grounds where Queen Elizabeth happens upon her. Amy is very anxious, as she does not want to betray her husband, yet she is afraid for her life. Elizabeth takes her before Leicester and demands the truth, but Varney intervenes, saying his “wife” is mad. Amy is confined in a room to calm down, and Leicester goes to visit her secretly with Varney. She pleads with the Earl to reveal her real identity to the Queen and, after seeing her emotional plea, Varney realises that, for his ambitions to succeed, she must die.

“She has brought me to this crisis,” he muttered — “she or I am lost. There was something — I wot not if it was fear or pity — that prompted me to avoid this fatal crisis. It is now decided — she or I must perish.”

Just as Leicester decides that he must tell Elizabeth everything, Varney suggests to him that his wife has not been faithful to him and has continued her attentions to Tressilian, despite being married. Leicester is passionate with rage and decides that his wife should be returned to Cumnor and punished to the point of death for infidelity. Varney leaves Kenilworth with Amy later that night, before Leicester has an opportunity of relenting of his anger.

That night Leicester confronts Tressilian about Amy and they fight a duel. Just as Leicester is about to slay Tressilian, they are interrupted by the boy who had stolen Amy’s letter, as he had been endeavouring to deliver it to the Earl himself. Leicester reads the letter, which communicates the perils with which Amy had travelled to be with him, and he begins to see that she was faithful to him, despite what Varney led him to believe. He rushes to Elizabeth to confess his marriage to her and then sends Tressilian to Cumnor Place to ensure Amy is safe.

The Death of Amy Robsart in 1560, by William Frederick Yeames (1879)

Meanwhile, Varney had rigged a trap on the landing at the top of the stairs so it would give way as soon as she stepped on it. When she did not attempt to escape her chamber, he went outside and imitated Leicester’s secret whistle so as to lure her from her room. She came rushing out at the sound and fell to her death.

Tressilian arrived at Cumnor Place while Amy’s body was still warm. A measure of justice was at least done, as Varney poisoned himself, saying “I was not born to drag on the remainder of life a degraded outcast; nor will I so die that my fate shall make a holiday to the vulgar herd.”

The novel was intially quite hard to read, as it waffled on about seemingly irrelevant details and was full of thees, thys, thous, comeths, and goeths. But when I discovered that the novel was based on a true story my interest was rekindled!

The True Story

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (by unknown artist, c. 1564)

The plot is based on the true story of Robert Dudley, the first Earl of Leicester. He was the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, so much so that it was suspected he would marry her. As in many reproductions of “the truth”, Sir Walter Scott has taken some liberties with the facts in his novel.

Amy Robsart married Robert Dudley in 1550 and not in secret, as King Edward VI attended the wedding. She actually died in 1560 (not 1575) from falling down a flight of stairs at Cumnor Place. She was also suspected of being ill with a “malady in her breast”, possibly breast cancer. The coroner’s inquest concluded it had been accidental, although there was much suspicion that Dudley had orchestrated the death with the intent to marry Elizabeth afterwards. Sir Richard Varney was the only person at Cumnor Place the day that Amy died, as everyone else had gone to a local fair, which caused some suspicion of foul play at the time. A publication, Leicester’s Commonwealth, of disputed authorship, was published in 1584, and accused Dudley of murder and many other wicked deeds and it greatly affected his reputation.

The suspicion and unrest around the death of Dudley’s wife was one of the reasons Queen Elizabeth did not marry him. However, she granted him the castle at Kenilworth in 1563 and also gave him the title of Earl of Leicester in 1564. The royal party at Kenilworth was held in 1575, but Amy Robsart had already been dead 15 years.

As to the other main character of the book, Tressilian seems to be a mere invention of the author’s imagination. In my volume, the author has explained the origin of almost all the other incidental characters and their involvement in the history of this event, but Tressilian remains a mystery.

Robert Dudley did remarry eventually, to a widow named Lettice Devereux (maiden name, Knollys). They married secretly in 1578, but Elizabeth found out soon after and was very angry. Her jealous reputation came to bear and she refused to allow his new wife to come to court.

There is still much debate over whether Robert Dudley actually murdered his first wife. Unfortunately it is difficult to tell the facts from the fiction!

Sources and Relevant Links

Kenilworth, by Sir Walter Scott (1821) – read online

Robert Dudley – an interesting summary of his life

Did Robert Dudley murder Amy Robsart? – a website exploring many aspects of Elizabeth’s 1 life.

Elizabeth – the movie (1998), where Joseph Fiennes stars as Robert Dudley.

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Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen

The frontispiece for Northanger Abbey and Persuasion

Northanger Abbey is the first novel that Jane Austen completed (in about 1799), but it was not published until after her death, in 1818. It had been initially sold to a publisher in 1803, but the copyright was bought back by Jane Austen in 1816. After her death in 1817, her brother arranged for Northanger Abbey and Persuasion to be published together, as a four-volume series.

The story follows a young lady of seventeen, Miss Catherine Morland, who goes on a vacation in Bath with some friends, Mr and Mrs Allen. She is a rather naive girl, having never set foot out of her hometown of Fullerton, but has a pleasing manner and is good-natured and affectionate. She enjoys reading novels, and has a habit of viewing her life as if she were a heroine in a story.

Her greatest deficiency was in the pencil – she had no notion of drawing – not enough even to attempt a sketch of her lover’s profile, that she might be detected in the design. There she fell miserably short of the true heroic height. At present she did not know her poverty, for she had no lover to portray.

She is introduced to Mr Henry Tilney in the Pump Room in Bath, and after a few dances and some good conversation, she looks forward to meeting him again the next day. Catherine is disappointed when Mr Tilney does not reappear, but she meets Miss Isabella Thorpe and they strike up an immediate friendship. They discover they have a few things in common, as both have a love of gothic novels.

They called each other by their Christian name, were always arm in arm when they walked, pinned up each other’s train for the dance, and were not to be divided in the set; and if a rainy morning prevented them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together.

Miss Isabella Thorpe and Miss Catherine Morland, in the movie adaptation (2007).

Whilst they are walking together in Bath one day, they are met suddenly by Catherine’s brother, Mr James Morland, and Isabella’s brother, Mr John Thorpe, who have both become friends at college in Oxford and have just arrived in town.

Miss Thorpe and Mr Morland develop an attachment, and suddenly Isabella is prepared to ditch her “dearest Catherine” when something more attractive is on offer. Catherine’s introduction to her friend’s brother, Mr Thorpe, begins a rather disagreeable acquaintance, as it is soon evident that he is conceited and officious, and bereft of any sort of gentlemanly gallantry.

Mr Tilney returns to Bath with his sister, Miss Eleanor Tilney; his brother, Captain Tilney; and his father, General Tilney. Catherine is introduced to Eleanor and, as their friendship develops, there are several situations where Catherine’s friendship with Miss Tilney is pitted against her friendship with Miss Thorpe. In a similar way, Catherine’s acquaintance with Mr Tilney is pitted against her acquaintance with Mr Thorpe. These unpleasantries enable Catherine to become more aware of how manipulative and conniving Isabella is, and how self-important and obtrusive John Thorpe is.

But Isabella became only more and more urgent; calling on her in the most affectionate manner; addressing her by the most endearing names. She was sure her dearest, sweetest Catherine would not seriously refuse such a trifling request to a friend who loved her so dearly. She knew her beloved Catherine to have so feeling a heart, so sweet a temper, to be so easily persuaded by those she loved. But all in vain; Catherine felt herself so to be in the right, and though pained by such tender, such flattering supplication, could not allow it to influence her. Isabella then tried another method. She reproached her with having more affection for Miss Tilney, though she had known her so little a while, than for her best and oldest friends; with being grown cold and indifferent, in short, towards herself.

Isabella appeared to her ungenerous and selfish, regardless of every thing but her own gratification. These painful ideas crossed her mind, though she said nothing. Isabella, in the meanwhile, had applied her handkerchief to her eyes…

Isabella tells Catherine of her engagement to James Morland, who is leaving town to apply to his father for the necessary permission. John Thorpe, encouraged by his sister’s engagement, suggests matrimony to Catherine rather incoherently, so much so that she does not even realise it is a proposal. Once Isabella finds out she will need to wait two years to be married and then will only have an income of four hundred pounds a year, she is disappointed, as she had thought (on the word of her brother) that the Morlands were rich. Captain Tilney, taking advantage of her dissatisfaction, begins to openly court her affections.

Catherine is invited by General Tilney for a visit to their family home, Northanger Abbey, as company for his daughter. She is very excited by the prospect of staying in an Abbey, as she imagines it to have dark and gothic secrets from the past, just like the ones she has read about in novels.

Through her stay at Northanger Abbey, Catherine gets her first realisations that real life is nothing like life in the novels she has read. There is no secrets concealed in the bureau drawers, or in the disused rooms of the Abbey. Her realisation is complete when she is caught sneaking into the apartments of deceased Mrs Tilney, in her quest of a sinister secret. Catherine, letting her imagination get carried away, had fancied that, since Miss Eleanor Tilney had been away from home when her mother had suddenly died, General Tilney must, therefore, have had a hand in her death. Her imagination suspects first a murder, and then a fabricated death with the victim hidden somewhere in a distant wing of the Abbey.

Her shame is complete when Mr Henry Tilney discovers her exiting the apartments and quizzes her on it. It does not take him long, with his masterly powers of seeing her heart, to uncover her secret.

The visions of romance were over. Catherine was completely awakened. Henry’s address, short as it had been, has more thoroughly opened her eyes to the extravagance of her late fancies than all their several disappointments had done. Most grievously was she humbled. Most bitterly did she cry.

During her stay, she is sent a letter from her brother, announcing his engagement with Isabella is broken off. Isabella had encouraged the attentions of Captain Tilney, and James eventually had concerns about her constancy.

Four weeks after her arrival at Northanger Abbey, whilst Henry is away from home, General Tilney returns suddenly from a brief trip to London to demand that she leave immediately the next morning. She is forced to leave at seven in the morning to travel post by herself, 80 miles in an eleven hour journey, without even the ability to send a letter ahead of her to inform her parents of her imminent arrival. Such highly irregular treatment must have a grievous cause, but she is unsure how she has offended the General.

Mr Henry Tilney and Miss Catherine Morland, in the movie adaptation (2007).

Henry Tilney arrives home to discover Catherine gone and finds that his father had been labouring under a misapprehension – given by Mr Thorpe in Bath – that the Morlands were quite rich, and had been told – by Mr Thorpe in London – that they were actually destitute. Mr Tilney, knowing them to be somewhere in between, advises his father that he is irrevocably attached to Miss Morland, and then travels to Fullerton. As any good hero would do, Henry proposes; and as any good heroine would do, Catherine accepts.

The novel is very light-hearted, and often has a light satirical view of the nature of young girls newly out in society. My Penguin Classics edition describes it as “youthful and optimistic”, and for these reasons this novel feels remarkably different to Jane Austen’s other works.

Instead of the author speaking to the reader directly through her characters, Jane often speaks aside comments to her readers without using the characters at all. She talks about the characters to the reader, which I found a bit hard to get used to.

One of the progressions in the story is the education of Catherine as to the relationship between novels and real life. Catherine is put to shame for imagining that life is, in some way, like the storyline of a novel, and discovers that human nature and experience are not accurately represented in fiction.

But what young female does not think that novels should represent life in its actuality? This point can be extended in the modern day to movies: The Notebook, Sleepless in Seattle, Pretty Woman, You’ve Got Mail, and the list goes on. Chick-flicks do to young women today what Jane Austen’s novels did in 1810!

For me, the truth was revealed when I found out that the writer of such eloquent romances, Jane Herself, was never married! The shock! The horror! Surely one who could create such happy felicity in the bosoms of so many single women through the ages should have felt it herself in real life! It was then that it dawned on me that – maybe, just maybe – romance novels were really just fiction, created as fuel for the dreams of flighty schoolgirls. And these dreams that take flight on a girl’s advent into the world, die a quick death upon her marriage!

I wonder if Jane realised she was doing herself out of a job? Surely by recommending that young women should not read novels, she is maligning her own subsistence. Her lengthy address to the readers at the end of Chapter 5 indicates that this is not her intention, but rather that novels should be enjoyed.

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 what are you reading, Miss –?” “Oh! it is only a novel!” replies the young lady; while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, 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.

I am sure that what she was really saying in this book was, “Whilst you can enjoy a good novel, be sure to view them in the light in which they were intended – a good piece of entertainment that contains no truth whatsoever!”

Nevertheless, a good romantic novel is still my cup of tea!

Are you a romance addict, or do you prefer action and suspense?

Relevant Posts

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – a review

On Love, Shakespeare and Marianne Dashwood

Lady Susan: an eighteenth century epistolary novella

Sources and Related Links

Northanger Abbey – read online

Northanger Abbey – movie (2007)

Read Full Post »

Powder and Patch: An 18th Century Romance

Powder and Patch (or The Transformation of Phillip Jettan), by Georgette Heyer, is my favourite book of all time. I obtained my first copy at an op-shop when I was a teenager and read and re-read it until it began to fall apart. It was actually the book that inspired me to begin making 18th century costumes, as well as influencing me to begin writing again.

The cover of my first copy of Powder and Patch, by Georgette Heyer (1923, this edition 1962)

The story is set in mid-18th century England, during the era of powdered wigs, sword duelling, tricorn hats and full-skirted coats. The plot centres around Mr Phillip Jettan, a young man living on his father’s country estate, who shows no inclination for the ways of Polite Society. His father desires him to “experience the pleasures and displeasures” of the world, thereby learning about himself and others around him, but Phillip refuses to be tempted, instead preferring to work on the estate.

“I am selfish, Father? Because I will not become the thing I despise?”

“And narrow, Phillip, to despise what you do not know.”

In the town of Little Fittledean there also lived Miss Cleone Charteris, a very pretty young woman with golden curls and eyes of cornflower blue. Mr Phillip Jettan has known Miss Cleone since they were children, but has fallen in love with her since her return from seminary school.

Upon the arrival in town of Mr Henry Bancroft – a fashionable, languid, charming, mincing, flattering fop – Phillip’s qualities are thrown into the shadows. He is clumsy with words and dresses for comfort rather than fashion. His nails are unpolished and he wears no jewels, and does not even have a wig! Cleone, attracted by the graceful homage and dainty complements of Mr Bancroft, responds with her youthful gaiety.

Phillip’s jealousy for Cleone’s attentions lead him challenge Mr Bancroft to a duel, in which he is easily worsted. He then proposes to Cleone, feeling certain that she would want “an honest man’s love” instead of a “painted puppy dog”, but is rejected. Whilst she loves him, he lacks the polish and finesse of a gentleman of the time and has a tendency to presume ownership of her, rather than pursuing a gallant courtship.

“Cleone,” blundered Phillip, “you – don’t want a – mincing, powdered – beau.”

“I do not want a – a – raw country-bumpkin,” she said cruelly.

Dismayed by his rejection and knowing that he wants her for his wife, Phillip decides to go to London and then France in order to learn the arts of coquetry and fashionable manners properly. After only six months he has made a huge impression in France: he fences, speaks French, dresses fashionably, writes poetry, attends balls, and phrases pretty compliments to women – all the necessary arts of a fashionable gentleman.

Mr Bancroft arrives in France, initially meeting Phillip at a rout in Paris. The tables have now been turned, as Phillip has many friends in Paris and is sought after at every fashionable gathering. He hears that Bancroft has been bandying his love’s name around and challenges him to another duel. This time he is successful, pinking Bancroft easily.

Once Phillips’s father and Cleone hear of his duel “over some French wench”, he returns from Paris to London, hearing that Cleone is not at all happy that he has been engaging the attentions of other women. Meeting her at a ball in London, he deliberately plays the part of a languid, mincing town-gallant that she bade him to become, showering her with all the insincere, flowery complements of a dandy. She is initially surprised and then angry, feeling hurt that his attentions to her are indifferent and blase. To cover her feelings, she begins to flirt and court the attentions of other gentlemen, treating them with the same indifference and triviality.

It all comes to a climax at a ball in London. Phillip takes a straightforward approach and proposes to Cleone again, to which she replies by elaborating on his encounters with women in Paris, accusing him of bringing her a tarnished reputation. He leaves her side, and James Winton – another friend from childhood – comes to sit beside her. Whilst she is thinking about her conversation with Phillip, she notices that James is earnestly entreating her to answer yes to his question. In impatience she replies in the affirmative, only to discover that he had been proposing to her. Once he leaves her side, a Sir Deryk Brenderby comes and takes her to a small withdrawing-room to cool herself down. Once they are there, Sir Deryk teaches her how to dice, wagering the rose at her breast. As he removes it, a locket is broken from her neck and rolls under the funriture. Upon retrieving it, Sir Deryk notices Cleone’s agitation that it be returned to her, and suggests a new wager. If she wins, she gets the locket back, and if she loses she needs to kiss him to obtain the locket. Reluctantly she agrees and promptly loses the wager. Just as she is kissing him, Phillip and James walk into the room.

In order to spare Cleone the shame of being discovered in a compromising position, Sir Deryk pretends they have just got engaged, to which James replies hotly that Cleone is engaged to himself. Phillip congratulates them all and departs.

“What’s this?” Sir Maurice [Phillip’s father] spoke with well-feigned astonishment. “Cleone, you are not betrothed, surely?”

“To two men,” nodded her aunt. “I have never been so amused in all my life. I always considered myself to be flighty, but I’ll swear I never was engaged to two men at one and the same time!”

In order to extricate her from two engagements, Phillip first fights a duel with Sir Deryk Brenderby and then uses his influence to persuade James to give up his suit. He then arrives at the door of Cleone’s lodgings and announces that she is free from her engagements. All that remains is for him to persuade her to marry him, which he does most masterfully.

This novel is a step away from Heyer’s favourite era – the Regency – and whilst it is a relatively simplistic storyline, it was my first introduction to the world of Heyer, and even history! For this reason it has obtained a special place on my shelf.

Georgette Heyer is a great writer, and I think she is especially so in her historical romances. I love her mix of historical accuracy, romance and wittiness, which have often caused me to laugh out loud as I read! In a phrase, she’s my cup of tea!

Relevant Links

Powder and Patch – read an excerpt of the fateful encounter in the withdrawing room!

Powder and Patch – buy through Amazon

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What If?: The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost (1874-1963) was an American poet, and published one of his most famous poems, The Road Not Taken, in 1916.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

This poem is short and relatively simple, yet I find it profound.

The first stanza opens with the image of a fork in the road, and the speaker – wishing he could travel both – wonders which one to choose.

The speaker picks one of the roads in the second stanza, saying that it looks less worn, but once he walks along it, discovers they are worn about the same really.

In the third stanza, the speaker reveals his desire to go back one day to take the other road, but realises that it doesn’t often happen that way. “Way leads on to way” signifies how, in life, often one decision then leads to a new place with new choices to make.

The speaker then thinks what might happen in his future. The fourth stanza reveals that in the future “ages and ages hence”, the speaker may look back “with a sigh” and say how he took one road and that choice “has made all the difference”. The speaker does not reveal whether the sigh is one of satisfaction or one of regret, and likewise, whether the difference that the choice has made is a good difference or a bad difference.

“The road” in this poem can be thought of as a metaphor for a decision or choice. A fork in the road therefore represents two choices that need to be made, where choosing one prevents the choice of the other one. Many of life’s choices are like this… who to marry being an obvious one!

What I love about this poem is that is represents how choices lead us on a journey through our life, in the same way as a road leads us on a journey through the countryside.

Where will your choices lead you?

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Robert Frost’s poems

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An Ideal Husband: Is perfection best?

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Oscar Wilde was a prolific writer at the turn of the nineteenth century, initially as a journalist and then as a playwright. His plays were witty and light-hearted, yet also revealed some underlying truths about the social times of London during the late 1800’s. For these reasons, many of his plays continue to be popular in modern times.

My favourite Oscar Wilde play is An Ideal Husband (1895).

The story centres on a couple, Sir Robert and Lady Gertrude Chiltern, who are at the height of political acclaim in London society and who represent what is true and noble about British life. The scene opens at a political party given by the Chiltern’s at their Grosvenor Street home.

Julianne Moore as Mrs Cheveley

Mrs Cheveley, an old school acquaintance of Lady Chiltern’s, has lately arrived in London from Vienna with the specific purpose of being introduced to Sir Robert. At the party, she manages to have a private interview with him where she attempts to blackmail him with a secret from his past. She holds a letter that Sir Robert wrote when he was a secretary to a Minister of Parliament, in which he divulged a Cabinet secret to a stockbroker for money. In return for this letter, she hopes to get his public support in Parliament for a failing investment, namely her shares in the Argentine Canal scheme.

Gertrude Chiltern instinctively distrusts Mrs Cheveley and, not knowing her husbands past, she makes him refuse Mrs Cheveley’s demands in the form of a letter.

Sir Robert Chiltern: No one should be entirely judged by their past.

Lady Chiltern: One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

Sir Robert, now placed between two implacable and immoveable women, unburdens himself to his closest friend, Lord Goring, telling him the whole story. Lord Goring, a rich aristocratic bachelor, advises him to tell his wife the truth at once, but Sir Robert is afraid that it would destroy her love for him. In an attempt to help the situation, Lord Goring tries to soften Gertrude towards her husband and his unknown blemishes, and ends by pledging his assistance to her should she ever be in need of it.

A sub-plot of the emerging relationship between Lord Goring and Sir Robert’s sister, Mabel Chiltern, occurs throughout the play. It is a light and playful contrast to the deepening drama occurring with the other characters.

Mrs Cheveley, having misplaced her diamond brooch, comes to visit Gertrude Chiltern to see if it has been found. She uses the opportunity to suggest that Gertrude should encourage Sir Robert to acquiesce to her demands, and reveals to her the origin of her husband’s wealth and career. Sir Robert enters the room during the conversation and is left no recourse but to admit the truth to his wife. Lady Chiltern is devastated.

Lady Chiltern: You were to me something apart from common life, a thing pure, noble, honest, without stain. The world seemed to me finer because you were in it, and goodness more real because you lived. And now – oh, when I think that I made of a man like you my ideal! The ideal of my life!

Lord Goring, at home in his stately apartments, receives an ambiguous letter from Lady Chiltern, imploring him for help and announcing her intention to visit him immediately. “I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you now. Gertrude.” What follows is a comedy of errors, where Lord Goring is visited by numerous people, beginning with his father, Lord Caversham. Whilst Lord Goring is being a dutiful son, Mrs Cheveley, who is mistaken by the servant as Lady Chiltern, is shown into the drawing room. To complete the picture, Sir Robert arrives as Lord Caversham departs, and Lord Goring, thinking it is Lady Chiltern concealed in the neighbouring room, begins to talk to Sir Robert about his wife in an attempt to reconcile them.

Upon discovering Mrs Cheveley listening to their conversation, Sir Robert leaves in disgust. Mrs Cheveley, who had once been engaged to Lord Goring, then announces her reason for visiting – that she desires to marry Lord Goring and will promise to give him Sir Robert’s letter in return for his self-sacrifice. Lord Goring refuses.

The conversation turns to the brooch she lost at the Chiltern’s party, which Lord Goring has found. He returns it to her, clasping it on her hand as a bracelet, and tells her that he knows who she stole it from. In a panic, she agrees to surrender Sir Robert’s letter to him, rather than being turned over to the police. However, as she leaves she steals Gertrude’s somewhat compromising letter from the desk, intending to use it to destroy the Chiltern’s marriage.

Cate Blanchett and Jeremy Northam as Lady and Sir Robert Chiltern

Lord Goring visits Lady Chiltern to apprise her of the danger she stands in, and suggests she tell her husband the situation immediately. Afraid of the consequences, she pretends that she had meant the letter to be for Sir Robert, and not Lord Goring. However, when Sir Robert refuses to allow Lord Goring to marry Mabel Chiltern because he believes him to be involved with Mrs Cheveley, Lady Chiltern has to admit writing the letter to Lord Goring in order to clear up the misunderstanding. In the end, Lord Goring and Mabel are happily engaged, Sir Robert and Lady Chiltern are happily reconciled, and Sir Robert has a new position in the Cabinet of the Government!

The play contrasts the notion of private moral integrity with public moral integrity, where private integrity is how you conduct yourself behind closed doors, and public integrity is how your conduct appears to others. Sir Robert Chiltern has exceptional public integrity and is celebrated for his appearance of upright character, yet his private decisions in his past demonstrate a moral code that has been unduly influenced by temptation.

Sir Robert Chiltern: …Gertrude, public and private life are different things. They have different laws, and move on different lines.

Lady Chiltern: They should both represent man at his highest. I see no difference between them.

Lord Goring, in contrast, has a solid private integrity, refusing to marry Mrs Cheveley even to save his friend. He even refuses to agree with Sir Robert’s reasons for making his disastrous choice, whilst still being sympathetic to his friend’s predicament. Yet his father, Lord Caversham, believes him to have very poor public integrity, comparing him negatively to Robert Chiltern on a number of occasions.

Lord Caversham: I wish you would go into Parliament.

Lord Goring: My dear father, only people who look dull ever get into the House of Commons, and only people who are dull ever suceed there.

Lord Caversham: Why don’t you try to do something useful in life?

Lord Goring: I am far too young.

Lord Caversham: I hate this affectation of youth, sir. It is a great deal too prevalent nowadays.

Lord Goring: Youth isn’t an affectation. Youth is an art.

This issue of dual areas of morality in character is not clearly resolved. Wilde instead presents them as both important, even though both are treated differently. In private life, it is the people you love who extend arms of forgiveness for moments of error. However, in public life there awaits scandal and humiliation that crush a man for his moments of error. These different consequences of essentially the same moral decisions means that the characters have to deal with them differently. It is therefore appropriate that Sir Robert confesses fully to his wife, but it is not appropriate that he confess to the public.

The title “An Ideal Husband”, represents two very different types of “ideal” in the play. Lady Chiltern makes an ideal of her husband, Sir Robert, putting him on a pedestal and worshiping his goodness. Unfortunately, this type of relationship allows no room for any imperfections and therefore there is no space for forgiveness. Lady Chiltern is required to change her view of “an ideal husband” in order to be reconciled to Sir Robert.

Lord Goring, as a rich and eligible bachelor, would make a very ideal husband and is even sought after by two of the principal characters, Miss Mabel and Mrs Cheveley. However, both Lord Goring and Mabel are well aware of each others faults and are happy to accept and live with them.

Lord Caversham: And if you don’t make this young lady an ideal husband, I’ll cut you off with a shilling.

Mabel Chiltern: An ideal husband! Oh, I don’t think I should like that. It sounds like something in the next world.

Wilde seems to appreciate that life is not perfect. Problems arise in any relationship, but if love remains constant then forgiveness is always possible.

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Relevant Links

Read “An Ideal Husband” online

“An Ideal Husband” – the movie (1999)

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Emma Bovary: A lesson in happiness

Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert (1857), is a haunting tale of a young woman who, obsessed with her own happiness, eventually causes her family’s ruin.

The story opens with a young man, Charles Bovary, beginning his career as a country doctor. He meets a young girl, Emma, and falls madly in love with her and they marry. The book is principally about his new wife, and her misguided views of life.

Emma has always fantasized about all things romantic, and soon becomes disillusioned with her bourgeois life as the wife of a country doctor. She dislikes the monotony and dreams about having the “finer” things of life: wondrous passion, giddy romance, inordinate wealth, fantastic possessions, and delicious idleness.

…She could not think that the calm in which she lived was the happiness she had dreamed.

Initially, she keeps these desires inside her heart, under a thin layer of virtue, and appears to do the normal things – sewing, looking after servants, sending letters of account to patients, and keeping her house – but all the while she is feeding her dissatisfaction with ladies journals, by buying unnecessary trinkets, dreaming over books, and reminiscing of the ball she attended.

She confused in her desire the sensualities of luxury with the delights of the heart…

Eventually, after suffering an irritation of her nerves (really a result of the thwarting of her unrealistic desires), her husband leaves his blossoming practice to begin again in a new country town, so that the change may alleviate her suffering. Whilst this seems to address the problem, it merely avoids it.

Emma and Charles Bovary, an illustration for the book, by Alfred Richemont (1906).

In her new home, Emma tries keeping her irritations buried beneath her occupation as a wife and mother, always seesawing between her desires for pleasure and her “virtuous” – but proud and resentful – sacrifice to her duties. She oscillates between merely being annoyed with her boorish husband, to overtly despising him, from wanting to be a devoted mother, to outbursts of anger towards her child.

As the story moves on, she stops attempting to hide her feelings of dissatisfaction, and becomes overtly selfish. Emma searches for a way to quench the thirst of her romantic desires, first embroiling herself in one affair, and then another, while spending money far beyond her means. She takes money without her husband’s knowledge, and gets into large amounts of debt for non-essential items, without any concern for the welfare of her family. Emma progressively sinks, eventually having no regard for her reputation, for the happiness of her child, or for the love of the man she married. She believes that her happiness can only come by spending more money and having more passion; yet, the more she seeks this, the emptier it becomes. Then, to complete the cycle, she pines for the past, falsely believing that she used to be happy.

She was not happy – she never had been. Whence came this insufficiency in life – this instantaneous turning to decay of everything on which she lent?

The Death Bed of Madame Bovary, by Albert-Auguste Fourie.

Her debts build to a dramatic point, where foreclosures are issued for her household items. In this miserable state, she begs several men for money, prostituting herself, but is refused. Not being able to raise any money, and being desperate to hide the truth from her husband, she takes arsenic and dies.

Charles, having loved her to the last, is left heartbroken, and eventually dies of heartache. The book closes with the fate of her daughter, Berthe, now an orphan. She first lives briefly with her grandmother – until she dies – and then resides with a distant aunt, who sends her to work in a cotton mill.

This sad story was, in the beginning, quite fascinating, but in the end, quite melancholy. Emma’s selfishness, while initially not having a huge effect on her life, ends up destroying her. She steadily loses her battle with self-control, beginning with her daily daydreams and fantasies, then progressing on to the way she treats others, and the desires she chooses to satisfy without thinking of the people around her.

The part that I find the most distressing is that she fails to see that the ingredients for her happiness are right before her: her husband who loves her immensely despite her faults, a lovely healthy daughter, and the relatively successful doctors practice they could have.

I must admit I do not enjoy tragedy. At least in Romeo and Juliet, their families learnt from their mistakes after the couple’s tragic death! In Madame Bovary, the tragedy is limitless, touching everyone, even their innocent daughter. There is no bittersweet ending, only anguish. In fact, the only people who prosper in this story are those who use the Bovary’s, maliciously or otherwise, to get what they want!

In terms of literature, it is quite a masterpiece. Flaubert excels in providing minute detail about the setting of his characters, piling metaphors and similes in his writing, which gives the reader a very sensory and poetic experience of life in country France. He makes the reader swing from hating the characters, to being sympathetically understanding of them, to loving them, and then all the way back again.

Gustave Flaubert said “Madame Bovary, c’est moi” [Madame Bovary, it is me], and I am sure we could all agree. What person does not have a selfish, vain, proud side to them? Whilst we may feel like this at times, what makes a difference in our lives is what we choose to do with this feeling. Emma cosseted it and fed it, and so it grew until it was an unsatiated, vicious, rampant desire that controlled her.

Happiness, to me, is primarily a decision. It is not our situation that defines it, it is about how we choose to respond to our situation that really determines our happiness.

Do you like stories with happy endings? Or do you prefer tragedies?

Sources and Relevant Links

Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert – read online

Movie adaptation of Madame Bovary (1991)

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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

When my husband told me (with undisguised glee) that Pride and Prejudice was being re-written and re-sold as “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, I honestly thought he was joking. I mean, who would believe a husband that thinks the movie “28 Days Later” is a romantic comedy? (For those who don’t know, this is the one where the Rage virus turns people into flesh-eating madmen and infects everyone in Great Britain. Charming, really.)

In order to relieve my apparent discomfort, he quickly did a search for the horrendous item on the internet, ordered it, paid for it, and it was delivered to me by a kindly, graying postman (who evidently knew nothing of the ghastly and obscene nature of the contents of that said parcel). I was horrified!

My husband finished the last chapter of the current book he was reading (as he believes it is a mortal sin to have two books on-the-go at once, whereas I have a teetering pile on my bedside table which is threatening to imminently collapse and kill any unsuspecting family member who might be sleeping on the bed), and promptly opened the new piece of blasphemy.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

After a while I grew used to the terrifying image of grotesque-ness, staring at me from the front cover as I lay on my side of the bed, and I began to be interested in just how Seth Graham-Smith had changed this piece of prized literature, especially when I learned that 85% of the book had been untouched. But by the time my husband began reading aloud to me – “In vain I have struggled, it will not do” – I was sold! What a great book! It had transformed my science-fiction-loving, Star-Wars-nut of a husband into an Austen quoter! Miracle of miracles!

"Elizabeth lifted her skirt, disregarding modesty, and delivered a swift kick to the creatures head."

So, despite my purist approach, I had to read it. I launched into the first page with anticipation, derived from the fact that my husband had actually enjoyed it (his exact words: “It was ok”). And then I realized this unmentionable volume – passing itself off as literature – was even complete with perverse illustrations! Fancy that!

I must admit, it was hard to read. To see my most treasured lines of literature warped into zombie-madness was difficult. What was slightly more unsettling was the minor alterations to the storyline. Whilst the plot was not materially changed, it was altered enough to discomfort a more traditional Austen reader.

This reader’s discomfort turned to disgust when Elizabeth handed Mr Darcy the ammunition for his musket and said, “Your balls, Mr Darcy”, to which he replied (with what is supposed to be handsome chivalry), “They belong to you, Miss Bennet.” Indeed, I am sure the bile would rise in any enamoured Austen-lover’s throat.

Now, some of you Austen enthusiasts may object to the poison injected into your favourite story, as I initially did. You may also echo my cry: “how could a mere man have the gall to put his name next to the immortal Jane Austen’s?” But, as I see it, there is an upside! Whilst I am still a little disturbed to read about my favourite heroine’s antics with a ninja knife, I am prepared to capitulate! Any book which gets my husband interested in anything RESEMBLING Pride and Prejudice, well, it’s my cup of tea!

Dawn of the Dreadfuls, by Steve Hockensmith

In fact, it was so popular in our household that there will be several new additions to our family library soon. Some senseless person has made a prequel AND a sequel to this book: Dawn of the Dreadful, and Dreadfully Ever After!

Dreadfully Ever After, by Steve Hockensmith

Disturbing even-more-so, the zombie tide is taking no prisoners: the next one to infect Austen literature is Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters!

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters

The next issue for contention: should my husband’s new irredeemable publications be shelved next to my own pure and refined volumes of time-honoured pride and joy?

Have you read any of these books? Were they your cup of tea?

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