A Revolution Almost Beyond Expression: Jane Austen's Persuasion

by Jocelyn Harris

To praise Jane Austen's novels only as stylistic masterpieces is to strip them of the historical, cultural, and literary contexts that might otherwise illuminate them. By focusing primarily on the political, historical, satiric, actively intertextual, and deeply sexualized text of Persuasion, Jocelyn Harris seeks to reconcile the so-called insignificance of her content with her high canonical status, for Austen's interactions with real and imagined worlds prove her to be innovative, even revolutionary.

This book answers common assertions that Austen's content is restricted; that being uneducated and a woman, she could only write unconsciously, realistically, and autobiographically of what she knew; that her national and sexual politics were reactionary; and that her novels serve mainly as havens from reality. Such ideas arose from literal readings of Austen's letters, the family's representation of her as a gentle, unlearned genius, and the assumption that she could not write about the Napoleonic Wars. Persuasion is, though, permeated with references to war as well as peace. Harris suggests that Persuasion may respond to Walter Scott's review of Emma, Austen's correspondence with Fanny Knight, hostile reviews of Frances Burney's The Wanderer, contemporary attacks on the novel, and her own defense of fiction in Northanger Abbey. Self-critical in revision, Austen calls on Byron, Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Cook to modify wartime constructions of English masculinity such as Southey's Nelson. Similarly, her critique of Scott's first three novels confirms that her attitude toward class and gender is far from reactionary.

Persuasion reveals Austen's patriotism, her pioneering lyricism, and her hopes for sexual equality. Although like Turner she portrays Lyme as sublime and liminally open to change, she attacks Bath, a city shadowed by mortality and corruption, with a savage indignation characteristic of contemporary satire. Persuasion sketches a society founded on merit and distributive justice, its turn from woe to joy derived not so much from her own life as from the seasonal resurrections of Shakespeare's late tragicomedies, her religious beliefs, and the nation's mixed grief and jubilee after Waterloo. Harris draws on new information to argue that Austen is an outward looking, intertextually aware, and remarkably self-conscious author.

Genres: Jane Austen

280 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2007

Reviews

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book about Jane Austen's Persuasion. The two chapters that go over her revisions extensively were probably my favorite--they really show Austen's process as a writer and how she edited her own work. I also enjoyed the chapters that go over Austen's own experiences in Lyme and Bath and how that factored into her work.

[Nelson · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some fine things here, along with some less fine. The book's central argument is that contextualizing Austen's novels helps address the chronic damnation by faint praise usually laden on Auntie Jane that she is merely a master stylist. There is a subtle sneer contained in such appraisals, suggesting that her work is more form than content. Thus one of Harris' central aims is to reintroduce context to Austen's most outward-facing novel. The presumption is that if one can reclaim Persuasion as a text firmly situated in the political, social and literary milieu of its day, then Austen is not merely a miniaturist on two painted inches of ivory. Harris is only partly successful in this reclamation project. The strongest chapters are 2 and 3, which contain almost line by line analyses of Austen's revisions of the novel's closing chapters (I believe the only example we have of Austen's sustained rethinking of an earlier draft). Harris' comments on Austen's rewriting are extremely percipient; her conclusions about the quality and aims of the changes seem largely incontrovertible. It is when Harris turns to larger contexts and seeks to draw connections between the novel and historical or literary events that the argument falters. For example, a lot of work is done to show that Captain Wentworth is an amalgam of the better parts of Nelson as well as a Byronic hero. The links between Nelson and Wentworth are drawn almost entirely in the subjunctive, suggesting that Harris is working overtime to establish firm links where conjecture, at best, seems possible. Indeed, some of the arguments here are less than tenuous. A similar tentativeness creeps into the rather large web of allusions Harris detects between Persuasion and the work of Scott. Harris finds within Persuasion a full-blown critique of Scott--at best one can say here 'not proven'. The book regains some of its earlier luster when Harris turns to the social context of Lyme Regis and Bath. On surer ground, Harris has some rather finely tuned observations to make about the novel as it relates to the social conditions obtaining in these rival leisure locations. In general the writing is fairly clear, though there is at least one argumentative tic that gets extremely old rather fast. Harris is not the first academic to deploy false conditionals; she may be the most dogged proponent of the technique--in some chapters they occur at a rate of one or more per paragraph. What's a false conditional? "If bananas are fruit, then Austen's Persuasion is clearly a critique of Walter Scott." In false conditionals, the premise is usually something absolutely unassailable. The conclusion, however, is not necessarily related. If the premise is unassailable, one wonders why one needs to state it in the first place. Presumably because it becomes a kind rhetorical anchor to land another, less solid point. Here's an example from Harris' text: "And if Burke warns that property is never safe from the 'invasions of ability,' due to its 'vigorous and active principle,' [then] Wentworth seeks not the inheritance of land but fortune through his own endeavors" (137-8). First off, the if clause is a fact: Burke does so warn. But is Wentworth's seeking of fortune not land dependent on anything Burke says? Is Wentworth reading Burke in his spare time and saying to himself, 'well, I'd love to inherit some land, but I think I'd rather win fortune through my own efforts'? Of course not. Wentworth doesn't have a blessed thing to do with Burke, apart, perhaps, from being an example of the incursion of ability into property, provided that Wentworth does indeed achieve property (something that, at the end of Persuasion, has not yet happened). To be fair, not all of Harris' conditionals are false--some are downright illustrative and intriguing. Others, like the previous example, seek to link potential readings with affirmed facts on nothing more than a flimsy if-then clause of unrelated matters. Harris is not alone in this--lots and lots of academics resort to this sort of thing (Stephen Greenblatt is an egregious offender). The practice doesn't weaken the force of the better parts of this volume, but it is, perhaps, less surprising that it is resorted to more often in the chapters seeking to generate context in circumstances where the argument isn't quite up to clinching the case.

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite an amazing book in that the author Jocelyn Harris argues coherently for Jane Austen's extensive sources for characters and scenes in Persuasion. Austen did not limit her writing to imaginative realism but reinvented passages of Walter Scott and of other contemporary novelists in the Romantic spirit of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Byron and adapted Shakespeare as well. From a reading of Persuasion it's not evident the extensive literary well from which Austen drew. To read Harris' enlightening examples is to see Austen equal to or surpassing literary giants. Harris also describes Britain's resorts, the spa at Bath and the seaside resort at Lyme-Regis, both being important settings in Persuasion and familiar to Austen. There is also the historical, cultural, geographical, and other real-life correspondences, such as Napoleonic Wars, West Indies slave and sugar trade, and her sailor brothers, which Harris finds in Austen's fictional narrative. Finally, Harris points out Persuasion's theme, loss and restoration, noting the many characters who suffer a decline and are restored to health and/or happiness. This analysis of Austen's last completed novel is essential to understand Austen's immortal story of Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth, in which ideal love is perfected.

[Cassandra]

this book is dedicated to me & my sibling & my cousin, so I guess I have to read it at some point!

[Janet | Austen Connection]

A must-read for anyone interested in deep dialogue about the art of Jane Austen.