JOURNAL OF THE FIRST MEETING - SENSE, SENSIBILITY AND ... MISS BATES!

 4.30 p.m. AT HOME

Half an hour to the meeting. It rained and rained. What is it that you say on these occasions in English? It rained cats and dogs? Well, it was rainging all the cats and all the dogs in the universe. What then? Will it be another failure? Will they come this time?

17.00  SUBIACO PUBLIC LIBRARY

They came! Here they are!

(Look at Elisabetta laughing while Costanza tells about her favourite sister...Is it Elinor or Marianne? And have you noticed the cake on the table? Delicious! Thank you, signora Letizia!)

18.30

Here we are, smiling and proudly showing our copy of Sense and Sensibility at the end of the meeting: from the left Letizia, Maria Francesca, Marika, Maria Grazia, Ludovica, Marta, Martina, Costanza and Pina . Elisabetta is hidden behind Costanza and  Rosaria and Natalia are taking this picture. Thanks to all of them, our first meeting was a success. We really had a good time !

I opened with a game: the youngest girl, Ludovica,  picked a card with the name of one of the characters on it (Colonel Brandon) and the others had to ask yes/no questions to discover who she was. The questions didn't have to contain names of other characters. It was a good warm - up activity.

We talked about the protagonists, of course, and I was curious to discover which one of the sisters they all liked better: Elinor got 8 votes, Marianne 3 and one of us couldn't decide because, according to her, perfection would be a blend of the two. She got it right. Perfect! I think it is just what Jane would have said.

Among the male characters, well, not a surprise: Willoughby was considered the most interesting  one, though none of us  would have trusted him.

Then, we compared our opinions on many other topics :  the title, marriage, love, irony, Jane's uneventful life, Jane's illness,  Cassandra,  a woman's education at that time, inheritance and the law of primogeniture, balls, minor characters.The discussion was vivacious, lively and friendly.
We even had a Miss Bates among us and we had some problems at containing the flow of her enthusiastic comments.  Jokes apart,  she is such a nice lady, she's forgiven. It was great fun to listen to all her memories of old movies based on Austen and of all the things she had read about Austen and her novels.  We had a very good time thanks to "Aunt Jane" and to the kind enthusiastic contribution of all the readers. 

Next month , NORTHANGER ABBEY. Our next meeting will be on 27th February. 

READY FOR THE FIRST MEETING

This afternoon will be the first date of our JA reading club. I 'll tell you something about it. Promised. Meanwhile, I've been leafing through and re-reading my old Italian copy of "Ragione e Sentimento" (S&S) to get ready. Not that I needed revising the plot but I've always discussed about it and read passages from it in English lately while  we'll have to do it in Italian today. So I just wanted to choose some excerpts to quote and put some coloured stickers to find them easily while speaking with the others. Again: I'm not going to give a lesson. I want to stimulate their comments but you know ... one must be ready, they expect me to be the expert! I hope there won't be any lady loving embarassing questions... I mean those kind zelous ones who want to be answered in any case and are  never satisfied. Have you ever met one?

Anyhow, I'm sure my mates in this adventure will be all terrific! I still have to meet some of them and I'm so curious.

As for what I think of S&S and its characters and themes...maybe it is better to ponder what to say, I might frighten them. First it is better to listen to what they think and be ready to be ... polite... diplomatic... But I can say something here.

1. I definitely think Marianne is one of Austen's best written heroines. I love her as much as Emma. Elinor - and the narrator's perspective on her good sensical behavior - is not as convincing as Marianne. Not as involving as her. She's rather ...tepid as a heroine?

2. The male characters are indefinite, colourless. Especially Brandon and Edward. Jane didn't pay much effort at painting them. Willoughby is different. She spends so many pages to make Elinor and all of us re-think our negative opinion of him. In my copy and in my mind about 50 pages - the last ones - are especially meant to get to that purpose! What does darling (perverse?) Jane do after spending words and words to make us all understand Willoughby's reasons? She invites the reader not to believe he will leave the rest of his life in sorrow. And gives us a wink!I love perfidious Jane and ... Willoughby, of course!

3. Where is in the book the moving final scene in which Elinor discovers Edward is not  married followed by his fervent / honest proposal? Nowhere! But we have seen it in several film versions ! No trace of any romantic event between those two in Jane's prose! She, Elinor,  escapes from the room crying for joy as soon as she realizes he is free and he , Edward,  after  sitting still  stunned and perplexed for a while, leaves and goes back to the village!

As always, Jane Austen endings are rushed and very little convincing. Never romantic! But she is a genius in making  people think she wrote love stories!

4. And what about Marianne final and sudden love for Brandon? Jane never says anything about it. She says 19-year old Marianne felt  deep esteem and friendship for him! And in the paragraph describing Marianne's decision to marry (poor old) Brandon she is bitterly ironic! Go, re-read it.

5. Our time's problem respect to things Austenesque is that very few people ACTUALLY read her novels. Most of them  think Jane Austen is ... what they see in films and Tv series based on her novels. NOT AT ALL!!!  One gets everything  wrong and never knows Jane Austen's genius and real mind.

Mind you, I love watching adaptations of her novels, even when they differ from the original but ... I am happy to know that is NOT what Jane Austen wrote. That's it!

Wish me good luck!

Till very soon.

P. S. Final 5 answers to the questions I posted !

1/21 Whom does Mrs Ferrars intend her son, Edward, to marry, and how much is the young lady worth? Miss Morton, the daughter of Lord Morton. She is worth £30,000—the second most valuable such property in Sense and Sensibility, after Willoughby's Miss Grey.

1 /22 Who is the taller child, William Middleton or Harry Dashwood? William, although only Elinor is brave enough to say so among all the toadies in the ladies' withdrawing room.

1/23 How, when she visits him at Cleveland, does Elinor find Mr Thomas Palmer changed? He is polite.

1/24 What are Willoughby ‘ s last words to Elinor? 'God bless you!'

1/25 What is the only fly in the ointment for Edward and Elinor in the vicarageat Delaford? There is not enough good pasturage for their cows

Reading Sense and Sensibility - Part II -The protagonists, class distinction & more answers

THE PROTAGONISTS

Elinore and Marianne Dashwood are the heroines in SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. Which one do you sympathize with more?

I know I'm an "Elinore" but I've always admired Marianne, always admired her free spirit. Austen, instead, wanted her female readers learn from both of them. Their changes in the course of the narration should teach any young or less young reader the middle way ... the "aurea mediocritas" of the Ancient Romans? Maybe. Balance in on e word. Anyway, according to Jane Austen extremities  are always really dangerous.

Elinor's scupulous inner life is the dominant medium of the novel. She represents the author's conscience and is never a target of irony. Actually through her portrait Austen shows that the complete human personality needs certain qualities in balanced proportion. Sense and sensibility, reason and passion complement each other in her. She controls her emotions and regulates her behaviour according to the conventions of society, through this effort she achieves strength and balance of character.

Marianne, on the contrary, does not try to please other people , she refuses to conform. She is lively, sensitive, intelligent, but she is inclined to rely on first impressions - something Austen will exemplify in Pride & Prejudice . She regards sensitivity as a great quality; however, she will be so disappointed and hurt by her following her impulses and her heart that she will gradually acquire sense and settle down by prudent middle-class marriage.

CLASS & RANK

(from Juliet McMaster, The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, 2008)

Class distinction was a fact of life for Austen and its acute observation a necessary part of her business as a writer of realistic fiction. She never presents royalty, nor any of the great aristocrats who still owned great tracts of the country, and were prominent in its government. In fact characters with titles are seldom admirable in her novels. The long-established but untitled landowning family does seem to gather Austen's deep respect, especially its income comes from land. (...)

Mr Bennet of Longbourn in Pride and Prejudice and Mr Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility are gentlemen of property and owners of estates but they lack the long-term commitment to the land that makes a good steward and moral aristocrat of Darcy.

The aristocracy and the inheritance of the land depended heavily on the system of the primogeniture which accumulated all property in the hands of one family member. It was developed as an arrangement for the preservation of the family name and estate through the generations. Austen highlights the injustice of this system of inheritance at the beginning of Sense and Sensibility. where both money and land must stay in the male line. (...)

Austen best sympathies rest with the professional class - her own, that is. A gentleman's son who must earn his living has limited choices: the church, the army, the navy, the law, and medicine. Austen locates few major characters in "trade". It is not surprising that  the gentry and the professional classes felt somewhat threatened by the large changes  that were coming with the Industrial Revolution. Austen pays close attention to the gradual assimilation if the trading classes  into gentility. Charles Bingley in Pride and Prejudice is a gentleman of pleasure, and already associated with such a prestigious member of the country gentry as Darcy. But his is new money, "acquired by trade" in the industrial north of England."

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Let's go on discovering the answers to the questions previously posted  from John Sutherland and Deirdre LeFaye, So You Think You Know Jane Austen, A Literary Quizbook , 2005. Today questions/answers 1/11 - 1/20.

1/11 Where do the Miss Careys live? Newton village.

1/12 What time of day (according to Sir John Middleton) does Willoughby usually rise in the morning? Noon. Sir John, who has doubtless been kept waiting to get out into the fields with his fellow sportsman, is probably exaggerating. When it comes to paying court to Marianne, Willoughby is quite capable of making a mid-morning call at Barton Cottage.

1/13 Who, apart from Marianne, is Willoughby's 'inseparable companion ' at Barton Cottage? His pointer, a black bitch.

1/14 Where does Edward Ferrars stay when he comes to Devon and where does his horse stay? He in the cottage, the horse in the village. There is no stable at Barton Cottage, so Willoughby's proposed gift of Queen Mab to Marianne would have been a major expense.

1/15 Mrs Ferrars has been trying to push Edward into taking up a profession. What has she suggested, what are his objections, and what does he eventually do, at the end of the novel? Her first choice for him was the army, as being very smart; Edward felt 'it was a great deal too smart for me'. Her second choice was the law, as young barristers could likewise present a dashing appearence as menabout-town; Edward has no inclination for the law, nor is he interested in a political career. The navy 'had fashion on its side'; but at 18 Edward was already too old to sign on as a midshipman. He himself wanted to enter the Church, but 'that was not smart enough for my family'. He went to Oxford as a time-killing last resort, and now that he has left, has no occupation at all (other than potential bigamist). Eventually he does drift into ordination, thanks mainly to Colonel Brandon promising him the living of Delaford.

1/16 What is the epithet most accurately applied to Charlotte Palmer? Silly.

1/17 Who (before Elinor is spitefully told) is the only other person who knows about the secret engagement of Lucy and Edward? Nancy Steele.

1/18 How much does the public postal service, for a letter, cost in the world of Sense and Sensibility? Two pence within the area of London, considerably more for the countryside beyond London.

1/19 What is MrsJennings's favourite meal'? Breakfast (taken, at this period, around noon).

1/20 What is given Marianne to relieveher 'hysteria ', in the extremity of her disappointed love? Lavender drops—smelling salts, designed to stimulate and revive (they were not taken internally).

Reading Sense and Sensibility - Part I : Title, Publication and some answers

My reading group is going on with the reading of SENSE AND SENSIBILITY .We are meeting and talking about this experience next Saturday 30th January. Meanwhile, I'm leafing through everything I have about this novel and preparing ideas to moderate the discussion. I'm going to listen more than to speak. At least, this is what I intend to do! I hope not to find myself in the funny situation Geraldine Granger (The BBC Vicar of Dibley) found herself once with her reading group. Well, you can't understand if you haven't seen the last episodes of the series (Christmas special 2007).

Title & Publication

First written in the epistolary form as Elinore and Marianne, it became Sense and Sensibility on its publication. It seems probable that Jane started it in 1795, changed the epistolary novel in a straightforward narration in 1797-98 (more or less the narrative we know now), then laid the manuscript aside for some years till she had moved to Chawton Cottage. In the summer of 1809 she looked at it again with a view to publication. She made little update changes and with her brother's Henry's assistance she offered it to a London publisher, Thomas Egerton. The book came out at the end of October 1811 with the anonymous wording "By a Lady" on the first page.

This is how Deirdre Le Faye explains the title of Austen's first published novel:
"First, the title needs a little explanation for a modern reader:"sense" has not changed its meaning, but "sensibility" is a word not now in common use. At the end of the eighteenth century it meant having a nature that was exceptionally sensitive, emotional and susceptible, and Jane Austen uses her sister heroines, Elinor and Marianne, to personify and contrast such a nature with one of calm, rational, practical good sense. Nowadays we might express something of the contrast by calling such a story "Head and Heart" or "Reality and Illusion".
(from Jane Austen. The World of Her Novels, p. 154)

And now some answers to the questions I posted previously. Only from 1.1 to 1.10. For the rest of them ...stay tuned!

I/I Under what circumstances did the Henry Dashwood family move in with Henry's uncle, old Mr Dashwood? He was unmarried, and when his sister, who was also his housekeeper, died, he invited the Henry Dash woods (wife, husband, three daughters) to move in with him as his future heirs, and the companions of his old age. They sold all the furniture in their house, Stanhill, keeping only the linen, china, and plate (wedding presents, presumably). We may suspect that the Henry Dashwoods are not prosperous. Henry's second marriage is to a woman much younger than himself (she is still a nubile late-thirty-something, at the beginning of the narrative). He, we assume, with a grown-up son from a first marriage, is probably at least a decade older. After ten years of this shared family life, old Mr Dashwood dies, leaving a life interest in the Norland estate to Mr Henry Dashwood.


1/2 How much money do the Dashwood women have between them, and how much do each of the three daughters individually possess? On his premature death, Henry Dashwood leaves his wife £7,000. His daughters are left £1,000 apiece by heir great-uncle. This will yield, as we are precisely informed, an annual income (from the Consols) of £500.

1/3 How much does the Norland estate yield annually to its new owner, Mr John Dashwood? A cool £4,000 a year. As the tenant for-life he evidently feels free to cut down its Valuable woods', starting with the 'old walnut trees' to make way for a conserva-tory and flower garden. Luckily, Marianne is not present when John Dashwood talks of this modernizing vandalism.

1/4 Mr John Dashwood's first intention was to honourhis father's deathbed wish by giving his half-sisters £3,000. How much, after being persuaded by his mercenary wife on the matter, does he finally resolve to give them? And how much does he actually come across with? The couple eventually decide that a 'a present of fifty pounds, now and then' will be appropriate. It never materializes.

1/5 What is the largest and most cumbersome object the Dashwood ladies have to transport to Barton Cottage? Marianne's pianoforte.

1/6 In which month of the year do the Dashwoodladies arrive at Barton Park? September. The fact that it is late in the year means that (1) Mrs Dashwood cannot immediately carry out her 'improvements' (the implication is that, as in Sterne's Shandy Hall, they never will happen); (2) with the onset of winter, the fallow season, and long nights there will be the field sports and evening parties which 'social' Sir John loves. It may well be that he invited the ladies to his estate with that in mind.

1/7 What is Sir John’s favourite term for handsome young girls (for whom he clearly has an eye)? 'Monstrous pretty!'

1/8 Mrs Jennings is a widow with 'an ample jointure'. What is that? A life interest in property, settled on her by her deceased husband. She cannot dispose of it as she might wish, through a will. It will go to her children. Mrs Jennings is one of the two women in the novel (the other is Mrs Ferrars) who are in charge of considerable wealth, and the social power which goes with it. She seems to get on very well with both her daughters, different characters though they are. They, on their side, seem to get on very well with their mother (there is no mercenary interest, of course; the terms of their father's will make it clear the family wealth will eventually come to them). Such happy families are not found everywhere in Austen's fiction.

1/9 Whatis Willoughby, a Somersetshireman,doingin Devon? He comes down every year for the shooting (he is evidently friendly with Sir John) and to pay his addresses to his patroness and elderly cousin Mrs Smith of Allenham.

1/10 What word sums up Lady Middleton? Insipid.

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY - Some information and factual questions

Sense and Sensibility was the first published of Jane Austen's novels. Composition was begun perhaps as early as 1795 (some authorities suggest a year or two later). What is certain is that the novel was published in November 1811, on commission (that is, the author paying for the production costs, in return for a larger

share of profit) by the London publisher Thomas Egerton. Austen began negotiations with Egerton (with her brother Henry as her intermediary) in 1810. While the manuscript was still in her hands, she made some updating references (to Scott's being a popular poet, for example). The first edition of Sense and Sensibility was obviously successful, a second edition appearing in November 1813.

Much may have happened between the novel's conception, composition, and belated publication. No manuscript and little other primary evidence remains. It was begun as an epistolary work (that is, a novel narrated in letters), originally entitled 'Elinor and Marianne', and read to the Austen family in 1795. It

was reorganized as a third-person narrative (with Elinor as principal centre of consciousness and Austen's narrative voice) probably in 1797. The work was then in hand for more than a decade - at which point Austen already had Pride and Prejudice ready for publication.

It is significant that Jane Austen was 19 (Elinor's age, and the age at which Marianne marries) when she began to write the story. The author, that is to say, was herself passing through the years which are at the centre of the narrative.

It is not easy to locate the exact historical time period of Sense and Sensibility. Is it a 1790s novel, or a Regency novel? There is, even by Austen's standards, an absence of helpful historical markers. None the less, the balance of evidence seems to point to the 1790s rather than the Regency. The references, for example, to Marianne's curls being 'all tumbled down her back', and 'the pin in her ladyship's head dress' scratching little Annamaria when Lady Middleton cuddles her—recall hairstyles of the earlier period. Ten or fifteen years later, Lady Middleton would have been wearing a cap, not a head-dress; and it is likely that

Marianne's curls would have been lifted up into a ponytail style, rather than falling down loose. A reference in passing to a needlebook 'made by emigrants' also implies the 1790s

Sense and Sensibility: Questions

Level One: Brass Tacks

I/ I Under what circumstances did the Henry Dash wood family move in with Henry's uncle, old Mr Dashwood?

I/2 How much money do the Dashwood women have between them, and how much do each of the three daughters individually possess?

1/3 How much does the Norland estate yield annually to its new owner, Mr John Dashwood?

1/4 Mr John Dash wood's first intention was to honour his father's deathbed wish by giving his half-sisters £3,000. How much, after being persuaded by his mercenary wife on the matter, does he finally resolve to give them? And how much does he actually come across with?

1/5 What is the largest and most cumbersome object the Dashwood ladies have to transport to Barton Cottage?

1/6 In which month of the year do the Dashwood ladies arrive at Barton Park?

1/7 What is Sir John's favourite term for handsome young girls (for whom he clearly has an eye)?
1/8 Mrs Jennings is a widow with 'an ample jointure'. What is that?
1/9 What is Willoughby, a Somersetshire man, doing in Devon?
1/10 What word sums up Lady Middleton?
I/I I Where do the Miss Careys live?
1/12 What time of day (according to Sir John Middleton) does Willoughby usually rise in the morning?
1/13 Who, apart from Marianne, is Willoughby's 'inseparable companion' at Barton Cottage?
1/14 Where does Edward Ferrars stay when he comes to Devon and where does his horse stay?
1/15 Mrs Ferrars has been trying to push Edward into taking up a profession. What has she suggested, what are his objections, and what does he eventually do, at the end of the novel?
1/16 What is the epithet most accurately applied to Charlotte Palmer?
1/17 Who (before Elinor is spitefully told) is the only other person who knows about the secret engagement of Lucy and Edward?
1/18 How much does the public postal service, for a letter, cost in the world of Sense and Sensibility?
1/19 What is Mrs Jennings's 'favourite meal'?
1/20 What is given Marianne to relieve her 'hysteria', in the extremity of her disappointed love?
1/21 Whom does Mrs Ferrars intend her son, Edward, to marry, and how much is the young lady worth?
1/22 Who is the taller child, William Middleton or Harry Dash wood?
1/23 How, when she visits him at Cleveland, does Elinor find Mr Thomas Palmer changed?
1/24 What are Willoughby's last words to Elinor?
1/25 What is the only fly in the ointment for Edward and Elinor in the vicarage at Delaford?

Check answers on this blog in the following days . If you score  over 15 you can proceed to Level Two ('Factual but Tricky' questions). If you scored over 10 but under 15, skim the novel again. Over 5 but under 10, reread the novel. Under 5, ...............watch TV!

The information and the questions in this book are taken from John Sutherland and Deirdre LeFaye, So You Think You Know Jane Austen, A Literary Quizbook , 2005

OUR READING SCHEDULE & PLANS FOR THE FIRST MEETING

Our reading club was inspired by the movie The Jane Austen Book Club. We are a group of Austen fans ranging from 16 to 70 something. We are starting getting in touch and organizing our meetings that will take place at the public library in Subiaco (Rome) monthly,  every last Saturday afternoon at 5 p.m.

Our first meeting will be to friendly talk about Sense and Sensibility with tea and cakes, of course. After the chatting and delicious tea time we will even compare some scenes from two different adaptations of the novel: 

• 1995 movie with Emma Thomson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Greg Wise and Alan Rickman  

• 2008 BBC 3-part series

We are reading the six major novels in a chronological order, thinking of their writing not their publication

30 January – Sense and Sensibility (written between 1795-1797 as Elinor and Marianne)

27 February – Northanger Abbey (written between 1798-99 )

27 March – Pride and Prejudice (written 1797 First Impressions)

24 April – Mansfield Park (written 1813)

29 May – Emma (started in 1814, published in 1815)

26 June – Persuasion (started 1815, published a.d. 1817)

We are going to read and discuss in our language, of course, that is Italian. But I'll let you all know about our impressions and discoveries in English  in this blog . Any suggestion and comment will be welcome.