GRACE: Dr. Lorraine Murphy
is an associate professor of English at Hillsdale
College, where she has taught for the past 10 years. A recipient of the Emily
Daugherty Award for Teaching Excellence, she teaches courses
in realism, the 18th century novel, and Jane Austen. She serves as faculty advisor to
the Cravats and Blue Stockings Regency Appreciation Club and as
secretary for the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. She taught a Hillsdale College
online course titled "The Young Jane Austen, Northanger
Abbey," which is available at
online.Hillsdale.edu. Please join me in
welcoming Dr. Murphy. [APPLAUSE] LORRAINE MURPHY:
Thank you, Grace. And I'd also like to thank
Doug Jeffrey and Matt Bell for inviting me to speak
and all of you for being here to listen. That her novels have been so
repeatedly and successfully adapted to film tells us
something of Austen's skill in scripting plot and character. But one thing a film cannot
give you is the voice of the narrator. I'd like to open tonight
with a passage from Emma that I believe reveals something
essential about Austen's particular genius. Emma, in this passage, has
accompanied her protege Harriet to the general
store in Highbury. "Harriet, tempted by everything
and swayed by half a word, was always very
long at a purchase. And while she was still
hanging over muslins and changing her mind, Emma
went to the door for amusement. Much could not be hoped from
the traffic of even the busiest part of Highbury-- Mr. Perry walking hastily by,
Mr. William Cox letting himself in at the office door,
Mr. Cole's carriage horses returning from exercise,
or a stray letter boy on an obstinate mule were
the liveliest objects she could presume to expect. And when her eyes fell
only on the butcher with his tray, a tidy old
woman traveling homewards from shop with her full
basket, two curs quarreling over a dirty bone, and
a string of dawdling children around the baker's
little bow window eyeing the gingerbread, she knew
she had no reason to complain and was amused enough,
quite enough still to stand at the door. A mind lively and at ease
can do with seeing nothing and can see nothing
that does not answer." This, I suggest, is the
secret to Austen's art. Gratefully secure in a mundane
setting where others might see nothing of
interest, Jane Austen could do with seeing nothing. Her lively mind could
discern and articulate the meaning in a series
of commonplace actions that would not answer to
a more callous observer. By addressing her attention to
an ordinary scene such as this, Austen gives it a voice. The most everyday materials
are rendered eloquent by her precise and
affectionate language. It's my privilege this evening
to talk about Austen's life with the aim of understanding
how it nurtured her talent. And my thesis is this-- that her life and
work were fueled by a passionate or, in the
words of GK Chesterton, an "exuberant interest
in the ordinary." Jane Austen's
natural exuberance is enriched over the
course of her life by a network of
love and friendship that brings her into
contact with every variety of anticipation, disappointment,
uncertainty, loss, hope, laughter, and joy we can know. Perhaps her natural reserve
with strangers, as well as the unpredictable nature
of some relationships, encouraged that close
scrutiny of the minutia of our social behavior that
is a hallmark of her fiction and a large part of what
makes it so filmable. Her exuberant spirit is somewhat
chastened by a prolonged period of hardship and the awareness
of her dependent position in society. Yet the sense of
joyful possibility remains from first to
last ever expressed in her work with a
Mozartian fluency in the resources of
the English language. She is unfailingly precise,
and funny, and real. She was born-- excuse me-- December 16, 1775, seventh of
her parents' eight children. The Austens were not
financially prosperous. But they were hardworking,
energetic, and busy. And theirs was a home where the
written word was celebrated. Jane's father, the
Reverend George Austen, served as rector of the
Church of St. Nicholas, seen here, in the small
village of Steventon, County of Hampshire,
southwest of London. Here you see the church
door framed by carvings not of saints or angels but of
a man's face and a woman's. Reverend Austen farmed
in his spare time, ran a boys boarding school
out of their crowded home, seen here, and collected a
library of some 500 volumes that Jane was free to
borrow from as she pleased. His wife Cassandra, in
addition to her duties as mother, school mistress,
head gardener, and manager of the dairy and
poultry yards, still found time to write witty
poems for special occasions. And Jane's older
brothers published a periodical and
supervised the staging of plays when family and friends
gathered at their parsonage for the holidays. The children would
have no inheritance to speak of from their parents. Indeed, Reverend
Austen and his wife spent several years
digging their way out of debt on a very small income. Their eldest son James
took a degree at Oxford and became a clergyman,
inheriting his father's post at Steventon when he retired. The next son, George, suffered
an unspecified disability, perhaps a seizure disorder
or perhaps cerebral palsy. But he lived a long
and otherwise healthy life in the care of a family
in a neighboring village. The third brother, Edward,
was adopted at the age of 12 by distant relations who were
very wealthy and childless. He remained close with
his parents and siblings and came to play a pivotal
role in Jane's life. But financially and
socially, his adoption removed him to another sphere. Henry was the most gregarious
Austen and followed several professions, including
army officer, banker, and clergyman in the course
of his interesting life. Francis and Charles,
the two youngest boys, pursued careers in
the navy, Francis rising to the rank of admiral. Finally, little Cassandra
was like a second mother to her younger sister Jane. Mrs. Austen remarked,
"if Cassandra's head had been going to
be cut off, Jane would have hers cut off too." Jane's formal schooling was
brief and perhaps blessedly so as girls' schools could be a
breeding ground for infections that were too often fatal. She made a narrow escape
from a serious illness after being sent away to
school at the age of seven. Returned safely home,
she mastered needlework, which was a vital part
of her contribution to the household economy,
and enjoyed piano. Cassandra studied drawing. Her father must have encouraged
Jane to enjoy his library. And her brothers must have
brought new publications home on a regular basis for by the
time she began writing fiction at 12 or 13, she was
familiar with the classics of the earlier 18th century,
the essays of Samuel Johnson and the novels of
Samuel Richardson, as well as more contemporary
novels by Charlotte Lennox, Fanny Burney, Maria
Edgeworth, and Ann Radcliffe. Three leatherbound
notebooks were her first prized possessions. The second is inscribed
"a gift from my father." And the third is inscribed in
the hand of Reverend Austen himself, who praises
his daughter's stories as "effusions of fancy by a very
young lady consisting of tales in a style entirely new." One of the longer stories
in the second notebook is dated June 1790,
when Jane was 14. Her first notebook was
by then already full. Her practice was to
draft on scrap paper and then transcribe her
stories into the notebooks when she considered them ready,
so to speak, for publication. Individual stories were
dedicated to various friends and family members. And the notebooks were passed
around in the Austen circle in the manner of
published books. It sounds very
serious, and it is. But the stories themselves
are full of hilarity. Young Jane delights in satire. And in particular,
she enjoys sending up the emotional excess
that was characteristic of popular fiction at the time. In a story in the
epistolary style composed as a series of letters
that Jane wrote at 14, she gives us the following with
her protagonist Laura writing to a younger woman, Marianne. "Convinced as you must be from
what I have already told you concerning Augustus and Sophia,
that there never were a happier couple, I need not,
I imagine, inform you that their union had been
contrary to the inclinations of their cruel and mercenary
parents, who had vainly endeavored, with
obstinate perseverance, to force them into a
marriage with those whom they had ever abhorred. But with an heroic fortitude
worthy to be related and admired, they had
both constantly refused to submit to such
despotic power. After having so nobly
disentangled themselves from the shackles of
parental authority by a clandestine marriage,
they were determined never to forfeit the good opinion
they had gained in the world in so doing by accepting any
proposals of reconciliation that might be offered
them by their fathers. To this farther trial of
their noble independence, however, they were
never exposed." [LAUGHTER] She further displays
her mastery of satire in The History of England
by a Partial, Prejudiced and Ignorant
Historian, in which she imitates the dry narration
of Gibbon and Goldsmith and includes a running
joke on her fidelity to Mary, Queen of Scots. Here she gives us the reign of
Edward VI, son of Henry VIII. "As this prince was
only nine years old at the time of his
father's death, he was considered by many
people as too young to govern. And the late king,
happening to be of the same opinion,
his mother's brother, the Duke of Somerset, was
chosen protector of the realm during his minority. The duke was beheaded, of
which he might with reason have been proud, had
he known that such was the death of Mary,
Queen of Scotland, but as it was impossible that
he should be conscious of what had never happened,
it does not appear that he felt
particularly delighted with the manner of it." [LAUGHTER] The use of humor to probe the
darker side of human behavior from a safe distance is
perfected in a complete novella Austen wrote, probably in
1794, when she would have been 18 years old titled Lady Susan. It's in the epistolary
form and features a smart, manipulative,
almost amoral protagonist, a widow and mother who uses
charm and a thorough mastery of social conventions
to get on in the world, cheerfully disrupting
and privately laughing at the dull but
well-meaning people who come in her way. This is the story what Stillman
adopted as Love and Friendship, the film we're
screening tomorrow. And I can assure you that it's
something very delightful. The story's power derives from
the charisma of Lady Susan herself but also from the
exposure of mannered behavior as a resource that,
while ostensibly designed to convey respect
and deference, can be deployed for completely
self-serving ends. And this, I think,
is an insight that propels Jane Austen into the
world of her mature fiction. The very next year,
1795, she began to draft the novel that
would many years later become her first published work,
Sense and Sensibility. Then titled Elinor
and Marianne, it's a study, among other
things, of the value of suppressing emotion out
of consideration for others. Elinor Dashwood is the
opposite of Lady Susan in every respect but one, that
her demeanor does not reflect her true thoughts and feelings. When we step into society,
we step into a role, as Elinor knows too well. And Marianne, who can be
nothing but natural and sincere, suffers greatly in
London, where Willoughby is free to politely rebuff her. In Ang Lee's film, we
rejoice that Colonel Brandon will protect Marianne from that
knowledge of the world that might render her more
mature but less unspoilt. It's a story of two
sisters in love. And for a brief time, Jane and
Cassandra knew that happiness. In 1795, Cassandra
had been engaged to Tom Fowle, a young clergyman
with very little income, for three years. That autumn, Tom agreed
to sail to the West Indies as chaplain for a regiment
of the British militia. Upon his return,
they would marry. Cassandra spent that
Christmas holiday with the Fowle family in
Berkshire to see Tom off. And the visit is the occasion
for our first surviving letter from Jane to her sister,
dated January 1796, when Jane was just 20. With the satiric humor
that hardly disguises a sense of joyful
anticipation, Jane refers to a young
man named Tom Lefroy, an Irish cousin of
neighbors with whom the Austens were friendly. He's visiting Hampshire
on his way to London. And Jane confesses that she's
danced with him repeatedly, that Tom is being teased
about his attachment to her, and that she greatly
enjoys his company. "I'm almost afraid to tell
you how my Irish friend and I behaved," she writes. "Imagine to yourself everything
most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and
sitting down together." [LAUGHTER] It's appropriate to
pause here and say a word about Austen's letters. She wrote them to scores
of friends and relations. But, in particular, when she
and Cassandra were separated, Jane wrote copiously and often. In a stream of
consciousness style, she records neighborhood news,
visits given and received, the appearance or dress
of this or that person, the quality of a meal. And she often works out
the cutting side of her wit as if seizing an outlet
for honest thoughts impossible to
express in company. In that sense, a picture of
her character drawn exclusively from her letters would
be woefully incomplete. It's clear that Cassandra
burned precisely the more personal missives to
protect her sister's privacy. Claire Tomalin, whose biography
of Austen I highly recommend, remarks of this
letter to Cassandra. "The fact that the manuscript
Elinor and Marianne was lying completed somewhere in
the house as she wrote gives this first letter
an added resonance. It is the only surviving
letter in which Jane is clearly writing as the heroine of
her own youthful story, living for herself the short
period of power, excitement, and adventure that might
come to a young woman when she was thinking
of choosing a husband. Just for a brief time, she is
enacting instead of imagining. We can't help knowing that
her personal story will not go in the direction she is
imagining in the letter, that, as it turned out, it
was not Tom Lefroy or anyone like him who became her
adventure but the manuscript upstairs, not marriage but art. And in her art, she made this
short period in a young woman's life carry such wit and human
understanding as few writers have managed to cram into solemn
volumes three times the size." 75 years later, Tom Lefroy
told Austen's nephew that he fell in love with
Jane then with a boyish love. But he was expected
to study law and work for his family's advancement. And he could not afford
to marry a woman who wouldn't bring him a penny. He later indeed became
a judge and then Lord Chief Justice of Ireland,
amply fulfilling his family's trust and expectation. So the relations with
whom he was staying whisked him away and took care
of that he and Jane did not cross paths on his
subsequent visits. She never saw him again. Cassandra's fiancee died
of a fever in Santo Domingo in the spring of 1797. And though she was
still in her 20s, she never considered
another marriage. Jane, on the other hand, did
entertain that possibility, but we'll come to
that in its place. How would Jane Austen have
appeared to a potential suitor? The descriptions of young
men and women in her novels are not terribly detailed. She focuses on height,
the manner of movement, and the quality of expression
that can be found in the eyes. We know that Cassandra was
considered the prettier of the two sisters. Jane's brother Henry said
that had Jane been any taller, she would have exceeded
the middle height. Several relations described
her as either slender or spare. Her posture was
upright, and her step was light and firm or
quick and decisive. Her eyes were bright and her
cheeks were full of color. Notably, she is the only
one of eight siblings, excepting her
brother George, who never had a professional
portrait of any kind taken. The only image that survives
that was taken from the life is this sketch with some
watercolor drawn by her sister Cassandra, seen here, though
Austen's niece Anna, with whom she was close, later declared
that this portrait was hideously unlike her Aunt Jane. [LAUGHTER] So she remains a
bit of a mystery. And fittingly, we meet her
in her language rather than any image. In the summer of
1796, Reverend Austen made a decision,
the first of two that would have momentous
consequences for his daughter Jane. Well clear of debt and
with their sons embarked on their respective
careers, he and his wife would cease taking boarders
and running their home as a boy's school. This meant that the burden of
cooking, serving, and cleaning was greatly lessened for
the women of the house and that Jane had
more leisure to write. That autumn, she began
drafting First Impressions, the work later renamed
Pride and Prejudice. Within a year, she had
polished that to satisfaction and took up Elinor
and Marianne, revising from the epistolary style
to third person narration. And I think this effort
shows the sense of a vocation and something much
more than the desire to simply write for the
amusement of herself or her family. In 1798 and '99, she wrote
the novel later published as Northanger Abbey,
then titled Susan. And in November
1797, Jane's father, possibly without her
knowledge, sent a letter to one Thomas Cadell,
a publisher in London whose firm had printed the
works of Gibbon and Johnson. Reverend Austen
wrote that he had a manuscript for a
novel in his possession and would Mr. Cadell
consider bringing it out at the author's expense. The publisher opened
the letter, wrote "declined by return of
post" across the top, and mailed it back. The fact that
Austen's father was one of her most ardent admirers
makes it all the more poignant that his well-deserved
retirement from the parish of Steventon brought
Jane's writing life to a decisive halt. This
second and equally momentous decision was announced
to Jane and Cassandra over the Christmas
holidays of 1800. By January 1801, plans to
move to Bath were underway. Jane's piano was now sold. Her father's library
was sold off too. Her parents intended to enjoy
the crowded social calendar-- theater, dances, card parties-- commonly regarded as one of
the prime attractions of Bath and to take various
forays to seaside resorts. Jane and her parents removed
to temporary lodgings that spring while Cassandra
made a visit with friends before joining them. And Jane's letters
from this time reflect a struggle
with low spirits. "Another stupid party
last night," she wrote. "One card table with six people
to look over and talk nonsense to each other." Regarding their search for
a home, "when you arrive, we will at least
have the pleasure of examining some of these
putrefying houses again. They are so very desirable
in size and situation that there is some satisfaction
in spending 10 minutes within." And the note of dejection
is unmistakable. "I cannot, anyhow, continue
to find people agreeable." this from a woman who could
make a cramped setting, or a trivial card game,
or a disagreeable person bristle with
interest on the page. In her writing desk
were manuscripts for three complete novels,
but her words now dried up. That Jane was tempted by a
marriage proposal in 1802 may reflect both her unhappiness
in Bath and her sense that her period of creative
fruitfulness was at an end. Harris Bigg-Wither was
the younger brother of three sisters who were
close, lifelong friends to Jane and Cassandra. He was five years Jane's junior
when he proposed to her just shortly before her
27th birthday while she was visiting for the holidays. Harris was the only son
and heir to his father's considerable estates. And as he would be
wealthy in his own right, there was no need for
any dowry on her side. Jane accepted his
proposal, and the family celebrated the good news. But by early next morning,
she had packed her bags and asked to see Harris again. We can't know what
passed between them, other than that she
withdrew her acceptance and made arrangements
to leave immediately. Did she determine
that she could not be happy in the absence
of romantic love? Did she fear the risks
associated with bringing children into the world? Was she unable to face the
prospect of giving up her writing for good? We can only speculate on the
basis of those of her heroines who turned down
offers of marriage, Elizabeth Bennet, who
will not marry Mr. Collins because, in the absence of
deep respect and affection, they will not make
one another happy; Fanny Price, who turns down
Henry Crawford because she doubts his integrity
of character; and Anne Elliott,
who refuses Charles Musgrove because her heart
still belongs to another man. In January of 1885, the Reverend
Austen died peacefully in Bath. For four years, Jane had carried
her manuscripts from place to place, packed in
her writing desk. As far as we know, she had
attempted only one fragment of a composition never pursued. True, in 1803, she
had achieved what might be called her first
professional success by selling the manuscript of
Northanger Abbey to the publisher Richard
Crosby for 10 pounds, something like $400 in our currency. But as Crosby never
printed her work, this was a somewhat discouraging
success as first successes go. And now the Austen women, Jane,
Cassandra, and their mother, were effectively homeless. They must forfeit the annuity
Reverend Austen had earned as part of his retirement. They would live on whatever
Jane's brothers together could provide them
with the interests that Mrs. Austen
and Cassandra earned on some small investments. Jane had none. They sometimes stayed near
relations in Bath but only in rented lodgings. They sometimes stayed
with friends in Hampshire and sometimes with
Jane's brother Edward at his large estate
in Kent, seen here. But they never stayed
any one place very long. And they were always
visitors or guests. This continued for
another four years, making a gap of eight years
in the career of a young woman who began to write at
12 or 14 and died at 41. Finally, in 1809,
Edward Austen, owner of a great deal of land
and property, this estate and others, realized there
were houses at his disposal and that his mother and sisters
might like to stay in one. [LAUGHTER] They chose a rather
large brick home situated at a crossroads in
Chawton village in Hampshire. They had a garden
to work at the back. Mrs. Austen was a
devoted gardener. And they spent time
making clothes and giving reading lessons to
some of the needier children in the village. Jane's life was
effectively transformed. The women agreed that Jane
would prepare the family breakfast of tea and toast. She was typically
the first to rise. But thereafter, the
cooking, gardening, and general housework
would be overseen by her sister and mother. And in moments of
leisure, Jane could write. She began immediately, took the
manuscripts out of her writing desk, and set to revision. Her lively mind, set at ease by
the security of a settled home, could once again do
with seeing nothing. And this ordinary nothing,
the nothing special of a daily routine that had
been so long denied her, could once again answer
her attentiveness with the voice of inspiration. In 1810, she sold
Sense and Sensibility and saw her first work in
print the following year, a commercial success. The achievement must
have been all the sweeter given how long she had waited. And from our perspective, it's
made bittersweet by the fact that Austen would enjoy the
full exercise of her powers for only five more years. But as an exuberant
and energetic writer, she made them count. With one commercial
success to her name, her publisher,
Thomas Egerton, was happy to purchase the copyright
to Pride and Prejudice in November of 1812. Jane describes lopping and
cropping her 1797 manuscript into the form so beloved
by all her admirers. Elizabeth Bennett
never fails to charm us with her intelligence,
self-assurance, and sense of humor. And Fitzwilliam Darcy
is a man of reserve whose warm and devoted
nature is gradually revealed. The drama turns on
that moment when Elizabeth, overly trusting
of her first impressions, is forced to revise her
estimation of Wickham, of Darcy, and most
especially of herself. But alongside that
plot line runs another and related one that
is, I think, easy to overlook. And in fact, our 1940
film version of the novel elides this. Though she's
enlightened regarding Wickham's true history
with the Darcy family, there are still depths
to Mr. Darcy's character that Elizabeth has
not yet plumbed, and so she still faces, as we
all must, a moment of decision, of faith. And it is her instinctive,
almost unthinking willingness in the novel to trust Mr. Darcy
with her sister's humiliating story that actually allows him
to rescue Lydia and the Bennet family's reputation. Jane spent the next
two years drafting her most ambitious work
yet, Mansfield Park. It is the work most provocative
of differences among her fans. And I've not yet seen a film
that I believe does it justice. Its heroine is Fanny Price,
one of nine siblings born to overwhelmed and far
from prosperous parents. But her mother's sister
has married a baronet. And the Bertram family
offered to adopt Fanny as a way of helping out. She grows into womanhood
in outwardly comfortable circumstances but remains
painfully shy, physically weak, and of a somewhat secondary
status among the Bertrams. Edmund, the kindest
of her cousins, is her only friend apart from
her brother William, with whom she corresponds devotedly. These illustrations from
a late Victorian edition might give you a sense of
Fanny's somewhat passive demeanor. The settled way of
life at Mansfield Park is pleasantly unsettled by the
arrival in their neighborhood of Henry and Mary Crawford,
a brother and sister raised in London-- Mary Crawford, something of a
cross between Elizabeth Bennet and Lady Susan, Henry Crawford
a flirt who may charm the reader but cannot succeed
in charming Fanny. He hatches a plan to make
her fall in love with him and is appropriately punished
by falling in love with her himself and by surprising
both himself and the reader with his potential
for transformation. Cassandra begged
Jane to let Henry win Fanny's hand in marriage. But she had other
plans, and Fanny marries her own secret
love, Cousin Edmund. Mansfield Park features
searching debates on the morality of acting,
the value of formal prayer, and the settled versus
the mobile way of life. But I think its most
remarkable feature is that Austen sustains our
interest in a heroine who, unlike every young woman
she'd previously scripted, almost never speaks. I wonder sometimes
if Fanny's silence in the face of people and
events that swirl around her, constant reminders
of her dependence, reflects something of what
Austen herself experienced during eight years when she
seldom held a pen in her hands. Mansfield Park was
published in 1814, a year after Pride and Prejudice. As if conscious that it
would not be so well liked, Austen kept a bemused record
of the opinions expressed by friends and relations. Her professional success
was increasingly known in her family circle but was
by no means universal knowledge among her acquaintance. Of Mansfield Park, she notes,
"Mr. Egerton, the publisher, praised it for its morality
and for being so equal a composition. No weak parts. Meanwhile, a Hampshire neighbor
must have unwittingly confessed that she thought Sense
and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice downright
nonsense but expected to like Mansfield Park
better and, having finished the first volume,
flattered herself she had got through the worst." [LAUGHTER] Between 1814 and 1815,
Austen drafted Emma, perhaps her single
greatest masterpiece, written at the
height of her powers and again from the security
of settled life in Chawton. A superficial acquaintance
with Austen's canon detects the sameness of
the courtship-driven plot. But even a cursory
reading of Emma next to its predecessor,
Mansfield Park, or its successor, Persuasion,
reveals the exuberance with which Austen
relished a new challenge. Emma is everything
Fanny Price is not. As you can see here, she's
more often in motion. She's born to wealth and power. She's talkative and extroverted. She's admired by many,
including herself. Like Elizabeth Bennet, she's
a confident young woman who must confront her own errors. But Emma's education
unfolds in a series of revelations that are
drawn out through a highly intricate plot. And she's also distinct
in that, through the masterful manipulation
of point of view, her overconfidence is
exposed to us from the start. This is what generates the
delightful humor of her story. If Elizabeth is written
something like a friend to the reader, Emma is a beloved
niece, one whose progress we chart with bemused affection
from a stance of greater experience. If we look on Emma's
progress from the vantage point of more mature
knowledge, Austen herself was growing into the
role of loving advisor to her nephews and nieces. She cautioned her
niece Fanny not to be overly charmed by
charisma or wit in a suitor but to study private character. She encouraged her niece
Anna, an aspiring writer, to value precision over
flair and to be content with a narrow focus, to find
the drama in a modest setting, and to avoid phrases like
vortex of dissipation. By early 1816, when
Emma was published, Austen was herself
composing a drama in which modesty and patience
are the central virtues. In its opening chapters, Austen
describes the chastened mindset of her aging heroine. Anne Elliott is 27 and verging
on confirmed spinsterhood. "She had been forced into
prudence in her youth. She learned romance as she
grew older, the natural sequel to an unnatural beginning." In her personal
copy of the novel, Cassandra wrote in the
margin, "Dear, dear Jane, this deserves to be written
in letters of gold," as if these words hold a special
key to Jane Austen's mind and heart. And I think the notion of
learning romance is the reason. The belief that
happy endings emerge from the quality of attention
we bestow on outwardly undramatic people as well
as commonplace moments and settings is an insight
that explains the lasting power and lasting relevance
of Austen's fiction. Originally titled The Elliotts
and published as Persuasion, this last finished
work is shorter than Austen's earlier
novels and, in some ways, more muted in tone. She was beginning
to feel unwell. She had the disposable
income to buy back the manuscript for
Northanger Abbey from Crosby's publishing
house, but she made only minimal
revisions and set it aside, perhaps a sign
of her diminished energy. In May, she visited a
spa for refreshment-- May of 1816, that is, and later
that summer, entertaining house guests while Cassandra
was away, expressed with a sense of wistfulness
that, "composition seems to me impossible with a
head full of joints of mutton and doses of rhubarb." She must have been thinking
of Sanditon, a story set in and up-and-coming
resort town that appears to be, among
other things, a satire on those who frequent spas and
suffer from imaginary illness. "Sickness is a dangerous
indulgence at my time of life," she wrote with a chin-up
attitude to her niece Fanny. Nevertheless, she was too unwell
to draft more than 12 chapters of Sanditon. Austen's niece Caroline later
described a touching scene from around this time. "Aunt Jane used often to
lie down after dinner. My grandmother herself was
frequently on the sofa, sometimes in the afternoon,
sometimes in the evening, at no fixed period of the day. She had not bad
health for her age, and she worked often
for hours in the garden and, naturally, wanted
rest afterwards. There was only one
sofa in the room. And Aunt Jane laid
upon three chairs, which she arranged for herself. I think she had a pillow, but
it never looked comfortable. She called it her sofa. And even when the other was
unoccupied, she never took it. I often asked her how she
could like the chairs best. And I suppose I worried
her into telling me the reason of her choice,
which was that if she ever used the sofa, Grandmama
would be leaving it for her and would not lie
down, as she did now, whenever she felt inclined." I can never decide
if this reflects an excess of good manners
or a sense of distance between mother and
daughter, or perhaps those are two sides of a single coin. As it happened, as
spring advanced, Jane's letters confess
that she is increasingly confined to bed. She suffers fevers, back
pain, and a growing fatigue. After periods of
seeming convalescence, she would experience
bouts of pain that belied the notion of progress. What was her illness? For many years, the suggestion
was Addison's disease, which is a tuberculosis
of the adrenal glands. But a more recent
hypothesis points to some form of lymphoma. We'll never be sure. The letters from March and April
of 1817 brim with gratitude for the devoted
care of her family and the buoyant
expectation of improvement. It's interesting to wonder
if, in this attitude, Austen was consciously crafting
a fiction for her first and last audience, her
family circle, for in April, unbeknownst even
to Cassandra, she drew up an unwitnessed will. A month later, the sisters
took lodgings in Winchester to consult an experienced
physician there. By June, Jane was apparently too
weak to take up her pen at all. But words were her
connection with life. On July 15, she
dictated to Cassandra a poem of 24 lines
on the subject of the annual
Winchester horse races. Remarkable how she continued
to turn her attention outward to the life around her. And early on the morning of
July 18, she died with her head in Cassandra's lap. Her last surviving
letter to a nephew concludes with a
poignant reflection of what this keen
observer saw and felt when she turned her eyes on herself. "God bless you, my dear Edward. If ever you are ill,
may you be as tenderly nursed as I have been. May the same blessed
alleviations of anxious, sympathizing friends be yours. And may you possess,
as I daresay you will, the greatest blessing of all in
the consciousness of not being unworthy of their love. I could not feel this. Your very affectionate
aunt, JA." She was buried in
Winchester Cathedral, the place marked with
a black marble plaque and an inscription that cites
the extraordinary endowments of her mind as just
one of many virtues. With Cassandra's
help, Henry composed a brief biographical
notice for their sister and arranged for
Northanger Abbey to be published with Persuasion
by the end of the year. The pairing is odd but also apt. Persuasion, her last
completed novel, and featuring a heroine subdued by
painful experience, alongside Northanger
Abbey, scarcely touched since Austen
had drafted it 20 years earlier with her most
naive heroine and certainly her most ebullient narrator. The comparison shows us
that Austen never wrote half-heartedly, never wrote with
less than mastery of her craft, and never stopped
changing and growing. 50 years later, the nephew
to whom Austen addressed her last letter, James
Edward Austen Lee, would compose a more
detailed memoir, which seems to have catalyzed
interest in her work. Both sales and
critical commentary were modest before the
turn of the century. Her popularity with
ordinary readers, as opposed to fellow
novelists, was boosted by the emergence
of paperback editions in the mid-20th century. And since then, she
has proved herself worthy of a very rare
honor, an assured place in the canon of
great books in the academy and the lasting
devotion of those who read only for pleasure. In the words of Northanger
Abbey, "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 humor are conveyed to the world in
the best chosen language." Given her current fame,
another adaptation of Sense and Sensibility
or Emma might seem ordinary, nothing special. What are your plans this
evening, you might be asked. Oh, I'm only attending
the Jane Austen CCA. I'm confident, however,
that those of us who take a closer
look will continue to prize a quiet exuberance that
belongs to only Jane Austen. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] SPEAKER: Thank you, Dr. Murphy. We now have time for some
Q&A. If you have a question, please make your way to one of
the microphones in the aisle. AUDIENCE: Hi, Dr. Murphy. I was just curious
if we have access to the original draft
of Elinor and Marianne, and if we see any significant
differences between that draft and Sense and Sensibility,
which was written after all of her heartache. LORRAINE MURPHY: We do not have
access to that first draft. And I believe it's on the basis
mainly of internal evidence in the finished Sense
and Sensibility, although I think also from
one or two brief remarks in her letters
that we are pretty confident it was originally
in the epistolary style and then revised. But we do not have that draft. Of her published
novels, her finished novels, the only
manuscript that survives is interestingly, the concluding
two chapters of Persuasion, which she canceled and rewrote. So what we have is
what she threw out. And it's quite
interesting to see what she wrote the first time. But of her finished work, that's
the only manuscript in her hand that survives. AUDIENCE: Hi. So in recent years, some
criticisms of the economist Adam Smith have been that when
he wrote Wealth of Nations, he had this maidservant who was
literally taking care of him the entire time. So of course he's going to write
this incredible economic theory about capitalism because, well,
he doesn't have to do anything. At least reflecting on the
quote, like "a mind lively and at ease can do
with seeing nothing," could you see future
literary criticisms of Jane Austen appearing
basically because, as you said, when she was at the
peak of her powers, she was allowed to
write the entire day, and it didn't really
seem to be that there is much of a struggle or
intersectional narrative being applied towards
her life at that time. LORRAINE MURPHY: If I
understand your question, it's concerning future novelists
or concerning Austen herself? AUDIENCE: So concerning
Austen herself, could you see people criticizing
her currently or in the future because when she
was writing, that was kind of all she had to do? Of course, she's going to
produce all these works. But was there any real
struggle involved at that time? LORRAINE MURPHY: You see
that critique of her work sometimes, of her fiction,
where you have a way of life. Mrs. Bennet boasts
her daughters have nothing to do in the kitchen,
that that's all taken care of. When Austen and her
sister and mother lived at Chawton
Cottage, they did have some help in the
kitchen, but that did not mean that they were uninvolved. But I mean, Jane Austen
grew up in a family where she was accustomed
to working and making a contribution. Everyone with an
able pair of hands was accustomed to working
and making a contribution. And she and her
sister and mother worked something out
where they agreed to shoulder a
burden with a loving sense of Jane's vocation. So she certainly was not
distant from the reality of labor and the way
that labor supports leisure and creativity. In her will, she left
everything to Cassandra except 50 pounds to her brother
Henry, whose bank had failed, and 50 pounds to a servant of
a sister-in-law, for whom she had a friendship. She maintained an ongoing
correspondence, a very friendly correspondence
with the woman who was the governess at her
brother Edward's home in Kent. So she seems to have had a great
sympathy for working women, and I think she was
closer to that reality than we realize if we only
read her published work. AUDIENCE: I know
you said that there weren't any satisfactory
versions of Mansfield Park on film. I'm curious. Why do you think that is? Is there something about it
that's difficult to adapt? LORRAINE MURPHY: I think so. One thing about Austen
that is very easy to adapt is her dialogue. She writes wonderful dialogue. And she has a wonderful
ear for voice, and for those little inflections
of mannerisms of speech that gives such a lively
sense of character. So in a lot of film
adaptations, you'll find the dialogue
almost word for word what you'll find in the novels. But as I said, Fanny
Price almost never speaks. And it's difficult,
I think, on film-- not impossible,
certainly, but I think it's difficult to give a
sense of the drama going on in the mind with
so little being said. And in some ways, the
liveliest adaptation of Mansfield Park that I've seen
makes Fanny Price an entirely different character. And the moviemakers
seem to have decided to replace Fanny Price with
a picture of the young Jane Austen, which is interesting,
but it's not Fanny Price. So her silence and her
passivity, her weakness-- even when she's
pushed or pressed, she often doesn't
wish to respond. And even for readers
of the novel, that can feel frustrating. So translating that to film is
maybe especially frustrating. AUDIENCE: Thank you. LORRAINE MURPHY: You're welcome. AUDIENCE: Hi, thank
you for your talk. I was just wondering, how common
was it at that time for women to be authors? And what kind of
obstacles did that present Austen in her career? LORRAINE MURPHY: It was-- I don't know if you'd call
it common but common enough that Austen was familiar with
the published work, certainly of other female novelists. The obstacle was leisure. So even if Austen had, let's
say, married Harris Bigg-Wither and become quite a wealthy
woman living a comfortable life, her duties as the
head of the household would probably
have prevented her from having that time to sit
down and draft and revise. Women often didn't publish
under their own names. So none of Austen's work was
published in her lifetime under her name. But that didn't mean
that women weren't interested in professional
success and the independence that that could provide. So there were models,
but they were not many. And as you could see, Austen had
to sort of forge a way of life that would support her work. And that was sometimes
difficult to do. AUDIENCE: In
previous lectures, it had been said that when
she was writing her novels, she took for granted
her social class and that the novels weren't
necessarily to depict that. Would you say that that is an
accurate description of how she wrote in regards
to social class, especially considering
the fact that, at least it seems like in her
younger years and then after her father's death,
her social status wasn't necessarily secure? LORRAINE MURPHY: I think that
she took the class system, if we want to call
it that, for granted, as has been said
a couple of times. And I don't think she was
setting out to reform it or to question it in
any kind of radical way. And I think sometimes,
it's easy to overlook. She wrote about a
social way of life that was a degree or
two above her own. And it's a way of life she
would have been familiar with, for example, at her
brother Edward's home or at Harris Bigg-Withers' home. She moved in a circle
where this way of life could be known to her and
could become familiar to her, but it wasn't her way of life. And I think that
if she chooses not to make that a central tension
in her novels, the difference between what a woman
like Jane Austen has to do with her duties
and daily responsibilities versus what a woman like
Elizabeth Bennet has to do. It's a question that, in
some sense, doesn't come up or comes up in subtle, quiet
ways that can be probed but that don't really
cry out for attention. The one novel where
she does take, I think, a closer and
maybe more critical look at England's social system
is her last work, Persuasion. And it's interesting
to wonder what she might have done in Sanditon,
but we can't be too sure. But in Persuasion,
you have a kind of dialogue between
the landed gentry, as exemplified by Sir
Walter Elliot, who is a really comical but
sad failure of a baronet, and the navy. And Austen loved the navy, and
was very loyal to the navy, and very proud of her brothers
who were naval officers. And there you have a sort
of merit-based social system that, in Persuasion,
Austen seems to find very refreshing
and positive. So I wouldn't say
that social critique is absent from her work. But it's muted. And I certainly
think that she's not a thoroughgoing
radical egalitarian. She knows that roles can
be, while limiting, also very supportive of the
relationships that we establish and the work that we do,
if you like, in society. AUDIENCE: Hi. So you mentioned that Pride
and Prejudice was originally titled First Impressions. So I was wondering if you
could speak a little bit more on that. Why was the reason for
the change in title? And who did this? And then why Pride and Prejudice
versus First Impressions? LORRAINE MURPHY: I'm
not 100% sure on this, but I think that her
publisher suggested the title Pride and Prejudice. And I think that was
based on the style. It was doing well at the time. Austen herself does
not seem to have been a great writer of titles. And her siblings changed
the titles she had in mind as she drafted
things with titles. She just used the name. The Elliots, Susan, and Emma. [LAUGHTER] Why First Impressions? I think because both
Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet are too reliant on
their first impressions. And Austen was always very
interested in a society-- and this builds a little
bit on the last question-- where mannered behavior
was very important, and there was a kind of
decorum and structure to what you could say
and do in society. It can be difficult to
read between the lines. You have to make a judgment
based on what people say and do in society. And often, two
people who are going to be engaged to be
married would never have been alone together. They would have seen
each other entirely in social and socially
controlled settings. So the importance of looking
past first impressions is, I think, what she's really
driving at in that novel. SPEAKER: We have time
for one more question. AUDIENCE: Thank you for your
time tonight, Dr. Murphy. So from your
discussion, it seems that Austen had a really
special relationship with several members of her
family, especially her sister. And just considering that
there are several sister pairs and close female friendships
in her books, can you just talked a little bit about
how her relationship with her sister might have
impacted those relationships in the books. LORRAINE MURPHY: They
were very, very close. As I said, when Cassandra
was away, Jane had to write. She had to put down her
thoughts to Cassandra. You can see that in
the comment her mother made when they were girls,
Jane's devotion to Cassandra. I think the fact
that they had both known the sadness of perhaps
anticipating marriage-- certainly, Cassandra had
anticipated a marriage. And Jane, I think, had
at least begun to do so. And letting go of that must
have bound them closer together. And by the time Jane died,
they would have anticipated growing old together. And this was-- as I say,
it's a social world where the behavior at a card party, or
in a sitting room, or at a meal has a kind of script to it. And the number of
people with whom you would share your
unvarnished, from the heart emotions and feelings and
words would be very few. And Cassandra was, I think,
that person for Jane, and I'm sure Jane was
that person for Cassandra. And sibling
relationships in general are prized in her novels. Again, we tend to think of them
as the novels about courtship and marriage, but they're
really novels about societies and communities. And siblings are
our first society. Jane loved that. SPEAKER: Please join me
in thanking Dr. Murphy. [APPLAUSE]
