Jane Austen and the Social Critics: Recent Trends

Abstract

JA N E A U ST E N AN D THE SO C IA L C R IT IC S : R EC EN T TREN D S DAVID MONAGHAN Mount Saint Vincent University T h e bicentennial year provided an occasion not only for an increase in the already considerable output of new Jane Austen studies but also for retrospec­ tive reviews of the existing state of Austen scholarship. As a result the critic who, like myself, wishes to add to the latter must now pay attention to both the criticism itself and the criticism of the criticism. Besides dealing with the work of Duckworth, Nardin, Auerbach, Wiesenfarth, Fleishman, Rubinstein, Brown, and others who have been directly concerned in recent years with the social aspects of Jane Austen's novels, my survey will consider review articles by Southam, Litz, and Gubar which have something to say about the past achievements and future possibilities of social criticism.1 1 undertake this task in spite of the recognition that it might eventually help to produce the absurd situation of criticism of criticism of criticism. The basis for the social criticism of the last few years is provided by a relatively small number of scholars, the most notable of whom are Trilling, Harding, Mudrick, Duffy, Daiches, Kettle, Schorer, and Greene. The founda­ tion they provide is even shakier than their numbers might suggest, because their comments on Jane Austen's social vision often amount to little more than asides offered in the course of general examinations of her novels. A re-reading of what Trilling has to say about Highbury as idyll or of Duffy's discussion of the disintegration of the gentry in Persuasion is somewhat disappointing because there is so little elaboration on or hard social data offered in support of the brilliant insights we remember. Only Donald Greene's "Jane Austen and the Peerage" makes the kind of thorough use of contemporary documents we might expect from the social critic. Three main elements dominate the early Jane Austen social criticism.2 First, there is an extended debate between those who, like Harding and Mudrick, see Jane Austen as an intelligent woman forced to be subservient to a mediocre and oppressive society, and those such as Trilling and Duffy who believe her to be engaged in a celebration of the conservative ideals of the eighteenth-century gentry. Second, critics like Daiches, Woolf, and Kettle offer analyses of Jane Austen's values based on democratic or Marxist ethics. And third, the value of a social vision that does not extend itself beyond an examination of the manners of the country gentry is repeatedly questioned. En g lish Studies in Ca n ad a, i i , 3 , Fall 1976 28l Jane A usten and the Social Critics Recent critics have refused to explore further the direction taken by Daiches, Kettle, and Woolf because they do not accept the premise that an author's social assumptions provide in themselves criteria for judging his success as an artist. Whatever the inherent virtues of these two divergent philosophies of literature, in practice it is probably fortunate that Jane Austen has remained largely free from the attention of "committed" critics up to this point. The efforts of both Woolf and Kettle are marred by a failure to ascertain to what extent the social vision of which they are so critical is indeed Jane Austen's. If nothing else, critics like Duckworth and Rubinstein, who have concerned themselves simply with clarifying what Jane Austen believed in, have ensured that any later Marxist who might turn his attentions to her will have a firm footing on which to base his critique. This clarification of Jane Austen's social vision, which I believe to be the main contribution of recent criticism, has derived from attempts to resolve the subversive-celebrant debate. The position taken by Harding and Mudrick has been increasingly discredited, as critics have taken a more empirical approach to Jane Austen. Jane Nardin, in her study of manners, and Alastair Duckworth, in his analysis of the political implications of the metaphor of improvement, have marshalled considerable detailed evidence from within the novels and from contemporary social documents to...