"Pride and Prejudice": A Study in Artistic Economy (review)

Abstract

90 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION 3:1 Kenneth Moler. "Pride and Prejudice": A Study in Artistic Economy. Boston: G.K. Hall (Twayne's Masterwork Studies no. 21), 1989. xi + 110pp. Using language accessible to "the prospective student of Austen" (p. 10), this small volume provides a historical and ideological background for a reading that takes into account the novel's "own literary traditions" (p. 18). Kenneth Moler interprets Pride and Prejudice in light of the theme of moral blindness and self-knowledge and of the eighteenth-century "art-nature" antithesis, first used by Samuel Kliger to analyse the novel in 1947. Moler's critique also acknowledges the breadth and depth of Austen's allusions. The novel's famous opening sentence, for example, is shown to allude, not just to Bumey's Cecilia, but to both the language of proponents of moral self-examination and that "associated with Hume, Smith and other prestigious philosophers of the day." The irony of that statement was sharper for contemporary readers, for whom what appeared to be "the beginning of a philosophical proposition, [turned] into burlesque" (p. 85). This study stresses Austen's artistic economy in her handling of language, her depiction of characters, and her use of symbols. Symbolic motifs (reading and books, music, dancing) are shown as techniques which locate characters with regard to the theme of art and nature. Similarly, such artistic tendencies as Austen's interest in conversation and lack of interest in visual detail are presented as applications of the neoclassical principle of non-particularity. Moler's book also provides a new overview of the historical, ideological, and artistic background of the novel, placing the "art-nature" antithesis in the perspective of the debt of eighteenth-century literature to Renaissance ideas. Thus, the penchant for analogy and the concept of the good as balance are traced back to the Elizabethan world picture of analogous planes hierarchically interconnected in a Great Chain of Being. This perspective, placing Austen's roots in a long and prestigious tradition, adds depth to the analysis of her work, too long perceived as "limited." The reiterated reference to the art-nature dialectic as the harmonious discord between "prudence and benevolence, reason and feeling, wit and judgment, unspoiled natural beauty versus the beauty of the works of man" (p. 40) makes this critique highly coherent . At the same time, Moler seems to make everything bend to the idea that Austen was seeking a concordia discors between the antithetical poles. Thus, Darcy is said to err on the side of "art," while Elizabeth Bennet errs "in the direction of 'nature.' " The latter pole, then, would govern the "socially irreverent intelligence," coupled with "social irresponsibility," of both the protagonist and her father (p. 43). And yet the only evidence provided for calling Elizabeth irresponsible is the presupposition that irreverence inevitably entails irresponsibility (p. 32). The central point here is that of Moler's earlier study, Jane Austen's Art of Allusion (1968): the novel is seen as a reformulation of a character type common to much contemporary fiction, the "patrician hero." According to Moler, Austen initially uses Darcy's failings to disparage this character type, presented as perfect in the novels following the "Sir Charles Grandison tradition." Austen is said to put down Darcy for his arrogance, but then to reinstate him and affirm his social role. This ambivalent attitude is compared to "Pope's treatment of Belinda and her upper-class friends in The Rape of the Lock" (p. 99). The comparison tends to obscure the difference between Pope's brand of satire, which pokes fun at his characters for their petty limitations in contrast to the greatness of epic heroes, and Austen's, which typically invites the reader to laugh at a character who acts too much the hero. Although Moler has not changed his position with regard to the novel's treatment of the patrician hero, this new critical work differs from his much-cited study in a stronger emphasis on Austen's accomplishments. For example, while the conclusion to the chapter REVIEWS 91 on Pride and Prejudice in Jane Austen's Art ofAllusion alludes to certain inconsistencies in the development of Darcy's character as flaws...