Other resources:
Louis Gates Jr., Henry. The
Trials of Phyllis Wheatley: America’s First Black Poet and Her First
Encounters
with the Founding Fathers. New York, NY: Basic Civitas Books, 2003.
Print.
Hermione Lee. Essays on Life-writing. London: Chatto & Windus, 2005.
Your reports:
Kiersten:
Lovejoy,
Paul E. "Autobiography and Memory: Gustavus Vassa, Alias Olaudah Equiano,
The African." Slavery & Abolition 27.3 (2006): 317-347. Academic
Search Complete. Web.
In Autobiography and Memory: Gustavus Vassa, Alias Olaudah
Equiano, The African, Paul
Lovejoy examines the question of Gustavus Vassa’s birthplace with a focus on
the “relationship between autobiography and memory” (318). Lovejoy weighs the evidence on each side of
the argument with this relationship in mind, and ultimately asserts that Vassa
was indeed born in Africa and was telling the truth of his early life
considering “the reasons why individuals remember what they do and the ways in
which memory is confirmed and embellished and in this case perhaps distorted
for reasons worth considering” (318).
Lovejoy starts out the article by
explaining the paramount influence of Vassa and The Interesting Narrative on the abolitionist movement in
England. He addresses evidence and different scholars that claim that Vassa was
not born in Africa and instead got the information from his autobiography from
other sources. Lovejoy asserts that whether or not Vassa’s experiences were not
his own, his autobiography’s effect on the abolitionist movement would have
been the same. Through this, he presents the problem of “verification and
perspective in using autobiography for scholarly purposes” (319). He goes on to
describe The Interesting Narrative’s widespread use among scholars for
information about the Bight of Biafra and The Middle Passage, and the
consequential importance for Vassa’s accounts to be true and authentic. This
importance for authenticity, Lovejoy adds, came not just from scholars but from
the public, saying “his book sold well because he was an ‘authentic’ African” (320).
The problem with this, he explains, is that Vassa’s reliance on his own memory
is what’s in question, and his memory is inherently unreliable. Naturally,
Vassa will have remembered certain things which could be unclear, and forgotten
others, especially as a young child.
Lovejoy also explains the
significance of Vassa’s given
name and addresses the argument that Vassa never used his African name and
thus, didn’t have one to begin with. The name Gustavus Vassa formally belonged
to a famous Swedish national hero and king. Lovejoy asserts that Vassa’s
reluctance to accept his name in the autobiography was “a literary device to
make the point that his destiny was predetermined” (321), and that just like
the Swedish Vassa, he was to lead his people out of bondage. Lovejoy points out
that Vassa did used his African name, but only along with his given name, and
went by Vassa because it “drew on public knowledge of the history of his
Swedish namesake” and “figured into the London imagination as an image of an
African ones comparable to the Swedish model” (322). In this way, Lovejoy
argues, Vassa used his given name intentionally for political purposes.
As the article continues, Lovejoy
acknowledges the famous baptismal record from St. Margaret’s Church that says Vassa was born in
South Carolina. This record is significant not only because it contradicts
Vassa’s alleged place of birth, but because it challenges the age he gives for
arriving in England (323). Lovejoy explains that the variations in dates, in
and out of the autobiography, are “the attempt of the adult Vassa to
reconstruct his childhood” (324). He goes on to say that “the internal evidence
suggests that he was using his age of enslavement as a constant in his efforts
at chronological reconstruction, not his date of birth” (325) and if that was
the case, the dates would match up. Lovejoy says that regardless of the
documentation, the circumstantial evidence points to Vassa telling the truth, keeping
in mind that “memory, autobiography and what actually happened are not the
same, and hence the attempt to chronicle Vassa’s childhood is indeed fraught
with uncertainties subject to interpretation” (325).
Another subject of contention
between scholars has been the assertion that Vassa could have learned details
about the Igbo through other sources and not through personal experience.
Indeed, Vassa thoroughly explains many details of the culture that were not
common knowledge. Lovejoy addresses this by saying these memories “could well be based on Vassa’s own
memory, probably embellished with information that he learned from other Igbo
speakers in London, but nonetheless, deriving from his own experience” (326).
In other words, he is not ruling out the possibility that Vassa’s memory could
be altered by other accounts of the culture and region, but is simply saying
that doesn’t mean he didn’t have the experiences that he claims he did. As he
states throughout the article, autobiographical accounts aren’t necessarily
accounts of what actually happened, but rely on the author’s memory, which is
subject to distortion in many ways. For Lovejoy, the issue isn’t whether or not
Vassa was born in Africa (and all of the implications that follow from that)
but whether or not his 11-year old memory can be trusted and how valid it is,
considering the weight that the scholarly community has put on his accounts of
the Middle Passage and other events.
Lovejoy continues his argument by
presenting circumstantial evidence that proves the Igbo was Vassa’s mother tongue. Some of this
evidence comes from friends and associates of his that confirmed he didn’t know
anything but his African language when he arrived in Britain. They couldn’t
verify whether or not he was born in Africa, but noted that he publicly stated
he was born there. The most convincing argument for this, Lovejoy explains, is
Vassa’s employment by and relationship
with Dr. Irving. In spite of documentation from the Arctic expedition with
Irving that states Vassa was born in South Carolina, “Dr. Irving must have been
convinced of Vassa’s African birth, because two years later, in 1775, Irving
employed him in his abortive Mosquito Shore venture, precisely because of his
alleged fluency in an ‘African’ language, presumably Igbo” (332). Apparently,
Dr. Irving brought Vassa on this trip to identify which of his own “countrymen”
were to be purchased, and relied on his knowledge of the Igbo language to do
just that. For Lovejoy, this is persuasive proof that Vassa was born in Africa,
because he would have had almost no opportunity to learn the Igbo language in
any place but Africa, and if he didn’t know the language, he would have been no
use to Irving in his venture (333).
In closing, Lovejoy explains some of
the criticism of Vassa in his day and Vassa’s
response to it. In being questioned to his credibility, Vassa himself stated
that his account was “an ‘imperfect sketch my memory has furnished me with the
manners and customs of a people among whom I first drew my breath’ and
acknowledged that he had gained information from some of the ‘numbers of the
natives of Eboe’ he encountered in London” (335-336). Lovejoy speculates as to
why Vassa would have claimed a South Carolina birth in his lifetime and the
influence of his autobiography regardless of his birthplace, but recognizes
that it does matter whether or not he was telling the truth. At any rate, he
concludes that while autobiography can be used to reconstruct historical
events, it “is not an accurate indicator of memory, and memory is not an exact
replica of what actually happened” and adds that we must examine what people
remember and why. He finishes by stating that “variance in detail between what
is stated and what probably happened is a methodological problem that faces
anyone working with autobiography” (338-339).
Academic
Search Complete. Web.
In Autobiography and Memory: Gustavus Vassa, Alias Olaudah
Equiano, The African, Paul
Lovejoy examines the question of Gustavus Vassa’s birthplace with a focus on
the “relationship between autobiography and memory” (318). Lovejoy weighs the evidence on each side of
the argument with this relationship in mind, and ultimately asserts that Vassa
was indeed born in Africa and was telling the truth of his early life
considering “the reasons why individuals remember what they do and the ways in
which memory is confirmed and embellished and in this case perhaps distorted
for reasons worth considering” (318).
Lovejoy starts out the article by
explaining the paramount influence of Vassa and The Interesting Narrative on the abolitionist movement in
England. He addresses evidence and different scholars that claim that Vassa was
not born in Africa and instead got the information from his autobiography from
other sources. Lovejoy asserts that whether or not Vassa’s experiences were not
his own, his autobiography’s effect on the abolitionist movement would have
been the same. Through this, he presents the problem of “verification and
perspective in using autobiography for scholarly purposes” (319). He goes on to
describe The Interesting Narrative’s widespread use among scholars for
information about the Bight of Biafra and The Middle Passage, and the
consequential importance for Vassa’s accounts to be true and authentic. This
importance for authenticity, Lovejoy adds, came not just from scholars but from
the public, saying “his book sold well because he was an ‘authentic’ African” (320).
The problem with this, he explains, is that Vassa’s reliance on his own memory
is what’s in question, and his memory is inherently unreliable. Naturally,
Vassa will have remembered certain things which could be unclear, and forgotten
others, especially as a young child.
Lovejoy also explains the
significance of Vassa’s given
name and addresses the argument that Vassa never used his African name and
thus, didn’t have one to begin with. The name Gustavus Vassa formally belonged
to a famous Swedish national hero and king. Lovejoy asserts that Vassa’s
reluctance to accept his name in the autobiography was “a literary device to
make the point that his destiny was predetermined” (321), and that just like
the Swedish Vassa, he was to lead his people out of bondage. Lovejoy points out
that Vassa did used his African name, but only along with his given name, and
went by Vassa because it “drew on public knowledge of the history of his
Swedish namesake” and “figured into the London imagination as an image of an
African ones comparable to the Swedish model” (322). In this way, Lovejoy
argues, Vassa used his given name intentionally for political purposes.
As the article continues, Lovejoy
acknowledges the famous baptismal record from St. Margaret’s Church that says Vassa was born in
South Carolina. This record is significant not only because it contradicts
Vassa’s alleged place of birth, but because it challenges the age he gives for
arriving in England (323). Lovejoy explains that the variations in dates, in
and out of the autobiography, are “the attempt of the adult Vassa to
reconstruct his childhood” (324). He goes on to say that “the internal evidence
suggests that he was using his age of enslavement as a constant in his efforts
at chronological reconstruction, not his date of birth” (325) and if that was
the case, the dates would match up. Lovejoy says that regardless of the
documentation, the circumstantial evidence points to Vassa telling the truth, keeping
in mind that “memory, autobiography and what actually happened are not the
same, and hence the attempt to chronicle Vassa’s childhood is indeed fraught
with uncertainties subject to interpretation” (325).
Another subject of contention
between scholars has been the assertion that Vassa could have learned details
about the Igbo through other sources and not through personal experience.
Indeed, Vassa thoroughly explains many details of the culture that were not
common knowledge. Lovejoy addresses this by saying these memories “could well be based on Vassa’s own
memory, probably embellished with information that he learned from other Igbo
speakers in London, but nonetheless, deriving from his own experience” (326).
In other words, he is not ruling out the possibility that Vassa’s memory could
be altered by other accounts of the culture and region, but is simply saying
that doesn’t mean he didn’t have the experiences that he claims he did. As he
states throughout the article, autobiographical accounts aren’t necessarily
accounts of what actually happened, but rely on the author’s memory, which is
subject to distortion in many ways. For Lovejoy, the issue isn’t whether or not
Vassa was born in Africa (and all of the implications that follow from that)
but whether or not his 11-year old memory can be trusted and how valid it is,
considering the weight that the scholarly community has put on his accounts of
the Middle Passage and other events.
Lovejoy continues his argument by
presenting circumstantial evidence that proves the Igbo was Vassa’s mother tongue. Some of this
evidence comes from friends and associates of his that confirmed he didn’t know
anything but his African language when he arrived in Britain. They couldn’t
verify whether or not he was born in Africa, but noted that he publicly stated
he was born there. The most convincing argument for this, Lovejoy explains, is
Vassa’s employment by and relationship
with Dr. Irving. In spite of documentation from the Arctic expedition with
Irving that states Vassa was born in South Carolina, “Dr. Irving must have been
convinced of Vassa’s African birth, because two years later, in 1775, Irving
employed him in his abortive Mosquito Shore venture, precisely because of his
alleged fluency in an ‘African’ language, presumably Igbo” (332). Apparently,
Dr. Irving brought Vassa on this trip to identify which of his own “countrymen”
were to be purchased, and relied on his knowledge of the Igbo language to do
just that. For Lovejoy, this is persuasive proof that Vassa was born in Africa,
because he would have had almost no opportunity to learn the Igbo language in
any place but Africa, and if he didn’t know the language, he would have been no
use to Irving in his venture (333).
In closing, Lovejoy explains some of
the criticism of Vassa in his day and Vassa’s
response to it. In being questioned to his credibility, Vassa himself stated
that his account was “an ‘imperfect sketch my memory has furnished me with the
manners and customs of a people among whom I first drew my breath’ and
acknowledged that he had gained information from some of the ‘numbers of the
natives of Eboe’ he encountered in London” (335-336). Lovejoy speculates as to
why Vassa would have claimed a South Carolina birth in his lifetime and the
influence of his autobiography regardless of his birthplace, but recognizes
that it does matter whether or not he was telling the truth. At any rate, he
concludes that while autobiography can be used to reconstruct historical
events, it “is not an accurate indicator of memory, and memory is not an exact
replica of what actually happened” and adds that we must examine what people
remember and why. He finishes by stating that “variance in detail between what
is stated and what probably happened is a methodological problem that faces
anyone working with autobiography” (338-339).
Buchanan, David. The Treasure of Auchinleck: The Story of the
Boswell Papers. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1974. Print.
Randall
Buchanan’s The Treasure of
Auchinleck
David Buchanan’s 1974 publication of The Treasure
of Auchinleck: The Story of the Boswell Papers tells of the massive
undertaking to bring more of James Boswell’s writing to the public. Before the
early twentieth-century, much of his writing remained scattered in boxes,
uncatalogued and unread. Although Boswell published journals, letters, essays,
poetry, and his famous The Life of Samuel Johnson, there remained hundreds
of pages of yet discovered material, including The London Journal 1762–1763.
In Buchanan’s book he tells of his father’s efforts (Eric Buchanan) and the
obsessed Colonel Ralph Heyward Isham attempts to bring Boswell’s papers to
light. His father served “many years as Isham’s lawyer in Scotland” (Buchanan
xiii). Thus his involvement proves integral in this publication that brings to
life much of Boswell.
Buchanan claims that Isham fought an
“epic battle in trying to salvage” Boswell’s
lost papers, and in the end succeeded to “reassemble the scattered papers of
James Boswell” (xiii). In his preface, Buchanan states that his original goal “was
not to write a book, but merely to undertake research. As time went by,
however, the scope of this research expanded so greatly that a detailed history
of the Boswell papers became the logical end-product” (xiv). Although readers
long thought of Boswell only “as Johnson’s biographer,” the emergence of his
papers in the twentieth-century accredited him “remarkable posthumous renewal
of fame” (Turnbull i). Without their discovery, only a small fraction of what
we know about Boswell would have been brought to light.
The London Journal was
first published in 1950 and republished by F.A. Pottle in 1951 with “a 42-page
history of the Boswell papers” (Buchanan xiv). As a person interested in
reception history and book history, I appreciate the narrative approach of
Buchanan to tell the story of Boswell past his most-famed work. Due to the
nature of relationships during his day, Boswell recorded much of his life and
political and social history through letters with his friends and
acquaintances. In his will, Boswell left many of his papers to family members
and to his closest friends, urging them not to reveal their contents to the
public. Buchanan writes that Boswell’s “policy of complete frankness about
himself and others gave him good reason to ask Malone [one of Boswell’s closest
friends] to be discreet” (6). Buchanan continues to recount familial history of
Boswell’s children and the circumstances that led to the public loss of Boswell’s
papers, giving detailed accounts of persons associated with the family’s
estate.
The book contains nine chapters, six
appendices, and tables containing genealogical information. Buchanan entitles
his first chapter “The
Legend of Destruction” and his final chapter “Fulfilment of Hopes.” The
chapters in between chronicle the recovery of the Boswell papers, including
legal battles and court decisions. The first chapter claims that the journals
behind Boswell’s best-selling authorial career (Account of Corsica, Tour of
Hebrides, and The Life of Samuel Johnson), contain “the most
detailed and revealing self-portraits ever written; and at the same time they
animate a cast of characters of outstanding interest and diversity against a
background of the eighteenth-century scene in London, Scotland, the Continent
of Europe, and elsewhere” (1). Buchanan also claims that Boswell reached his
greatest genius through the compilation of his journals (2). The wealth of
information included in the papers uncovered by Isham cover family papers
concerned with business, legal, and miscellaneous matters. Buchanan claims that
the papers offer an “almost limitless scope for productive research” (4).
Buchanan continues with the account
of the sixth Lord Talbot de Malahide and his Lady. He claims that Lady Talbot “was a spirited young woman of great
charm and intelligence, and she quickly became interested in the family papers.
She realized not only that these were of exceptional literary and historical
interest, but also that they were likely to be worth a considerable sum of
money” (46). Failed attempts to pass the papers on for publication include
interactions Chauncey B. Tinker, A. Edward Newton, and others involved in
literary publication of the day. Lord Talbot resisted the publication of the
papers in any form and closely monitored those who would even be privileged to
see the papers. Buchanan writes that the person who would “succeed at Malahide
would need patience, perception, and skilled strategy” (54). That person would prove to Ralph Heyward
Isham.
Isham would acquire a selection of
the Boswell papers in 1927 for 13,585 pounds. However, this selection does not
include the journals of Boswell, but still “the
richness of the material was remarkable” (Buchanan 68–9). Obviously, the
Talbots eventually released the journals to Isham for additional and
significant sums of money, but only under the terms of Lady Talbot (the
blotting out of questionable or defaming portions of the journals) (Buchanan 78–9).
As a modern reader quickly recognizes, Isham and his publishers succeeded in
removing and recovering the material under Lady Talbot’s blotting. Her
censorship of Boswell’s life “presented Isham with one of his most difficult
decision”—honoring her wishes or publishing the complete accounts recorded by
Boswell (Buchanan 83). Isham’s obsession with Boswell and his papers led him to
legal battles and large sums of money eventually contributing to a great debt.
Once he secured what seemed the complete catalog of Boswell papers, he sold his
collection to Yale for $300,000 (Eccles 148). In the end, Isham realizes his
obsession, and the world receives the fullness of the Boswell papers.
Leslie
Leslie
Histories and Texts: Refiguring the
Diary of Samuel Pepys by Mark Dawson, Wolfson College, Cambridge University. The Historical Journal, Vol. 43, No.
2 (Jun., 2000), pp. 407-431.
Mark
Dawson’s article is about Pepys’s purpose for writing the diary, not in itself
a very original premise but he takes it in what is his own direction, away from
the homocentric as he sees it, and instead towards the text-centric.
Dawson thinks that the search for Pepys’s motives
in writing the diary is “very much a false quest,” us in the wrong direction
and that the scholarship surrounding Pepys overwhelmingly focuses on him as a
person or a particular aspect of his life such as his career, domestic
situation, or “membership” in Restoration London’s genteel set. Explaining the diarist
is not the same as explaining the diary, the text. “We have failed to explain
the diary’s uniqueness because we continue to interrogate the diarist, and not
his text,” Dawson declares.
Reasons scholars give for Pepys
writing the diary:
Dawson sets down and takes apart the reasons
various scholar put forth as to why Pepys wrote the diary.
•
Pepys used the diary as a means of
greater self control (Percival Hunt and R.A. Fotheringill). Dawson says self-control is a strand running
through the diary but not the whole maze.
•
Lawrence Stone sees it as a means of confession
of sin and of checking upon his moral
balance sheet, influenced under the
Puritan direction, a moral bookkeeping.
But
Dawson notes that the text of Pepys “is manifestly not the product of someone
who conceives of God looking over his very shoulder as he writes.” Pepys's diary does not contain a constant stream of God's
mercies nor does it list God’s punishments or present itself as a searching of
the soul for signs of being among the chosen or among the damned.
Other
possible motives include:
• 'The preservation of erotic thrills
otherwise doomed to the uncertain power of memory.' Dawson
quotes William Matthews that “'much of it reads like material for a scientific
report on sexual behavior in the human male.”
• The bureaucrat's need to reduce
daily chaos to scripted neatness.
• The desire to carve out a personal,
private space where Pepys could be himself with himself. Dawson discounts this, noting there was very little
privacy in Pepys’s world. He lived in a multi-person household in a space that
kept the people in it in close proximity and almost certainly the servants knew
everything or almost everything that went on with Pepys and his wife, Elizabeth,
citing specifically the incident in which Pepys gave his wife a black eye.
• Claire Tomalin says In the London of the 1660s, there was therefore a great deal for Pepys to write about and,
according to one scholar, this was doubtless one of the reasons for beginning
his diary. Dawson dismisses this premise, starting from the point that Pepys never really acted on his
idea of continuing the diary text with the help of a literary assistant after
1669. This lack of follow-through adds further weight to the contention that
the primary function of the diary for Pepys was not deliberately to record
important, wider historical events for future readers. Dawson further backs this up by saying in the
years after I669, Pepys was just as much a part of important historical events
as he had been in the I660s, perhaps even more so given that his continued
importance as a civil servant brought him closer to those in power.
•
Stuart Sherman who wrote “Telling Time: Clocks, Diaries, and English Diurnal
Form.” argues that the diary's
fundamental momentum derives from time itself. Sherman uses the
pocket-watch and pendulum technology, a new invention or technology in Pepys’s
time as the basis for this premise. But Dawson says Pepys is not so much the
timekeeper as the time master, with Pepys distorting time by recording an
observation and then going back and forth in time based on what he saw and what
he felt. While Sherman sees the diary as he sees Pepys’s watch, a possession
discreetly pocketed and secretly preserved, Dawson counters that this isn’t so
because of the “ceaseless interplay of public with private,” making the diary’s
trajectory social, not temporal.
One of the big questions about Pepys’s intentions
with the diary is did he plan to leave it for posterity? The main argument for
posterity leaving is that Pepys explained events, people, phenomena that were
well known to Pepys himself so obviously he wasn’t including that information
for his own benefit. However, Dawson argues that if Pepys were writing for
posterity, why did he never leave the name of his wife, Elizabeth, to a
perceived posterity? He notes that John
Evelyn, another prominent diarist of that same era, intended to leave his for
posterity by not only included family names, but also a section about his
family background so those who read it later would know of Evelyn’s roots.
Dawson thinks we should explain the diary’s
uniqueness by interrogating the text of the diary itself and not the diarist
(Pepys). But don’t readers usually do that anyway is my argument? I mean, when
you start to read a text, you are reading the text, not investigating the
author beforehand. If interest leads you to, then after reading at least some
of a text, you might start on a quest to find out about the author, perhaps
starting with what else that author wrote. Of course, in the latter half of the
20th century and continuing, publishing companies are anxious for
potential readers to know the author, with the biographical blurb, then leading
on to book tours, talk shows, C-SPAN and whatever else can be thought of to
expose the author leading to book sales. Of course, Dawson is talking about
scholars studying Pepys so perhaps he is cautioning against a rush to
first-time judgment when the scholar initially reads the diary and is
introduced to Pepys that way.
Dawson also says no matter how complete a source
the diary is believed to be, it is not a constant record of everything that
Pepys saw, heard, or did because its constant refrain of “among other things”
makes this selectivity obvious. However, does any reader think this diary or
any other would be a constant record or complete source? By its nature wouldn’t
a diary be only for what the writer wanted a reader to know? And because of
that intent, diaries of all writers serve a variety of purposes, including
those that are nefarious. Example: In the film “Gone Girl” the Rosamunde Pike
character creates a diary solely to frame her husband for her faux murder. Even in the 19th century, in “The
Importance of Being Earnest,” Oscar Wilde has the character Lady Bracknell say,
“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational
to read on the train,” having established that the Lady leads the opposite of the
sensational life.
While
Dawson’s perspective is that it is clear that the diary's main function was for
Pepys's sole benefit, he says it cannot be assumed that what Pepys wrote is
inherently honest and neutral. Isn’t that what we should assume of any diary or
any writing? And who defines honesty? If it is Dawson, he needs to state what
he sees as honest and complete and neutral.
So
what is Dawson’s conclusion as to the purpose of the diary? The diary is essentially a narrative of
social accounting by a middling man on the make. The scope of the diary's
accounting was far wider than keeping track of money or providing an
end-of-the-month balance sheet of Pepys's material condition, he says. The
processes of monetary and social accounting went hand in hand.
“The diary is constantly noting social debts,
credits, and assessing Pepys’ status.”
Notice
is taken of naval affairs in the diary as they related to the fate of Pepys's
superiors and patrons because their success related to his own. Dawson gives
several examples to back up his premise. One was the writing about food: The
diary most frequently records what food was served at Pepys's table for dinner
when that food had an added social value which said something about his status;
his household accounts highlighting unusual expenditure on such 'luxury' items.
In the process of writing the diary, Dawson
believes that Pepys was watching not just himself but paying much closer
attention to others watching him. He was taking the measure of their gaze;
evaluating his social worth in relation to those around him and not just the
people whom Pepys wanted to impress, but everybody. Thus the need to identify
and evaluate explicitly even the people most well known to Pepys. Therefore,
the diary is one facet of a prism which distorts rather than a mirror which
faithfully reflects the reality of Pepys and his world.
For example, with, Dawson saw the many of the accounts
of his sexual conquests clearly indicating that Pepys was primarily concerned
with evaluating exactly who might know about this behavior rather than simply
giving lurid descriptions of what he had done behind supposedly closed doors. Even
with the death of his brother Tom while Pepys expressed s grief, the narrative
is primarily concerned with the social ramifications of Pepys having a brother
who died in a socially unacceptable way. He also takes the opportunity to
describe his generosity to the professional mourners.
Pepys's social mobility is not simply one facet of
the diary. It informs the whole text at the most fundamental level. The diary
is a social ledger, but more than this it is the text in which Pepys creates
what he is endeavoring to be, but is unsure whether he will actually become. Dawson
says we tend to focus on the upstroke of middling man making up his accounts,
rather than the downstroke of the accounts making the man in our text, noting
that journals are constructed after the fact as an exercise of the imagination
in which the life of the mind is less real than events that take place. As Margaret Willy says, “Without enthusiasm
for himself, the Diary would hardly have begun to take shape as it did.”
Fortunately, Dawson concludes, the diary
survives as an enigmatic monument to his achievement, as lived but also as
incessantly scripted and re- scripted.
Julie:
Julie:
Mark
Bostridge’s Mrs Robinson’s Diary
Mark
Bostridge introduces his discussion of Kate Summerscale’s Mrs Robinson’s
Disgrace with a scene from what might be imaged as the writing room of one of
the most well-known figures of the 19th century. The focus of the scene is a letter addressed
to William Darwin Fox in which Darwin is expressing his anxieties about the
health of his children, the discovery of a theory of natural selection by
Alfred Russel Wallace, and most predominantly his concern for a friend, Dr.
Edward Lane, the physician accused by way of a diary of entering into an
adulterous affair with Mrs. Isabella Robinson.
In situating the diary within the frame of such an important figure from
Victorian society, Bostridge raises the prominence of the case as much as
Summerscale highlights the nonsensicality of the condition of women’s lives by
setting it within a frame of shit, referred to by Summerscale as the ‘Great
Stink.’
It
is clear from the article that Bostridge aligns himself with Summerscale in
coming down on the side of Mrs. Robinson with such obvious biases towards
Isabella’s intrusion of privacy with the language he chooses to describe the
taking of the diary: It is “snatched by her husband while she was delirious
during illness” (1). Not surprisingly
then, Bostridge picks up Summerscale’s apparent intent of highlighting the
privileged status of all males involved in the Robinson versus Robinson and
Lane case with the implied suggestion that had Mrs. Robinson not implicate a
male figure in her diary, the diary as evidence might well have stood
firm.
Bostridge
is interested in how the details of this scandalous case has resurfaced and how
its outline has been rehearsed. He cites
such figures as Ralph Colp, an authority on Darwin’s health, who in 1981
“published an article in the Journal of
the History of Medicine, centering on Darwin’s preoccupation with the
trial;” and Janice M. Allen, who in her 2011 The Female Body in Medicine and Literature, “performed what she
described as ‘an act of essential recuperation’ by recovering details of the
case and placing them in the context of the professionalization of medicine
with the passing of the Medical Reform Act in 1858” (2).
Rightly,
Bostridge praises the thoroughness of Summerscale’s detective work in not only
bringing to light Isabella’s relationship with her husband and the historical
significance of the trial, but the information she provides on the lives of the
people involved in the case after the trial is over and out of the public
limelight. While Isabella did finally
get her divorce, Bostridge does not comment on the fact that Summerscale leaves
her readers with the disturbing sense that Isabella was not the winner in this
case since she lost her children, yet I consider this point to be of particular
significance. That said, Bostridge
perceptively notes Summerscale’s astute positioning of the case “at the
intersection of various legal and social developments:” the professionalization
of medicine and the changes to divorce law which made it easier for Victorian
middle class people to get a divorce.
For me, this positioning emphasizes Summerscale’s apparent view that
change was not only necessary, but imminent also.
Summerscale
gives us some good background information with regards to Victorian attitudes
towards sex and Bostridge touches on some of this. Most central to the text, as Bostridge
implies, is the Obscene Publications Act, the force behind some of the
Victorian publication’s refusal to publish parts of the diary. For me Isabella’s diary is made even more
scandalous in light of the fact that scenes from novels like Gustav Flaubert’s Emma Bovary, considered too scandalous
for British publication, are aligned with scenes from Isabella’s diary. Bostridge notes how the carriage scene in
Eamma Bovary is “strangely paralleled by the account published in the press
from Mrs Robinson’s diary of the ‘blessed hour’ she had spent in the carriage with
Lane” (2). Of course, Summerscale is doing
more than just emphasizing the scandalousness of the case, she is also
highlighting Isabella’s literary skills.
Summerscale
suggests that “By writing and reading her journal, Isabella hoped to understand
her alienated, conflicting self from the outside in, to get inside her own head
and under her own skin” (Summerscale 36).
Perhaps in response to this quote, Bostridge rightly points out, the
first half of Isabella’s diary is concerned with Isabella trying to understand
the world around her. The 1850’s was a
particularly turbulent time for England.
Scientific discoveries were already discrediting the existence of God
and Summerscale’s discussion of Isabella’s relationship with George Combe makes
the point clear that Isabella was struggling with such issues as “the loss of
belief in God,” as Bostridge notes.
Bostridge notes other important debates Summerscale raises with her
diary selections, most of which point to the treatment of Victorian women such
as inequality in marriage with particular emphasis on the trope of the
tyrannical husband. Some of the issues
raised by Isabella’s diary include the assumptions of the medical profession
and how these effect the case against Isabella.
Her unusually large cerebellum, of course, is to blame for her excessive
amativeness.
Victorian
ideas about sex is a strong feature of Summerscale’s text. The raw and sensual descriptions in her diary
are enough to convince people of her guilt, and at the same time creative
enough to convince people of Edward’s innocence. Bostridge focuses on the dream material in
much the same way as Summerscale notes others do in her text, connecting
Isabella’s dream life with other gifted women’s descriptions of dream life;
Florence Nighingale being one such example.
Bostridge claims that “Summerscale forces Florence Nightingale’s
description of the Victorian woman’s dream life from “Cassandra” into her
account of Isabella’s state of mind, without acknowledging that Nightingale’s
dreams were primarily concerned with a wish for an active life, not an outlet
for sexual release” (3). Bostridge makes
an interesting observation here, but perhaps Summerscale descision needs no
explanation. The point Summerscale is
making in her text is that Isabella’s dream life had become increasingly difficult
to distinguish from reality, a point Bostridge touches on earlier in his
review.
Bostridge
concludes that “we will never know precisely the degree of imaginative
reconstruction that Isabella Robinson employed in her descriptions of her
relationship with Edward Lane” (3).
This, of course, is a limitation of autobiographical texts. What is most interesting to Bostridge is that
Summerscale “appears unwilling even to entertain the possibility” that there
was “perhaps more incitement to romance, or at least romantic thoughts on
[Lane’s] side than either the court or Isabella herself, anxious to protect
him, ever allowed” (3). Again, Bostridge
makes an interesting point, but surely Summerscale’s neutrality in this regard
is a sign of a good detective. There is
no doubt that the narrative technique Summerscale employs with her work offers
her plenty of opportunity for biase, and in some cases, she seems to exercise
her bias in favor of Isabella, but only when facts favor bias language. In the case of Edward, as Bostridge points
out, we can never know to what extent he was actually involved with Isabella
due to the unstable nature of the diary as a history—Summerscale’s neutrality
is in this regard, then, is just.
Works
Cited
Bostridge, Mark. Mrs Robinson’s Diary. The
Times Literary Supplement. Web. 18
Mar. 2016.
Summerscale, Kate. Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary of
a Victorian Lady. London: Bloomsbury,
2012. Print.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete