User:Petrosbizar/sandbox

removed from MP for possible recycling:
Bloom saw Mansfield Park as belonging to the tradition of first generation Romantics.

English values
For Canadian scholar David Monaghan, the main conflict in the novel is Fanny's struggle to assert herself and to save the values represented by Mansfield Park from corruption. At first, Fanny is passive, at best reacting to the views of others, and is generally ignored. The preparation for Lovers' Vows marks the novel's turning point. Despite Fanny's dislike for a play that "combines political radicalism and sexual permissiveness", she eventually capitulates to pressure, recognising the important principle of being socially involved in order to influence society for the better. When Henry Crawford later complains about Sir Thomas shutting down Lovers' Vows, Fanny expresses firm disapproval, attracting Henry's attention for the first time. This change in her behaviour is recognised by Sir Thomas, who now begins to appreciate Fanny's moral qualities. Although Mrs. Norris tries to sabotage Fanny's social coming out, Sir Thomas allows Fanny a dinner with the Grants and a carriage appropriate for a lady. Then, furthering her social prestige, he organises a ball at which Fanny nervously accepts centre stage. Later, Fanny is forced again into inactivity. She knows she can best serve the Bertrams by refusing to marry Henry despite the pressure they put on her. Later still, when Henry comes to court her at Portsmouth, despite being impressed by his apparent improvements, she is conflicted and remains inactive. In so doing, she demands of Henry more perseverance and moral commitment than he is capable of. However, by the end of the first week at Portsmouth Fanny has entered a new active phase. She has attended to Sam's linen, and made an ironic joke about her true home, based on Dr Johnson's sardonic observation about celibacy and matrimony. She begins to see her birth family in a more positive light; she settles her sisters' longstanding squabble over the silver knife, amazes herself by tutoring Susan to the delight of both, and she joins a circulating library.

Fanny finally marries Edmund and is able to uphold the values that she cherishes.

EXPERIMENTAL REWORK OF THE THE cRAWFORDS IN MP.

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Dangerous acquaintances: the Crawfords
Thomas Edwards in his article, The Difficult Beauty of Mansfield Park (1965) quotes Trilling's view that uneasiness with the apparently simplistic moral framework of the novel marks its prime virtue, and that its greatness is 'commensurate with its power to offend'.

Edwards suggests that Austen could have easily entitled Mansfield Park, 'Conscience and Consciousness', since the novel's main conflict is between conscience (the deep sensitivity in the soul of Fanny and Edmund) and consciousness (the superficial self-centred sensations of Mary and Henry).

Sheehan describes the Crawfords as rich, clever and charming. "They know how to captivate their audience and 'take in' the unsuspecting." "There is in fact nothing ordinary about them or their devices and desires. They are not only themselves corrupted, but they are bent upon dominating the wills and corrupting the souls of others."

Edwards compares the attractiveness of the Crawfords with their lively personalities over against Edmund and Fanny with their more prosaic quality of integrity and lacking in social charisma. The Crawfords are appreciated by fashionable society, their neighbours and the reader, yet they are marred by self-destructive flaws. Edmund and Fanny are essentially very ordinary people are a disappointment to some readers.

Henry Crawford
Henry is first attracted to Fanny when he realises she does not like him. He is obsessed with 'knowing' her, with achieving the glory and happiness of forcing her to love him. He plans to destroy her identity and remake her in an image of his own choosing. Following his unexpected failure, Henry finds himself in love with Fanny. The shallowness of Henry's feelings are finally exposed when, having promised to take care of Fanny's welfare, he is distracted by Mary's ploy to renew his contact in London with the newly married Maria. Challenged to arouse Maria afresh, he inadvertently sabotages her marriage, her reputation and, consequently, all hopes of winning Fanny. The likeable Henry, causing widespread damage, is gradually revealed as the regency rake, callous, amoral and egoistical. Maggie Lane offers a more sympathetic interpretation: "We applaud Jane Austen for showing us a flawed man morally improving, struggling, growing, reaching for better things, even if he ultimately fails."

Social perceptions of gender are such that, though Henry suffers, Maria suffers more. And by taking Maria away from her community, he deprives the Bertrams of a family member. The inevitable reporting of the scandal in the gossip-columns only adds further to family misery.

Mary Crawford
Mary Crawford is depicted as having many attractive qualities including kindness, charm, warmth and vivacity. However, her strong competitive streak leads her to see love as a game where one party conquers and controls the other, a view not dissimilar to that of the narrator when in ironic mode ... Mary's narcissism results in lack of empathy. She insists that Edmund abandon his clerical career because it is not prestigious enough. With feminist cynicism, she tells Fanny to marry Henry to 'pay off the debts of one's sex' and to have a 'triumph' at the expense of her brother.

Edwards concludes that Mansfield Park demonstrates how those who, like most people, lack a superabundance of wit, charm and wisdom, get along in the world. Those with superficial strength are ultimately revealed as weak; it is the people considered as 'nothing' who quietly triumph.

Edmund Bertram {copied to EB}
''To Thomas Edwards, Edmund seems the most believable of Austen's heroes, not least because of the reservations the reader is made to feel about him. Edmund has reality but also limitations, both expressed when he reports to Fanny about his final distressing conversation with Mary and tries to sort out the truth from his personal bias. Edmund is still conflicted, sad to 'close the door' on her forever. ''

Fanny {move up to FP}
''Compared to the other characters, only Fanny has a full conscience, a sympathetic understanding of what others feel. Fanny's natural empathy is at times so intense that she is overwhelmed by the perceived needs of others. Her empathy also acts as a partial balance against her tendency towards judgementalism. She can feel compassion for Mrs Norris even when narrator and reader feel only condemnation. "Fanny's disposition was such that she could never even think of her aunt Norris in the meagerness and cheerlessness of her own small house, without reproaching herself for some little want of attention to her when they had been last together." ''

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MY NEW INSERT:

SHEEHAN     After providing us fair warning, Austen does subtly create the conditions that might lead the reader to a morally ambiguous view of the Crawfords. She consciously makes Henry and Mary Crawford vibrant, intelligent, witty, and alluring, at the same time that they engage in actions that are morally repugnant. She does this not to manipulate the reader, but to put her in a position in which she has to exercise her own powers of observation and judgment. This demands a word in partial defense of all the readers and scholars who dislike Fanny Price so much. In order to encourage her readers to think for themselves, Austen avoids creating monsters in the form of the Crawfords. This requires that we are somewhat distanced from the pain and humiliation of the “chaste, morally conscious heroine.”  Fanny is pure and poor and plain and timid and sickly and without wit. She is also rather prudish. Though not moral vices, these qualities are certainly not intended to attract the audience to the heroine. Indeed, we have to work at liking Fanny Price. Austen deliberately makes it difficult for us to enter into easy sympathy with Fanny so that we will not reject the Crawfords uncomprehendingly. She encourages us to exercise our judgment and freedom of choice in a morally responsible manner ... PART USED IN Mary Crawford, Henry, Fanny; to be used in: MP.

THIS IS NOW ENTERED: Colleen Sheehan:     Despite Austen’s ultimate and clear condemnation of the Crawfords, much of contemporary scholarship bemoans their literary fates.  It is a common cant of critics that they would delight in an evening with Henry and Mary Crawford and anticipate in horror having to spend one with Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram. The heroine and hero of Mansfield Park, they say, are simply too good. A union between Henry and Fanny, and Mary and Edmund, would have been a more satisfactory ending to the novel than the dull and lifeless marriage between Fanny and Edmund. Moreover, Henry would not have run off with Mrs. Rushworth if it were not for Fanny’s unreasonable resistance. Henry might have avoided dishonor and all might have ended gaily if only Fanny had been less of a prig.2  In other words, the final moral failure of Henry Crawford is Fanny Price’s fault.3  ... Like much of contemporary literary criticism, Rozema cannot accept Fanny for who she is or condemn Henry and Mary for what they have rejected.4

These revisionist interpretations of the novel cannot accept Austen’s account because, like the Crawfords, they have rejected the orientation and obscured the moral perspective that inspired Austen in her writing of Mansfield Park. This is the affliction of our times. We are too easily charmed by the subversive.

Austen deliberately made her heroine and hero of Mansfield Park serious, humble, and pious, just as she made their nemeses witty, vain, and irreverent.  Fanny Price is the only character in the novel who consistently resists the Crawfords’ efforts and maintains as her standard all that they would alter or destroy.5  Mansfield Park warns us of the subtle and devastating dangers presented by the Crawfords, which have a particular attraction for people in the modern age.  Unlike Austen’s ordinarily flawed characters, the Crawfords are not primarily motivated by the commonplace desire for money, social status, security, or sex, nor are they the least bit sentimental. There is in fact nothing ordinary about them or their devices and desires. They are not only themselves corrupted, but they are bent upon dominating the wills and corrupting the souls of others. Rich, clever, and charming, they know how to captivate their audience and “take in” the unsuspecting. With the possible exception of Lady Susan,6 no other characters in Austen’s works rival them for their cleverness and degeneracy.

 

NEW
also removed from F-P is Paula Byrne suggests that the heroine, Fanny Price, is "the filter through which we view the mesmerising Crawfords", the Londoners who bring their lively, seductive ways to the countryside.

The arrival of the Crawfords [THIS WHOLE SECTION WAS IN 'FANNY PRICE' BUT DRASTICALLY TRIMMED. SOME OF IT MAY BE RESTORED THERE OR ELSEWHERE]
When Fanny is 15, her uncle Norris, the local clergyman, dies, leaving the Mansfield living for Edmund, who is intended to be ordained soon; however, Edmund's elder brother, Tom, has been living too extravagantly, and the living has to be sold to repay his debts. A priest named Dr. Grant and his wife move into the parsonage. Fanny's Aunt Norris is compelled to take a small home in the village. Dr. Grant's wife has a half brother and sister, Henry Crawford and Mary Crawford, whom she cherishes but has been unable to see frequently, because they lived in London. However, they finally come and stay temporarily at the parsonage in order that Mary can get away from their London home. Her parents being dead, she lived with her uncle, an Admiral; when he moved his mistress into the house, it became improper for Mary to stay there. The Crawfords are elegant, and both captivate the attentions of the Bertram children. Both Maria and Julia Bertram are attracted to Henry Crawford, although Maria is engaged to Mr. Rushworth, a dull, unintelligent, but very rich man. Mary Crawford originally decides to try to captivate Tom Bertram, as he is the older brother and heir to the estates and baronetcy, but he proves to be more interested in his horse racing pursuits. '''She then becomes more interested in Edmund, who quickly becomes attached to her in turn, as he sees her as congenial and pleasant. Fanny is jealous of Mary Crawford and finds''' Henry Crawford's attentions to and flirtations with the engaged Maria Bertram to be inappropriate. Soon, Sir Thomas and Tom are taken from them, as they go to Antigua to settle some business there. This frees up the Bertram children to act outside of his stern presence; Lady Bertram is lazy and indolent, and does not exert herself to raise her children at all.

Maria Bertram is attracted to Henry Crawford and responds to his flirtations despite her engagement to Mr. Rushworth, for whom she cares little and only wishes to marry because of his wealth. However, when Mr. Crawford leaves Mansfield indefinitely to see to his estate and stay in London with his uncle, Maria marries Rushworth.

MOVED FROM FINAL SECTION OFHISTORY OF CRITICISM

planned addition is Prigish :    Removal is:  They also reject the idea made explicit in the final chapter that she is a better person for the relative privations of her childhood. Also removed: "Austen's sister, Cassandra, wanted the novel to end with Fanny marrying Henry; this dispute is one of the few known between the sisters."from history.

Deleted by anon was
No plot summary can do justice to Austen's craft; as John Mullen says, 'her brilliance is in the style,not the content'. Austen 'wrote novels whose narrative sophistication and brilliance of dialogue were unsurpassed in English fiction'.

restore refs:
Duckworth, Alistair "The Improvement of the Estate" pages 23–35 from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, New York: Chelsea House, 1987 pages 24–25

removal of para,...grand". However, Fanny's concern is chiefly with the simple furnishing of the chapel and its lack of atmosphere, a concern reinforced when she hears that the former practice of daily prayer has been discontinued.

quote from Duckworth book sleeve:
''Alistair Duckworth argues that the controversial "Mansfield Park" is fundamental to an appreciation of Jane Austen's fiction. Viewing this novel as the basis for a thematic unity in her work - a unity residing in her concept of the "estate" and of its proper "improvement" - he provides a fresh and convincing account of the novelist's values and of her artistic response to the contemporary forces that threatened them. For Jane Austen,''

extract from MP

“Do you think the church itself never chosen, then?”

''“Never is a black word. But yes, in the never of conversation, which means not very often, I do think it. For what is to be done in the church? Men love to distinguish themselves, and in either of the other lines distinction may be gained, but not in the church. A clergyman is nothing.”''

''“The nothing of conversation has its gradations, I hope, as well as the never. A clergyman cannot be high in state or fashion. He must not head mobs, or set the ton in dress.''

''But I cannot call that situation nothing which has the charge of all that is of the first importance to mankind, individually or collectively considered, temporally and eternally, which has the guardianship of religion and morals, and consequently of the manners which result from their influence. No one here can call the office nothing. If the man who holds it is so, it is by the neglect of his duty, by foregoing its just importance, and stepping out of his place to appear what he ought not to appear.”''

''“You assign greater consequence to the clergyman than one has been used to hear given, or than I can quite comprehend. One does not see much of this influence and importance in society, and how can it be acquired where they are so seldom seen themselves? How can two sermons a week, even supposing them worth hearing, supposing the preacher to have the sense to prefer Blair's to his own, do all that you speak of? govern the conduct and fashion the manners of a large congregation for the rest of the week? One scarcely sees a clergyman out of his pulpit.”''

“You are speaking of London, I am speaking of the nation at large.” “The metropolis, I imagine, is a pretty fair sample of the rest.”

''“Not, I should hope, of the proportion of virtue to vice throughout the kingdom. We do not look in great cities for our best morality. It is not there that respectable people of any denomination can do most good; and it certainly is not there that the influence of the clergy can be most felt. A fine preacher is followed and admired; but it is not in fine preaching only that a good clergyman will be useful in his parish and his neighbourhood, where the parish and neighbourhood are of a size capable of knowing his private character, and observing his general conduct, which in '''London can rarely be the case. The clergy are lost there in the crowds of their parishioners.'

''They are known to the largest part only as preachers. And with regard to their influencing public manners, Miss Crawford must not misunderstand me, or suppose I mean to call them the arbiters of good-breeding, the regulators of refinement and courtesy, the masters of the ceremonies of life.''

"The manners I speak of might rather be called conduct, perhaps, the result of good principles; the effect, in short, of those doctrines which it is their duty to teach and recommend; and it will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.”

''Jane Austen. Mansfield Park (Kindle Locations 1259-1268). “Certainly,” said Fanny, with gentle earnestness.''

.

Mansfield Park and the church
Austen uses the novel format to discuss issues that would be otherwise prohibited for female writers.

Topics covered include:

The necessary character of a clergyman

Appointment of clergy

Training for clergy

Responsibilities of a church of England clergyman: To lead by example, to teach; to live in the parish; to conduct regular services; to exemlify Christian morals.

QUOTES:from Brodrick

v. Although Austen's irony and ambiguous discourse (and in particular the conflict between patriarchal and feminist 'voices') make it difficult to distinguish her most stable or 'true' voice, it is clear that she remains committed to orthodox doctrine ... even though she appears to question or occasionally subvert patriarchal misrepresentations of it.

p. 325  'A CLERGYMAN CONSTANTLY RESIDENT ': CLERICAL REFORM IN MANSFIELD PARK

A Beginning with a discussion of Austen's attitudes to clerical corruption...,

A1  Brodrick analyses her views on the clerical office ...

A2 the vocation of the clergyman to raise spiritual awareness and doctrinal knowledge (which is a response to Evangelical pressure),

A3 focusing finally on her concept of  the ideal country clergyman.

326 Mansfield Park (1813/1814) shows cognisance of clerical expectations being generally higher than during George Austen's youth. Hence she makes a point of letting her squire-patriarch, Sir Thomas Bertram and his ordinand-son, Edmund, strenuously uphold permanent residence and the conscientious discharge of all clerical duties .

327 - 328 Edmund Bertram, as the second son, is destined for the family living and also a life of mild pluralism, for in addition to Mansfield, his father (Sir Thomas) also owns a second living at nearby Thornton Lacey. Unfortunately (or fortunately, from a spiritual point of view), Edmund's elder brother's extravagance causes his father to sell the next incumbency of Mansfield, rendering immediate pluralism after ordination impracticable.

A3   Austen's ideal clergyman's duties are not limited to preaching, administering the sacraments (holy communion, baptising, marrying and burying his parishioners) and attending parish meetings." but include living permanently among one's parishioners,           consistently setting them a good example and being constantly available for advice, counsel and comfort. 

Austen presents these criteria in the form of conversation during a card evening . Sir Edmund's whist table has broken up and he draws up to watch the game of Speculation played by his wife, Fanny, Edmund, William (Price), and Henry Crawford. Thus, Austen introduces serious topics in what would ordinarily have been desultory conversation. Showing great policy, Austen selects Sir Thomas Bertram as her mouthpiece ..., who provides the following elegant exposition of the country parson's role and duties:

"But a parish has wants and claims which can be known only by a clergyman constantly resident, and which no proxy can be capable of satisfying to the same extent. Edmund might, in the common phrase, do the  duty of Thornton, that is, he might read prayers and preach , without giving up Mansfield Park; he might ride over, every Sunday, to a house nominally inhabited , and go through divine service ; he might be the clergyman of Thornton Lacey every seventh day, for three or four hours , if that would content him. But it will not. He knows that human nature needs more lessons than a weekly sermon can convey , and that if he does not live among his parishioners, and prove himself by constant attention their well-wisher and friend, he does very little either for their good or his own ."(MP 247-248)

330 This idea of clerical conscientiousness ... in Mansfield Park is further corroborated by Edmund's ideas of the appropriate style of living for a country rector. During 'a little languor in the [Speculation] game', the narrator creates a further opportunity to discuss these issues. It is clear that Edmund is going to improve the rectory and the farmlands (or glebe) as befits a responsible incumbent" and that he wishes to live as a gentleman (not contradictory to his calling as it provides a 'good example' to his flock); however, it is equally clear that he is not going to indulge in unjustifiable luxury - which was seen by many as increasing the alienation between 'squarson' and poor parishioner in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.l '" For these reasons, he good-humouredly, but firmly, rejects Henry Crawford's suggested fanciful and elaborate 'improvements' to the Thornton Lacey parsonage (proffered in between bidding for cards on behalf of Lady Bertram), namely, clearing away the farmyard, shutting up the blacksmith's shop, turning the house around, transforming the

'''331 meadows into a garden and 'doing something' with the stream (MP 242). Henry's improvements (doled out in between advice to Fanny and playing for Lady Bertram) are designed to transform the house from a 'mere gentleman's residence' into that of 'a great land-holder of the parish', a squire's seat. But Edmund, whose intention it is to live more plainly, but comfortably, replies: I must be satisfied with rather less ornament and beauty. I think the house and premises may be made comfortable, and given the air of a gentleman's residence without very heavy expense, and that must suffice me ..'''. (MP 242). Alistair Duckworth, who reads the estate as 'a metonym of an inherited culture', suggests that Edmund opposes Henry's 'improvements' because he embraces Burke's ideas of the sanctity of tradition.

Preaching style

As he means to eschew selfish extravagance in architecture and home comforts, it is equally clear that Edmund's style of preaching (in contrast to the hypothetical preaching style of Henry Crawford 184 will be plain, to the point, and free of bombast and self-display (MP 340)

332 Austen slips her discussion on sermon delivery into a scene in which Henry Crawford reads Shakespeare aloud to Fanny, Edmund and Lady Bertram (334 ff.) From there it is an easy step to the discussion of pulpit eloquence. '''Crawford shows that he is not incapable of appreciating 'the beauties of our Liturgy' (340). He has the taste and sensitivity to recognise that its 'redundancies and repetitions' (in itself a telling criticism) require good reading 'not to be felt' (340) and is perceptive in observing that '[a] sermon well-delivered is more uncommon even than prayers well read'. Yet, as becomes more evident, the motivation behind his pulpit eloquence is not conversion or edification of his congregation, so much as self-aggrandisement: '1 never listened to a distinguished preacher in my life without a sort of envy. But then, 1 must have a London audience. 1 could not preach but to the educated, to those who were capable of estimating my composition.' (Clearly he would relish Sherlock's Temple Congregation). Finally he maintains that he should not like to preach often. But 'now and then, perhaps, once or twice in the spring' (341). Fanny shakes her head involuntarily in dismay or outrage, but although Edmund laughs, it is clear that he does not share Crawford's flippant and solipsistic attitude to preaching. Neither (it is implied) will Edmund succumb to the selfish gourmet tendencies of Mary and Henry's brother-in-law, Dr Grant. 186 On the basis of her observations of the latter, Mary arrives at the jaundiced conclusion that '[a] clergyman has nothing to do, but be slovenly and selfish - read the newspaper, watch the weather and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work and the business of his own life is to dine' (MP 110). In all respects, Edmund promises to be the opposite: an assiduous, but genteel clergyman, similar to More's model rector, the sensible and enlightened Dr Barlow, who maintains the estate and air of a gentleman, without Puritanical self-denial and yet without corresponding self-indulgence.l'"''' Thus Edmund shows that he embodies both the Aristotelian ...

333 .... and Christian advocacy of self-restraint and 'moderation in all things,188 - virtues that both More and Austen seem to value. In regard to the clergy as both moral and social exemplars, Austen and More agree, but in some other points, Austen is less fastidious than More and, at times, even appears to uphold utilitarian views. Earlier in the novel, when Edmund is required by Mary Crawford to vindicate his choice of the church as a profession, he does so most properly, but as MacDonagh points out, the 'concept of spiritual vocation is ... absent from Edmund's exposition'.189 Edmund says: There was no natural disinclination to be overcome, and I see no reason why a man should make a worse clergyman for knowing that he will have a competence early in life. I was in safe hands. I hope I should not have been influenced myself in a wrong way, and I am sure my father was too conscientious to have allowed it. I have no doubt that I was biassed, but I think it was blamelessly. (MP 92) It is not surprising to find Austen expressing such traditional, time-honoured views of a profession, which still depended to so large an extent on lay patronage, as her father, George Austen had benefited precisely from this

335 The prudential real-life practices of George and James Austen are therefore not incompatible with the generally punctilious fictional Fanny Price's commendation of genteel patronage and the benefits of mild nepotism: 'Nobody wonders that they should prefer the line where their friends can serve them best' (MP 92). As the fictional Dr Grant retained the Mansfield living after succeeding to the Westminster stall, relinquishing it only on his death, it is assumed that Edmund will either let Thornton Lacey, or sell the second living for the lifetime of some clerical speculator. And as MacDonagh observes, all this appears 'as if they were the most ordinary, even inevitable, proceedings.' Yet, curiously 'the sacerdotal doctrine which Mansfield Park preaches is implicitly corrosive of the ancien regime' .201 The novel's insistence on residence, which is essentially incompatible with pluralism (including the mild type practised by the Austen family and implicit in the fictional Edmund's future plans) points to contradictions in Austen that defy complete understanding or tidy resolution.

336 Here then is a '''contradiction. Although Austen presents higher clerical expectations, in some respects, in practice Edmund and Fanny seem still prepared to adopt the prudential line, winking at mild pluralism and exploiting political or social interest for clerical advancement. Thus complacently observing the advantages of having 'friends' who can 'serve' them, Fanny seems to echo Edmund's sentiments: 'and I see no reason why a man should make a worse clergyman for knowing that he will have a competence early in life' (MP 92)'''. This prudential, and perhaps even worldly, view of holy orders (which no doubt Whateley would have endorsed as sensible) might not have appealed to certain Evangelicals, but obviously did not jar with Austen's immediate family nor wider family readers such as the Cookes (from Bookham) and (more strangely) even the Evangelical Coopers; f

337 Intertwined with Austen's sacerdotal reform ideas are evidences of traditional and conservative attitudes towards the role and requirements of a clergyman in Mansfield Park. When challenged by Mary Crawford to defend the significance of the clergy by her assertion,  'A clergyman is nothing!' (MP 92), Edmund shows his High Church roots and comes forward with Hooker-like arguments which present religion as 'the glue and soder of society', and Burke-like arguments for its validity and indispensability." Thus Edmund ... explains that the clergyman is a guardian of the morals and manners of the parish.209

 

339 "The manners I speak of, might rather be called conduct, perhaps the result of good principles; the effect, in short, of those doctrines which it is their duty to teach and recommend ... "(MP 93). [Austen's italics] By identifying manners more precisely with conduct, Edmund implicitly steers away from the more superficial Chesterfield-like connotations of 'manners' to the more weighty or 'serious' Johnsonian-like denotations of conduct. From there it is but a step to their base, the doctrines, the traditional orthodox depositum 'which it is their duty to teach and recommend  '. Thus discreetly, and almost imperceptibly, Austen, through her male mouthpiece, Edmund, shifts religion from the domain of secular benevolence or genteel morality 212 to sound doctrine, without attracting attention or labouring the point. Unlike More, who operates overtly, Austen indirectly shows that she is on the side of orthodoxy with words like 'doctrines, duty, teach and recommend' acting as sign-posters. The above passage also demonstrates Austen's distance from the more secular early/mid-eighteenth-century Addisonian idea of the clerical profession which is conceived of almost entirely in terms of social or cultural influence. '''Austen's clergyman has not only moral, but spiritual obligations; he is not only the parochial arbiter of manners and taste, but the dispenser of correct doctrine; not only a priest, but a pastor. Not only the 'constant wellwisher and friend' of his parishioners, he has, as Austen more soberly reminds us, the responsibility to teach the right doctrine; the 'religion' of which he is 'guardian' is 'of first importance to mankind, individually or collectively considered, temporally or eternally' (92)'''.

340 Finally, it is significant that Austen's model clergyman,... is a country clergyman. Neither of them attempts to portray an influential, yet pious, city clergyman. Mary seems to think that such a thing would be an anomaly, for she observes:

'You assign greater consequence to the clergyman than one has been used to hear given, or than I can quite comprehend. One does not see much of this influence and importance in society, and how can it be acquired where they are so seldom seen themselves? '''How can two sermons a week, even supposing them worth hearing, supposing the preacher to have the sense to prefer Blair's, do all that you speak of? govern the conduct and fashion the manners of a large congregation for the rest of the week? One scarcely sees a clergyman out of his pulpit.' (MP 92-93)'''

'''Here, incidentally in the debate on country versus city clerical influence, Mary drops a further clue of her critical alignment. In mentioning the obligatory 'two sermons a week', she inadvertently further betrays some knowledge of sermons and sermon-writers by citing Blair ('supposing the preacher have the sense to prefer Blair's to his own'). The significance here is not the fact that she presents a preacher as relying on the sermons of others (a perfectly acceptable practice for Anglican parsons as we have seen)''', but her citation of the example of

341 Mary's empirical interrogation of the putative 'influence and importance in society' of a clergyman whom she claims is scarcely seen 'out of his pulpit' (MP 92-93) can be taken as a fair sample of the just and rational enquiries of a Freethinker such as Godwin. It demands a thoughtful response from Edmund, who decides to take the analytical tack, ... : 'You are speaking of London, I am speaking of the nation at large'. In a sense he can be seen as tacitly reprimanding Mary for a feminine fault, that of broad and shallow generalisation. Yet Mary is not so easily unseated, and rejoins smartly with further empirical evidence drawn from her own experience.

'The metropolis, I imagine, is a pretty fair sample of the rest' (MP 93).

'''Then follows Edmund's grave reply: "Not, I should hope, of the proportion of virtue to vice throughout the kingdom. We do not look in great cities for our best morality. It is not there, that respectable people of any denomination can do most good; and it certainly is not there that the influence of the clergy can be most felt. A fine preacher is followed and admired; but it is not in fine preaching only that a good clergyman will be useful in his parish and neighbourhood, where the parish and neighbourhood are of a size capable of knowing his private character and observing his general conduct, which in London can rarely be the case." (MP 93)'''

342 Yet, it can also be argued that Edmund's Addison -ian-like proposition (that a clergyman's example is only rarely felt in the metropolis), which seems to be endorsed by Austen, seems rather naive for one writing during a time of increasing urbanisation and industrialisation, when there were unprecedented opportunities for reaching the masses by both preaching and personal example.i'" Apart from Methodists (whose merits More and Austen would have been less inclined to admit, and yet who devised the 'Society system' precisely to prevent preachers losing contact with their parishioners and to ensure consistent 'discipling' of new converts), there were many successful Anglican city preachers who exercised profound influence over their parishioners.i" However, the point that Austen seems to be making through Edmund (and one that More seems tacitly to endorse in her portrayal of a country clergyman), is that example is more important than precept (or preaching), and the country clergy, who have smaller parishes can exercise a greater personal influence on the lives of their parishioners than their city counterparts, whose interaction with them is limited to a weekly 'appearance' in a Georgian three-deckered pulpit. Here, like Burke, Austen shows her faith in the familial and parochial unit as a place of formative morality. For this reason, he abhors the French 'confound[ing] of territorial limits', glorying in the importance the English attached to family 215 Letter to the Clergy and Inhabitants of London on the Occasion of the Earthquakes of 1750 in The Works of Thomas Sherlock, ed. Hughes 4: 329. 216 Chapman observes that Austen's experience hardly touched that of 'great cities and the neglected industrial poor', Facts and Problems 112. Apart from the Evangelicals (and Spencer Perceval's plan to build more churches in London before he was assassinated), there were other Established Church attempts to reach the industrial masses. Thus, Austen may, or may not, have been aware of the work of the Revd Richard Yates, author of The Church in Danger (1815) and Chaplain to the Chelsea Hospital, to foster religion among the metropolitan working classes. Citing both Hooker and Warburton he argued (like Sherlock) that 'Religion is necessary to civil Society'. See E R Norman 52. 217 In particular William Romaine, whose church was filled to over-flowing twice a Sunday and who exercised an enormous influence for good over his congregation, Rector John Venn, and More's friend, John Newton, Rector of St Mary Woolnoth, London. Among the Episcopacy, Bishops Porteous, Horne, Shute Barrington, Bishop Henry Ryder, Bishop Charles Sumner, Archbishop John Bird Sumner, the Milner brothers and John Newton also exerted a strong influence over their parishioners or people in their dioceses.343-4 In concluding this section, we have seen that Austen's attitude to the clergy, though complicated and full of seeming contradictions, is basically progressive and shows the influence of Evangelical efforts to rejuvenate the clergy, but can hardly be called overtly Evangelical.222Her censure of pluralism, yet her justification of patronage (in the awarding of preferments and emoluments to family or friends), the conspicuous lack of vocation and yet, at the same time, her more rigorous expectations of the office and duties of a clergyman, seem to point to High Church piety leavened by Evangelically-spurred reform. Thus, while her ecclesiastical roots are still bound up with Hooker, Sherlock and Paley (modified by Addisonian and later, more sentimental Burkean views), there are Evangelical-type off-shoots that reveal a greater 'seriousness' in personal religion and urge a more conscientious attitude towards the clerical role and duties. In fact, Austen's very 'inconsistencies' (Fanny's prudential attitude to patronage and Edmund's lack of spiritual 'calling') are reminiscent of More's Dr Barlow, who, though a conscientious, benevolent resident rector who teaches sound doctrine, nevertheless does not disdain patronage and never once refers to his profession as a 'vocation'. Again, this endorses the complexity of More's and Austen's clerical expectations which although enlightened, orthodox and occasionally Evangelical-like, ultimately defy categorisation.

344 'STARCHED UP INTO SEEMING PIETY' AND 'THE MIND WHICH DOES NOT STRUGGLE AGAINST ITSELF'

Having discussed Austen's ideas of clerical efficacy and reform, focusing on her attitudes to pluralism and the role of the rural clergy in the previous section,

B1    I now proceed to an exploration of her  ideas of personal piety as they emerge from desultory conversation during a day's pleasure outing.

In the ninth chapter of Mansfield Park, Austen dramatically uses a visit to a disused chapel in Mr Rushworth's house at Sotherton, to introduce and discuss certain aspects of (a) domestic piety and (b) general clerical expectations and (c) to expose the cleavage between the ideologies of the more traditional Edmund Bertram and Fanny Price and the more liberal Londoner, Mary Crawford.

345 may have been suggested by Austen's visit to Stoneleigh Abbey, where the Revd Thomas Leigh introduced a strict regimen of morning and evening prayers in the family chapel , which was draped in black on account of the previous owner's death.223

In Austen's fictional representation, the lively, attractive, witty Mary Crawford is assigned the role of devil's advocate.224

Here she puts forward the liberal notion that the termination of daily family prayers is a progressive innovation,

only to be sternly countered by Edmund and Fanny, who advance various arguments for the retention of a still meaningful pious tradition. One of the arguments put forward by Edmund is that an active piety requires consistent personal discipline,

'''and there will always be those who are willing to find excuses or distractions. As Edmund argues, 'The mind that does not struggle against itself under one circumstance, would find objects to distract it under another' (MP 126).'''

'''In this passage, Austen seems to argue for the importance of family or household prayers, and personal spiritual discipline: elements of piety privileged by all types of devout Christians. Through her mouthpiece, Edmund Bertram, Austen shows that these strict ideas are not easy to put into practice, as his word 'struggle' ... implies. Although the discussion is based on received patriarchal practices, ... becomes progressively a rebuttal of incipient Freethinking tenets. In the Sotherton-chapel passage Austen,''' ... stresses the need for the gentry and in particular, heads of households, to set a high moral tone which is to be emulated by children and servants.

346  strict religious decorum, which includes regular attendance at divine worship and family prayers. Although Austen seems to endorse this general idea in Mansfield Park, there is a more realistic ambivalence about her portrayal of the far-from perfect father of the house . Although he has high ideals, Sir Thomas is materialistic and lax in his parental duties. He might teach his children correct principles, but leaves them uncertain of how to follow them. As a result, Tom ruins himself through his extravagance, and Maria loses her virtue through her adulterous liaison with Crawford

348-9 Mrs Rushworth, the hostess and guide, explains that the family chapel 226 was fitted up during the reign of James II and since that time it had been in constant use both morning and evening, until the late Mr Rushworth terminated this practice:

''' 'Prayers were always read in it by the domestic chaplain, within the memory of many. But the late Mr Rushworth left it off.' 'Every generation has its improvements,' said Miss Crawford, with a smile to Edmund .... 'It is a pity,' cried Fanny, 'that the custom should have been discontinued. It was a valuable part of former times. There is something in a chapel and chaplain so much in character with a great house, with one's ideas of what such a household should be! A whole family assembling regularly for the purpose of prayer, is fine!' 'Very fine indeed!' said Miss Crawford, laughing. 'It must do the heads of the family a great deal of good to force all the poor housemaids and footmen to leave business and pleasure, and say their prayers here twice a day, while they are inventing excuses themselves for staying away.' 'That is hardly Fanny's idea of a family assembling,' said Edmund. 'If the master and mistress do not attend themselves, there must be more harm than good in the custom.' 'At any rate, it is safer to leave people to their own devices on such subjects. Every body likes to go their own way [sic] - to chuse their own time and manner of devotion. The obligation of attendance, the formality, the restraint, the length of time - altogether it is- formidable thing, and what nobody likes: and if the good people who used to kneel and gape in that gallery could have foreseen that the time would ever come when men and women might lie another ten minutes in bed, when they woke with a headach [sic], without danger of reprobation, because chapel was missed, they would have jumped with joy and envy. Cannot you imagine with what unwilling  ...     feelings the former belles of the house of Rushworth did many a time repair to this chapel? The young Mrs. Eleanors and Mrs. Bridgets - starched up into seeming piety, but with heads full of something very different - specially if the poor chaplain were not worth looking at - and in those days, I fancy parsons were very inferior even to what they are now.' (MP 86-87)'''

This excerpt is surely a key passage, for it opens dialogue on a time-honoured devotional Christian practice, which seems to have fallen into abeyance among the English aristocracy/gentry, prompting Fleishman's observation that this passage (and the whole novel) implies a criticism of the 'weakness of the gentry and ... the barrenness of that class's 'High and Dry' Anglicanism'.227 This passage also begs other questions of a more theological/philosophical nature. In essence, '''Mary can be said to be subjecting the traditional Anglican stance on matters pertaining to public and private worship to radical questioning. As one who believed marriage to be merely a 'take in' (MP 46), Mary seems to see religion or more specifically, Christianity, in much the same light. And the iconoclastic discourse she employs is redolent of Natural Religion, with Freethinking undertones of Anthony Collins, Voltaire and Godwin. Close attention to Mary Crawford's 'smart talk' in Mansfield Park, her approval of Blair's sermons and her implicit incipient Painite/Godwinian arguments in favour of freedom in worship can be read as further endorsements of her familiarity with liberal or sceptical traditions. And as we shall see later as a Londoner, she is not only au fait with the latest fashions, but with trendy liberal thought in the line of Sydney Smith (canon of St Paul's, famous for his Edinburgh Review articles and notorious for his reprobation of Methodism). 228'''

350 footnote 23t '''Non-conformists, had more or less, always maintained the regnancy of private judgement in matters of Scriptural interpretation, in conjunction with some external regulation. However the claims of some of them to private illumination elicited Locke's vehement condemnation of this in his section entitled 'Enthusiasm' in The Reasonableness of Christianity,''' Bk 4, ch. 19, section 13; Locke, Works 2: 137.

REWORK THIS INTRO AS:
The earliest objections to theater were made by Plato around 380 B.C. Plato's objections were based on philosophy and morality and would re-emerge in modified forms over the following 2,500 years.

Plato's philosophical objections were that theatrical performance was inherently unworthy because of its distance from reality. Later, in the Christian era, church leaders would rework Plato's philosophy in a theological context. An aesthetic variation, which later led to closet drama, valued the play, but only as narrative. From Victorian times, critics within the art world would complain that self-aggrandizing actors and lavish stage settings undermined the purity of the narrative.

Plato's moral objections were echoed widely in Roman times, and led eventually to theater's decline. During the middle ages, theater gradually re-emerged, the mystery plays accepted as part of church life. From the 16th century onwards, once theater was re-established as an independent profession, concerns would be raised that the acting community was inherently corrupt and that, psychologically, acting had a destructive moral influence on both actors and audiences. Similar views would find fresh expression in each new wave of Christian reformation, whether Protestant, Puritan, Methodist or Evangelical. These views were not limited to those of religious fervour but were often held as part of a common morality.

Government legislation would seek to control political and moral expression.

Protestant theatricality:
Puritan/evangelical preachers who had long criticised the theatricality of the Catholic mass were now being criticised for their own brand of theatricality.

Herman Melville parodied the techniques of the protestant preacher in TWO theatres (quoted in Barish). The skills are employed by the more flamboyant preachers.

Spurgeon, the famous Baptist preacher, hired public halls, including the Crystal Palace and Surrey Gardens Music Hall for Sunday services.

In 1886 Morton complained to The Era about churches flouting regulations by putting on plays for financial gain without a license and in competition with local theatres, the churches not being subject to the taxation and council regulations that the theatres has to bear.

This leads frequently to a rejection of the contemporaneous theatre in practice though not necessarily in principle.
, particularly in terms of sexual immorality

that imitating others, especially bad people, must corrupt the actor himself,

plays have a bad influence on the audience

too easily mock those in authority,

produce a fatal moral / spiritual impact on audiences.

''Also, the unruliness of audiences. The play house as the Devil’s House.''

Ref Puchner; section on Mimesis, Diegesis, and Gestures
{In 2017, the worldwide response to allegations of sexual abuse and harassment against American film producer  Harvey Weinstein is indicative that this problem, though not unique to theatre, still exists today.}

Criticism a two-way process.
(from Morton wki)

''In 1886 Morton complained publicly about the Church flouting regulations by putting on plays for financial gain without a license. The Era, which normally treated Morton with respect, responded with a robust satirical editorial which incorporated a history of church/stage relationships. Morton, undeterred, explained that current church practice was in direct and unfair competition with his New Cross business. Furthermore, he had just received an unapologetic letter from a local clergyman who thanked him for the free publicity!''

''Following the Evangelical Revival of 1859, it was not uncommon for flourishing churches to hire theatres for their expanding Sunday congregations. C H Spurgeon, Baptist preacher of the Metropolitan Tabernacle (and highly respected by Morton) variously used the Surrey Music Hall, the Exeter Hall and the Crystal Palace. Morton seems unsure of the practice but he did advertise one of his halls as available for church activities. He was positive about sacred drama. On Good Friday,1889, he organised a grand sacred concert at the Greenwich Theatre which included Sims Reeves. In 1899, and on many subsequent occasions, he booked his friend William Greet's company with The Sign of the Cross. In Hull Morton rented out a hall to social activist 'Woodbine Willie', the controversial wartime chaplain.''

20th century
The 20th century saw the emergence of new expressions of theatre, first cinema, and then later television. Rivals to legitimate theatre, in their turn, they too would become objects of criticism by both the theatre industry and by others.

By the second decade, such was the attraction of the cinematograph that many theatres were partly or fully converted into picture houses. Many new cinemas were also being built. Some theatres went downmarket and became music halls.

In the United Kingdom, Hollywood was attacked for its poor quality films and for its commercial dominance over supply and distribution.

Then after the Act, British films "quota quickies"came under attack for exploiting commercial opportunity rather than promoting quality. The advent of the 'talkies' was the next stage.

{By the mid-1920s the British film industry was losing out to heavy competition from the United States, [in 1914 25% of films shown in the UK were British], by 1926 this had fallen to 5%. the Cinematograph Films Act 1927 to boost local production, requiring that cinemas show a certain percentage of British films. The act was technically a success, but creating a market for poor quality, low cost films, "quota quickies" often blamed by historians for holding back the development of the industry}

Post-war the cinemas were under attack from TV. Many cinemas were converted to other social uses such as Bingo Halls.

THE ERA:

1876 the church and the drama ;26 March 1865; Sunday 23 & 30 April 1865;

Headlam
'1877 Headlam's lecture leading to his dismissal. (High Church)'

draft of My notes to add:

''Headlam was prompted by his pastoral concerns for theatre workers and by a sense of proportion. Criticism of theatre was only responsible if it first responded to that which was good, beautiful and life affirming. One of Headlam's clerical supporters suggested that there was sometimes naivety in his approach, especially concerning dance, but honi soir qui mal y pense.''

1877 United Presbyterian church

1879 church and stage; The Era - Sunday 23 November 1879 p.5 A lecture given in Nottingham

''Link: Rev Stewart Headlam. 30 May 1879''

St Thomas's Charterhouse: 1878-1880[edit | edit source]
''In 1878, Headlam became a curate at St Thomas’s under the vicar, the Revd John Rodgers. Rodgers was "the most understanding incumbent" under whom Headlam would serve and even defended him in letters to Bishop Jackson.''

''While at St Thomas’s, Headlam continued his "defense of the popular theatre, especially the ballet", by forming the Church and Stage Guild on 30 May 1879. Within a year it had "more than 470 members with at least 91 clergy and 172 professional theatre people." Its mission included breaking down "the prejudice against theatres, actors, music hall artists, stage singers, and dancers."''

Other newspaper reports
END OF ANTITHEATRICALITY NOTES