Rev. of Jane Eyre: an Autobiography, by Currer Bell.  Littell's Living Age 17.213 (June 1848): 481-487.  

 

 

     Since the publication of "Grantley Manor" no novel has created so much sensation as "Jane Eyre."  Indeed, the public taste seems to have outstripped its guides in appreciating the remarkable power which this book displays.  For no leading review has yet noticed it, and here we have before us the second edition.  The name and sex of the writer are still a mystery.  Currer Bell (which by a curious Hibernicism appears in the title-page as the name of a female autobiographer) is a mere nom de guerre--perhaps an anagram.  However, we, for our part, cannot doubt that the book is written by a female, and, as certain provincialisms indicate, by one from the North of England.  Who, indeed, but a woman could have ventured, with the smallest prospect of success, to fill three octavo volumes with the history of a woman’s heart? The hand which drew Juliet and Miranda would have shrunk from such a task. That the book is readable, is to us almost proof enough of the truth of our hypothesis. But we could accumulate evidences to the same effect. Mr. Rochester, the hero of the story, is as clearly the vision of a woman’s fancy, as the heroine is the image of a woman’s heart. Besides, there are many minor indications of a familiarity with all the mysteries of female life which no man can possess, or would dare to counterfeit. Those who have read Miss Edgeworth’s Montem, and know how a lady paints the social nature of boys and the doings of boys’ schools, may judge e converso what work a man would have made of the girls’ school in the first volume of Jane Eyre. Yet we cannot wonder that the hypothesis of a male author should have been started, or that ladies especially should still be rather determined to uphold it. For a book more unfeminine, both in its excellences and defects, it would be hard to find in the annals of female authorship. Throughout there is masculine power, breadth and shrewdness, combined with masculine hardness, coarseness, and freedom of expression. Slang is not rare. The humor is frequently produced by a use of Scripture, at which one is rather sorry to have smiled. The love-scenes glow with a fire as fierce as that of Sappho, and somewhat more fuliginous. There is an intimate acquaintance with the worst parts of human nature, a practised sagacity in discovering the latent ulcer, and a ruthless rigor in exposing it, which must command our admiration, but are almost startling in one of the softer sex. Jane Eyre professes to be an autobiography, and we think it likely that in some essential respects it is. If the authoress has not been, like her heroine, an oppressed orphan, a starved and bullied charity-school girl, and a despised and slighted governess, (and the intensity of feeling which she shows in speaking of the wrongs of this last class seems to prove that they have been her own,) at all events we fear she is one to whom the world has not been kind. And, assuredly, never was unkindness more cordially repaid. Never was there a better hater. Every page burns with moral Jacobinism. “Unjust, unjust,” is the burden of every reflection upon the things and powers that be. All virtue is but well masked vice, all religious profession and conduct is but the whitening of the sepulchre, all self-denial is but deeper selfishness. In the preface to the second edition, this temper rises to the transcendental pitch. There our authoress is Micaiah, and her generation Ahab; and the Ramoth Gilead, which is to be the reward of disregarding her denunciations, is looked forward to with at least as much of unction as of sorrow: although we think that even the doomed King of Isreal might have stood excused for his blindness, if the prophet had opened his message of wrath with a self-laudatory preface and eight closely-printed pages of panegyrical quotations, culled with omnivorous vanity from every kind of newspaper.

     We select the following extract as an illustration of our remarks--a specimen at once of extraordinary powers of analyzing character and moral painting, and of a certain want of feeling in their exercise which defeats the moral object, and causes a reaction in the mind of the reader like that of a barbarous execution in the mind of the beholder. To render the passage intelligible, it is only necessary to premise that Jane Eyre, the heroine of the tale, is an orphan committed to the care of Mrs. Reed, her aunt, who after maltreating the child till she breaks into a wild rebellion, sends her to a charity school to live or die as she may. Jane Eyre lives. Aunt Reed is dying, and Jane Eyre is at her bedside. [end of page 481]

 

[The original review here contained an excerpt from the end of Chapter 21, the scene in which Aunt Reed tells Jane she has an Uncle John Eyre of Madeira, and when Jane looks upon the corpse of her dead aunt.]

 

     Here we have a deathbed of unrepentant sin described with as deliberate a minuteness and as serene a tranquility as a naturalist might display in recording the mortal orgasms of a jelly-fish. It is the despair of Beaufort--the “He dies and makes no sign,” without the response, “O God, forgive him!” All the expressions of tenderness and forgiveness, on the part of the injured Jane, are skillfully thrown in so as to set off to the utmost the unconquerable hardness of the dying sinner’s heart. They are the pleadings of the good angel, made audible, and rejected to the last. We are compelled to see and acknowledge, beyond the possibility of doubt, that Mrs. Reed dies without remorse, without excuse, and without hope.

     The plot is most extravagantly improbable, verging all along upon the supernatural, and at last running fairly into it. All the power is shown and all the interest lies in the characters. We have before intimated out belief, that in Jane Eyre, the heroine of the piece, we have, in some measure, a portrait of the writer. If not, it is a most skilful imitation of autobiography. The character embodied in it is precisely the same as that which pervades the whole book, and breaks out most signally in the preface--a temper, naturally harsh, made harsher by ill usage, and visiting both its defect and its wrongs upon the world--an [end of page 482] understanding disturbed and perverted by cynicism, but still strong and penetrating--fierce love and fiercer hate--all this viewed from within and colored by self-love. We only wish we could carry our hypothesis a step further, and suppose that the triumph which the love and lovable element finally obtains over the unloving and unlovable in the fictitious character has also its parallel in the true. But we fear that few readers will rise from the book with that impression.

     The character of Mr. Rochester, the hero, the lover, and eventually the husband, of Jane Eyre, we have already noticed as being, to our minds, the characteristic production of a female pen. Not an Adonis, but a Hercules in mind and body, with a frame of adamant, a brow of thunder, and a lightning eye, a look and voice of command, all-knowing and all-discerning, fierce in love and hatred, rough in manner, rude in courtship, with a shade of Byronic gloom and appetizing mystery--add to this that when loved he is past middle age, and when wedded he is blind and fire-scarred, and you have such an Acis as no male writer would have given his Galatea, and yet what commends itself as a true embodiment of the visions of female imagination. The subordinate characters almost all show proportionate power. Mr. Brocklehurst, the patron and bashaw of Lowood, a female orphan school, in which he practises self-denial, alieno ventre, and exercises a vicarious humility, is a sort of compound of Squeers andPecksniff, but more probable than either, and drawn with as strong a hand. His first interview with Jane Eyre, in which he appears to the eye of the child “like a black pillar,” and a scene at Lowood in which, from the midst of a galaxy of smartly dressed daughters, he lectures the half-starved and half-clothed orphans on his favorite virtues, would be well worth quoting, but that their humor borders on the profane. His love of miracles of destruction is a true hit. Those miracles are still credible. So is the inscription on the wall of Lowood. “Lowood Institution. This portion was rebuilt A.D.--, by Naomi Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county.” “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Mrs. Reed is a good type of the “strong-minded” and odious woman. Excellent, too, in an artistic point of view, is the character of St. John Rivers, the Calvinist clergyman and missionary, with all its complex attributes and irridescent hues--self-denial strangely shot with selfishness--earthly pride and restless ambition blending and alternating with heaven-directed zeal, and resignation to the duties of a heavenly mission. The feeblest character in the book is that of Helen Burns, who is meant to be a perfect Christian, and is a simple seraph, conscious moreover of her own perfection. She dies early in the first volume, and our authoress might say of her saint, as Shakespeare said of his Mercutio, “If I had not killed her, she would have killed me.” In her, however, the Christianity of Jane Eyre is concentrated, and with her it expires, leaving the moral world in a kind of Scandinavian gloom, which is hardly broken by the faint glimmerings of a “doctrine of the equality of souls,” and some questionable streaks of that “world-redeeming creed of Christ,” which being emancipated from “narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few,” is seldom invoked but for the purpose of showing that all Christian profession is bigotry and all Christian practice is hypocrisy.

     In imaginative painting Jane Eyre is very good. Take the following--probably from the threshold of the lake country--the neighborhood of Kirby Lonsdale.

 

[The original review here contained an excerpt from paragraphs 2 and 3 of Chapter 9, when Jane is at Lowood and describes the change in month from April to May.]

 

     The rather ambitious descriptions of manners and social life which the book contains are, we are bound to say, a most decided failure. Their satire falls back with accumulated force upon the head of the satirist. It is “high life below stairs” with a vengeance; the fashionable world seen through the area railings, and drawn with the black end of the kitchen poker. Listen to the polite badinage of Mr. Rochester’s drawing-room.

 

[The original review here contained an excerpt towards the end of Chapter 17, the scene in which Lady Ingram and Miss Ingram discuss the negative influences governesses can have on children.]

 

     Or the following playful coquetry between the said lily-flower and Mr. Rochester:-- [end of page 483]

 

[The original review here contained an excerpt towards the end of Chapter 17, the scene in which Mr. Rochester and Miss Ingram discuss singing.]

 

     The novelist is now completely lord of the domain of fiction. Whatever good or evil is to be done in the present day through that medium, must be done by him. He is the only dramatist whose plays can now command an audience. He is the only troubadour who finds admittance into the carpeted and cushioned halls of our modern chivalry, and arrests the ear of the lords and ladies of the nineteenth century. His work is the mirror of our life. It is the Odyssey and the Niebelungen Lied under a strange form; but still it is them indeed. Man’s appetites do not change, nor his faculties, but only the external conditions under which they act; and the same appetites, the same faculties, which under one set of external conditions gave birth to Achilles, under another set give birth to Waverly or Pelham; who is to the reading gentleman what the son of Thetis was to the listening Greek--himself made perfect.

     In the infancy of nations--in the age of bodily prowess, war, adventure, chivalry, when the mind is always turned outwards to great deeds, and never inwards to itself, the Romance, be it in the prose form specifically so called, or in the ballad, or that higher form of ballad which is termed the Epic, holds undivided sway. The Iliad and Odyssey ought to be classed, not with the Aeneid, Paradise Lost and the Henriade, but with Amadis de Gaul and the Cid. Virgil, Milton, and Voltaire have obscured the idea of the Epic, as the perfection of ballad poetry, by trying to write after the Epic model in an unepic way. The consequence of this error to themselves (a consequence which Virgil and Milton seem to have felt) is, that Virgil is redeemed from failure by certain non-epic passages, such as the history of Dido’s love, and the splendid Inferno and Paradiso in the Sixth Book; Voltaire fails utterly; and Milton, thanks to that immortal force of genius which his original fault of judgment could not force from its true bent, produces a great spiritual poem--the poem of Puritanism.

     To another age of civilization belongs the drama. This too has its time--a time which does not return. Homer’s heroes hurl stones ten times as large as his audience could hurl; but his audience too hurled stones, or they would not have heard of it with interest. In Shakespeare’s plays action may be ten times more intense and rapid, language ten times more vehement, and character ten times more marked, than in the real men of his day; but still in the real men of his day action was intense and rapid, language was vehement, and character was marked. The Sidneys, Raleighs, and Southamptons saw in the heroes of the stage what they themselves aimed at being, and, in some measure, were. It was their own age which they saw imagined there, with all its grandeur, and its grotesqueness, its free and swelling speech, its fierce and open passion, its strong and sudden hand. The wildest Utopia which the brain of an idealist ever conceived, was only an exaggeration of the type of his own age. Plato’s Republic is but a Greek polity after all. And so, we may be sure, the eye of the great poet, when rolling in its finest frenzy, saw the men of his own day, though he saw them through and through, to the very core of their humanity, and therefore was the poet of all ages while he was the dramatist of one. The essence of drama is the development of character through action. When character is no longer developed in action--that is in visible action--the drama ceases. And that is the case in the period of civilization at which we are now arrived. You can no longer tell what a man is by what you see him do. The essence of action is driven inward; and what little does remain outward and visible, so as to be available for the purposes of the drama, is spread over so wide an expanse of mere conventionality and commonplace, that it cannot be eliminated and presented with dramatic rapidity without outraging all sense of probability. The perpetual tendency of civilization is to rub down all that is salient and prominent--all that of which the dramatist takes hold. The life of an individual of the higher classes in the present day is a perpetual [the original review here contained an unreproduceable word, perhaps in Greek]--a polite dissimulation. Good breeding prevents the transpiration of character in manner; and language is seldom used to reveal the heart, though scoundrels only use it to conceal [end of page 484]  their thoughts. You might as well produce your hero on the stage in a state of physical nudity, as in the state of moral nudity which the drama requires. The spectre of Clio does indeed still walk the earth. We have tragedies of two kinds--the intolerable, which are meant to be acted, and the tolerable, which are not meant to be acted, but only read; that is, undramatic dramas--poems on moral subjects thrown into the form of dialogue and divided into acts and scenes. Three of this latter kind stand distinguished by acknowledged merit--”Edwin the Fair,” “Philip van Artevelde,” and Mr. Kingsley’s “Saint’s Tragedy.” In all these the scene is laid really--not formally only, as in the case of many of the plays of Shakespeare--in a far distant age: and in all, the thing principally aimed at and effected is not so much the development of character by action, as the embodiment of one predominant idea--an idea suggested in the case of “The Saint’s Tragedy,” and perhaps in that of “Edwin the Fair” also, by the theological controversies of our day, and which the poet takes occasion to express as it were from a vantage ground and with an appearance of impartiality, by putting it into the lips of other men, and throwing it back into other times. “Philip van Artevelde” is but an expansion of the simple moral of Wordsworth’s Dion:

 

          Him only pleasure leads and peace attends,

          Him, only him, the shield of Jove defends,

          Whose means are fair and spotless as his ends.

 

And each of these three productions has something in it essentially artificial and unreal. They are beautiful dramatic exercises--no more genuine and spontaneous growth of the present age than any copy of Greek or Latin verses.

     Comedy shows more life. But it is not the comedy of Shakespeare--the counterpart of tragedy--the embodiment of the humorous and grotesque. That appears no more in its proper shape, except when its spectre is raised by Mr. Taylor and Mr. Kingsley. The comedy which does keep possession of the stage, is the comedy of manners, of the witty and the ridiculous. No other is any longer credible. A Falstaff or a Malvolio has become an impossible monster. The tailor and the schoolmaster, and the restraints and influences of polite society, have made your fool, in all external things, very difficult to distinguish from your hero.

     Still the spirit lives, though the form has passed away. The ground once covered by the epic and the drama is now occupied by the multiform and multitudinous novel in all its various phrases, from “Ellen Middleton” to “Pickwick.” That is to say, the novel has absorbed the strictly dramatic and epic element; for the lyric element which the drama and epic held, as it were, in solution, is concentrated and crystallized under another form. We use the word “lyric” for want of a better, to include all poetry not narrative, descriptive, dramatic, or didactic--all the poetry of abstract feeling, sentiment, passion; without any reference to the “lyres” and “wires” with which such poetry, or a large division of it, was once associated, and of which it still, unfortunately, babbles. Byron presents disembodied and in its essence the life which Bulwer has embodied in Pelham and Ernest Maltravers; and the antagonists of Byron in poetry stand in a similar relation to the antagonists of Bulwer in prose. All those difficulties which oppose themselves with the insuperable force to any attempt to epicize or dramatize the life of one day, the novelist, by means of his peculiar privileges and immunities, completely overcomes.  Those long threads of commonplace doing and suffering which now make up the web of the most varied and eventful existence--which it is impossible to ignore, because, taken together, they are everything--impossible to narrate, because in their particulars they are mean--impossible to exhibit on the stage, because their length and complexity is infinite--are summed up and reduced to unity and significance. Between the rapidity and intensity of real and fictitious action a proportion is preserved, and the sense of probability is not outraged. The essence of action is followed into the recesses of the heart, without the fatal necessity of perpetual soliloquies and “asides.” The gesture which would be indescribable in the epic, and invisible or unmeaning on the stage, is to the reader described, made visible, and rendered significant, by the exercise of an unlimited power of interpretation. The want of outward symbols and drapery is completely supplied by moral description; the integuments of social form and etiquette are stripped off, and we see that the tragic and the comic, the heroic and the base, the Hamlet and the Polonius, the Achilles and the Thersites, have not departed from life, but are only hidden from the eye--that it is true, as Carlyle says, that there is the fifth act of a tragedy in every peasant’s death-bed, if you can only get it on the state. The curtain of the novelist rises. The scene is a drawing room, where all the company are dressed alike; all have been drilled into a sort of Prussian discipline of manners, and a marked trait of character scarcely escapes once an hour. The worst dressed man there is perhaps the man of rank, the best dressed is the nobody. We penetrate at once through all the outworks of Stultz and Chesterfield into the depths of every breast--we know the royal nature from the slavish, the hero from the knave. The grouping of the guests, their conversation, their attention or inattention, their every look and gesture, has its true significance--a significance which no Garrick could impart. We discern the secret of the heart which causes a slight embarrassment of manner, a slight absence and wandering in discourse in the most polite and self-possessed of diners-out. We mark the plot or the intrigue which lurks in the arrangement of the party around the dinner table. We hear the bitter or passionate things which are said in soft words and with calm faces. The noise of the piano hides nothing from us. We know that the faint sigh which good breeding hushes on the lip would be, but for good breeding, an Othello’s [end of page 485] groan. We see the empty coffee cup is raised to the lip to conceal a smile of triumph, or the face buried in a book of prints to hide the pallor of despair. In this respect, indeed, the novel has the advantage of the drama, not only with the reference to the necessities imposed by its particular subject matter, but in the abstract. When Johnson objects to Iago’s long soliloquy, that he is telling himself what he knows already, he is guilty of almost as great a platitude as in saying, that “had the scene of Othello opened in Cyprus, and the preceding incidents been occasionally related, there had been little wanting to a drama of the most exact and scrupulous regularity!” Iago is not telling himself anything; he is telling his audience what is passing through his mind. It is necessary to do so in order to give them a clue to his designs; but it is an awkward necessity, and one with which the genius of Shakespeare alone has dealt successfully.

     Our object in this somewhat rambling digression has been to show what responsibility rests upon the novelists of our day--a reflection which we beg to suggest to the authoress of Jane Eyre. With them it rests to determine, each for himself and according to the measure of his gifts, whether so powerful an instrument of moving men, as fiction is, shall be used to move them for good or evil. Are the poetic and artistic faculties given to man purely for his amusement? Are they alone of all his powers not subject in their exercise to the legislative or judicial conscience. Curiously enough, we believe no moral philosopher has yet given a complete scientific answer to this question.  A philosophical account of that part of man’s essence which is neither moral nor intellectual, but lies midway between the two, both in itself and in its relation to the moral and intellectual parts, would we believe still be an addition to moral science. Neither in the fragments which remain to us of the poetics, nor in the psychology of the sixth book of the ethics, can Aristotle be said to have approached this subject. Plato in his Republic makes the same mistake regarding poetry which he makes with regard to rhetoric in the Gorgias--the same with the Patristic writer who calls poetry “vinum daemonum”--that of confounding the faculty with its abuse--and the beautiful amende of the Ion, though it vindicates his instincts, does not mend his system. However this may be, the position that the poetic and artistic faculties are subject to conscience, is a truism in theory which seems to be metamorphosed into a paradox in practice. We suppose, for example, that Mrs. Marcet considered herself to be uttering an acknowledged truth in saying that Goldsmith’s “Deserted Village,” being poetry, is none the worse for being bad political economy. Yet if this is so, neither is Don Juan, being also poetry, the worse for being bad religion. Goldsmith intended, or a least he foresaw, that the effect of his poem would be, to raise certain sentiments and impressions relative to certain social questions; and if those sentiments were morbid and those impressions wrong, his poem is as plainly vicious as the most rigorous scientific treatise, embodying the same fallacies, would have been. This may seem an exaggerated instance. It is an experimentum crucis, certainly--but where is the line of demarcation to be drawn? The rule of truth-telling is, to convey a right impression; and therefore, unless a poet is to be absolved from the rule of truth-telling, his sentiments, as distinguished from his facts, must all be true. Deny this, and the realms of poetry and fiction become, what poor Charles Lamb pretended to think they were, a sort of refuge from the sense of moral responsibility--a region where the speaker of lies or blasphemies does no harm, and the hearer takes none-- a place where the Omnipresent is not, beyond “the uttermost parts of the sea,” to which the spirit of the Psalmist, borne on the wings of morning, fled in vain--a darkness which shall not be turned into day. We do not mean to say that the writer of fiction is called upon to play the part of the preacher or the theologian. Far from it. What he is called upon to do is to hold up a clear and faithful mirror to human nature--a mirror in which it shall see its good as good, its evil as evil. His pages must give back the true reflection of a world of which mortality is the law, and into which Christianity has entered.

     The tendency of English novelists seems happily to be at present in the right direction. Within the last fifteen years, common sense, at any rate, has achieved some victories in our literature. Shakespeare has shone forth again, and Byron labors in eclipse. No heads, we believe, but those of shop boys and farmers’ daughters, are now in danger of being turned by Lytton Bulwer. That Upas tree is pretty well withered up by contempt and ridicule in this country, though it still flourished with rank luxuriance in the congenial soil of France. Dumas, Sue, and George Sand are, indeed, read by us, as well as by their own countrymen; but then we read them for the story, and laugh at the sentiment, which a Frenchman swallows as the word of life. The belief that the pen of a west-end Adonis could regenerate society, without the tedious process of repentance and self-government, is passing away with the last great men of that heroic age which produced the national gallery and the reform bill. The religion which teaches that to sin is the indifferent-best way to save your soul, and that to prostitution in the higher classes much will be forgiven, has day by day fewer symbolical writings and fewer prophets in the land. Whether another and a more fatal humbug may not succeed, and whether a certain phase of the religious novel may not prove that humbug, remains yet to be seen.  But at present a better influence reigns in the whole world of fiction, poetry, and art; and everywhere men who work by the rules of sense and truth, the Christian architect and the Christian writer, are slowly gaining ground, and seem likely--unless their course is crossed by some convulsion of society such as the last month has taught us to consider possible-- [ end of page 486] to make rubble of the chimney-potted Parthenon and waste paper of the Satanic novel.

     What would be the fate of the authoress whose work we are now reviewing, should that happy consummation be brought to pass, must be considered as doubtful. To say that “Jane Eyre” is positively immoral or antichristian, would be to do its writer an injustice. Still it wears a questionable aspect. The choice is still to be made, and he who should determine it aright would do literature and society some service. The authoress of “Jane Eyre” will have power in her generation, whether she choose to exercise it for good or evil. She has depth and breadth of thought--she has something of that peculiar gift of genius, the faculty of discerning the wonderful in and through the commonplace--she has a painter’s eye and hand--she has great satiric power, and, in spite of some exaggerated and morbid cynicism, a good fund of common sense. To this common sense we would appeal. Let her take care that while she detects and exposes humbug in other minds, she does not suffer it to gain dominion in her own. Let her take warning, if she will, from Mr. Thackeray, to whom she dedicates her second edition, whom she thinks “the first social regenerator of the day,” and whose “Greek-fire sarcasm” and “levin-brand denunciation” she overwhelms with such extravagant panegyric. Let her mark how, while looking everywhere for “Snobs” to denounce, he has himself fallen into one, and not the least vicious, phase of that very character which he denounces. Or let her seek a more signal and ominous example in the history of that far higher mind which, after demolishing innumerable “shams,” has itself, for want of a real faith of its own, sunk into the mournfullest sham of all. Let her reconsider her preface, and see how conventional may be the denouncer of conventionality, how great an idol the iconoclast may leave unbroken in himself. Let her cease, if she can, to think of herself as Micaiah, and of society as Ahab. Let her be a little more trustful of the reality of human goodness, and a little less anxious to detect its alloy of evil. She will lose nothing in piquancy, and gain something in healthiness and truth. We shall look with some anxiety for that second effort which is proverbially decisive of a writer’s talent, and which, in this case, will probably be decisive of the moral question also.

 

 "College for Governesses." Punch, or the London Charivari 13 (1847): 131.

 

     It is proposed, as we learn from the newspapers, to found an establishment of this kind, in connection with the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution. We have, however, seen no prospectus of the course of instruction to be followed, the examinations to be undergone, or the degrees to be conferred. Any school for the Education of Governesses ought to have a special regard to the duties this class of females has to discharge, and the discipline of mind required by their position. Keeping this in view, we beg to furnish the following hints to the founders of this useful place of instruction:--

     In the first place, the pupils admitted must be ladies, both in habits, appearance, manners, and, if possible, birth. This is indispensable. Those who are to have the training of young ladies must belong to the order themselves. They must be sweet-tempered. This is necessary, as their dispositions are likely to have a good deal of souring; and we all know the sweetest wine makes the best vinegar. Their constitutions ought to be strong. It is probable they will lead a close and sedentary life, and the wear and tear of the school-room is no joke. Above all, they must be cheerful. Elasticity is highly necessary in everybody required to support heavy weights. They must be humble, as in that case they will be spared many disappointments; and respectful themselves, as they must not consider they have a claim for respect on any person in the establishment they belong to. They must be able to win the affections of the children intrusted to them, but must beware of indulging affections on their own account.

     Thus much for the young persons themselves. Now let us see how their natural qualities are to be most effectually cultivated by the collegiate course of instruction.

     Imprimis, this instruction must obviously be universal. A Governess, to judge from the advertisements, is expected to know everything. The course should at least embrace Hebrew (with the points), Greek, Latin, the modern languages of course, the elements of the natural sciences, Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Conchology, Geology, Astronomy, with a thorough command of the Globes (to which mothers attach an apparently superstitious importance), Geography, with maps (which is a thing constantly asked for, there appearing to be in use a mysterious kind of geography without them)--the accomplishments, of course, including Singing in the Italian manner, and counterpoint, with all varieties of Drawing and Painting, as well as Modelling, if required. Gymnastics would be desirable, and the Indian Exercises. Above all, however, the Multiplication Table must not be overlooked.

     This is the intellectual part of the course, and perhaps the least important. The great object should be the moral training of the Governess. For this we would recommend the employment of a carefully selected staff of Professoresses, after this fashion.

 

                     Class of Cheerfulness.

     PROFESSORESS LADY KNAGGS, a person of singularly aggravating disposition, who will daily use every means of trying the temper of the young persons, until their spirits are thoroughly broken, and subject them to every variety of petty annoyances. The least appearance of depression to be punished by low diet and extra ill-temper from a subtutoress, chosen from the most cantankerous old maids that may be known to the College authorities. The young persons, while in this class, should have each of them half-a-dozen very boisterous children to take charge of for eight hours every day.

 

                    Class of Self-respect.

     In this class the discipline of the Humility Class may be carried farther. Instead of the servants, a staff of fashionable young men should be employed to make dishonorable proposals, and offer insulting attentions to the young persons, who will thus be practised in the art of respecting themselves under difficulties, which they will often have to put in practice in their situations.

     By pursuing a course of training similar to that sketched above, we may hope to satisfy employers, while we remove the many querulous representations now made of the hardships of Governesses, by supplying a corps of young persons thoroughly broken in to the worst they can possibly expect to encounter in after-life. 

 

                   Class of Humility.

     PROFESSORESS THE HON. MRS. HARDLINES, a lady of sixteen quarterings, who will for an hour per diem talk at the Governess Class, alluding to any accident of humble birth or reduced fortunes that can be taken hold of, always speaking of each of them as “that young person,” and snubbing them on the slightest provocation. The HON. MRS. HARDLINES should have at her command a regular staff of servants, including a very pert lady’s maid, who will at intervals pass down the class, turning up her nose at the young persons, and saying the most offensive things in a half-whisper, with a running accompaniment of “Well, I’m sures,” and “Set’em ups,” and “Mean creatures,” and similar humiliating phrases, at which every young lady expressing the least annoyance will be turned down for a week, and put under the discipline of the lower servants, who will repeat similar things in coarser ways.

     While in this class the young persons will be lodged in small rooms, and dine exclusively on luke-warm legs of mutton, and the smallest beer.

 

 

 

 

"A Model Governess." Punch, or the London Charivari 14 (1848): 51.

 

Respectably connected, young, accomplished, but poor, is the Model Governess. She closes the door against all acquaintances and relations the moment she enters her situation, and as for friends, she loses them all--forgets in time the very name of one; for who ever heard of a Governess with friends? She never goes out, and is allowed no visitors. To be perfect, she should be ugly. Woe betide her, if she be pretty! The mother suspects her, the young ladies hate her, and even the ladies’-maid cannot “abide her.” Her beauty only exposes her to compliments and attentions from the guests, and this makes the young ladies all the more jealous, and the mother all the more irate against her. The young gentlemen of the house, also, persist in flirting with her, and this rouses the suspicions and sneers of the old gentleman. He accuses her of making love, of “laying traps” for his sons, and of being “an artful, designing thing.”

     She bears all without a murmur, and never retorts. It is her sad situation to be always suspected. A letter cannot come to her by the post, but it instantly raises a storm of uncharitable surmises--in fact, anything like a correspondence is highly improper, and forbidden accordingly. Her drawings and paintings elicit loud encomiums, but they are all showered on the young ladies, who have put their initials in the corner: the Model Governess is not thought of, much less praised.

     A kind word has such a strange effect upon her that it frequently makes her run up to her room, where she hides herself and cries bitterly, yet joyfully. It is very curious, she is never ill--at least she never confesses to it. Her dress, of course, must be of the very plainest. All light colours are prohibited as strictly as cousins. It is all the better, in fact, if she wears caps. A pair of spectacles, also, enhance the claims of a Model Governess, especially if she is not more than twenty. She must not mind being told once a week that she is eating the “bread of dependence;” and, above all, she must “know her station,” though it is rather difficult to say what that station is. It is not the drawing-room, it is not the kitchen, nor is it the young ladies’ room. It must be the landing-place.

     Children are her especial delight; they tell tales against her, outvie one another in teasing her; play little practical jokes, peculiar to juvenile geniuses, with her work-box and desk. The whole life of the Governess is a living sermon upon the holy text of the forgiveness of injuries. Her amusements are few; for singing cannot be called singing when it is done by command, and dancing is but sorry dancing when you are requested to dance merely to fill up a side-couple. Her accomplishments, however, are manifold, though exercised for the benefit of others.

     She is an Encyclopedia in bombazeen, which must be ready to be referred to at a moment’s notice by every one in the house upon every possible and impossible science, including the very latest improvements, corrections, and additions that may have taken place in philosophy, poetry, or puddings. She plays the harp, piano, and accordeon; teaches calisthenics and hair-curling; dances the newest fashionable dances, from Bohemia or Abyssinia; understands glove-cleaning and dress-making; is clever at Berlin wool-work; in short, must have every female accomplishment at her fingers’ ends. She knows eight or ten languages, but mustn’t talk unless spoken to. Her greatest talent should be displayed in listening cleverly. Her sympathy should be all upon one side, like the Irishman’s unanimity. She must have no views of her own, but only reflect, like a looking-glass, those of the person who is consulting her. Her whole life is a heritage of petty meanness. She has not the consideration that is paid to a cook, and very frequently not half the wages that are paid to a housemaid; in fact, the house-maid has the advantage of the two, for she is entitled at least to a month’s warning, whereas the poor Governess is often dismissed at a moment’s notice. The Model Governess is literally the maid-of-all-work of fashionable society. Ladies, think of your own daughters, and treat her kindly!

 

 

 

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Purple: Proper Names and Titles

 

 

Grantley Manor--a novel written by the English novelist Lady Georgiana Fullerton in 1847.  Lady Fullerton lived from 1812-1885.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Juliet--Juliet Capulet is William Shakespeare’s star-crossed lover and heroine in Romeo and Juliet who marries Romeo Montague against her parents’ wishes. Juliet commits suicide after she looks upon the dead Romeo.

 

Miranda--daughter of Prospero, a magician and former Duke of Milan, in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. She falls in love with Ferdinand, the Prince of Naples, a captive on her father’s island and her future husband.

 

Miss Edgeworth’s Montem--Maria Edgeworth was an Anglo-Irish novelist who lived from 1767-1849. “Eton Montem” is a story from Parent’s Assistant, her first collection of children’s short stories published in 1796.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Sappho--Ancient Greek lyric poet. She was born sometime between 630/612 B.C. and died in 570 B.C. Most of her poetry has a love-centered theme.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Micaiah--also known as Michas or Micheas. Micaiah is the son of Jemla and a prophet in the Bible. He was called as an advisor to King Ahab, or Achab, of Israel. The prophet warned the king that his expedition against the Syrians to regain the land Ramoth-Galaad would be a failure. However, he was imprisoned by the king who believed him to be a liar and a traitor.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Ahab--also called Achab. Ahab was the King of Israel from 873-852 B.C. and the ally of King Josaphat of Juda. After dismissing the prophet Micaiah’s warning of his doom, he went to war against the Syrians to regain the land Ramoth-Galaad. Ahab was killed by an arrow wound.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

King of Israel--see above note on Ahab

 

Beaufort--possible a reference to Sir Francis Beaufort (1774-1857), an officer in the British Royal Navy. He is best known for the Beaufort Scale, which can determine the wind’s force, and his nautical charts.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Adonis--Greek youth who is loved by Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and Persephone, the goddess of the Underworld. Adonis is killed on a hunting expedition when a boar gores him. However, from his blood springs up the red anemone, or the windflower.  (Hamilton 94-95).

 

Hercules--famous Greek hero before the Trojan War who was renowned for his strength. In order to purify himself after murdering his children and wife Megara, Hercules undertakes “Twelve Labors” for King Eurystheus of Mycenae. The Labors are the following: killing the Nemean lion, killing the Hydra, capturing a stag with golden horns, capturing a great boar on Mt. Erymanthus, cleaning the Augean stables, driving away the Stymphalian birds, capturing a bull from Crete, getting the man-eating mares of Diomedes of Thrace, fetching the girdle of Hippolyta of the Amazons, capturing the cattle of the monster Geryon, getting the Golden Apples of Hesperides, and carrying away Cerberus from the Underworld. (Hamilton 171-174).

 

Byronic--reference to the Scottish author George Gordon Byron. His literary heroes were doomed, isolated, guilty, and impassioned. The poem Don Juan is considered to be his masterpiece.  (Wikipedia.org)

 

Acis--son of Faunus who in mythology loved the sea nymph Galatea. Acis was killed by Galatea’s jealous suitor, Cyclops Polyphemus, who hurled a boulder at him. Galatea then turned Acis’ blood into a river, the Acis Riveer in Sicily.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Galatea--the name of a sea nymph and lover of Acis. Galatea, in another myth, is the wife of the sculptor Pygmalion of Cyprus. Pygmalion created a sculpture of a beautiful woman. After he falls in love with the creation, the goddess Venus brings it to life for him. (Wikipedia.org and Hamilton 112-115).

 

Squeers and Pecksniff--the names of characters of Charles Dickens’s works. Wackford Squeers of Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839) runs Dotheboys Hall, a school, in which he mistreats the students. Seth Pecksniff of Martin Chuzzlewit (1843- 1844) is a surveyor and an architect who tries to obtain Old Martin’s wealth.   (CharlesDickenspage.com).

 

Calvinist--reference to the French Protestant and theologian John Calvin who lived from 1509-1564. Calvin is best known for his Doctrine of Predestination in which he argued that God determined the fate of individuals before creation. In other words, before a person is born, God has already determined whether or not he/she will gain salvation.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Shakespeare--most famous British playwright who lived from 1564-1616. His plays, which included comedies, tragedies, romances, and histories, were performed at Globe Theatre. Shakespeare also wrote over a hundred sonnets and a few longer poems.

 

Mercutio--character in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Mercutio is a kinsman to Romeo Montague, the hero of the tragedy. Mercutio is killed by Tybalt, the cousin of Juliet Capulet, in a duel after Romeo refused to fight Tybalt.

 

Odyssey--Greek epic poem written by the poet Homer around 750 B.C. The epic details the journeys of Odysseus, king of the island Ithaka. After fighting ten years in the Trojan War, Odysseus, who is cursed by the goddess Athena and the god Poseidon, must wander another ten years before returning home to his faithful wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. During his quest, he encounters the Cyclops, the witch Circe, and the sea goddess Calypso.

 

Niebelungen Lied--saga written by an unknown poet around the 1100s and 1200s that captures legends from Scandinavian and German literature. Recounts the stories of Sifrid (Siegfried), the dragon slayer and his family. 

 

Achilles--most famous Greek warrior. Achilles is the principal character in Homer’s epic The Iliad. Achilles fought in the Trojan War, but he died before Troy’s sacking because he was hit in the back of the heel with an arrow shot by Prince Paris of Troy.

 

Waverly--a 1814 historical novel by Sir Walter Scott. Waverly is the name of the main character Edward Waverly, a young English soldier. The plot deals with his experiences before, during, and after the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 in which the Scottish hoped to restore the Stuart Dynasty.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Pelham--main character, a gentleman, of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel Pelham which was written in 1828. It was meant to be a study of dandyism.   (Wikipedia.org).

 

Thetis--Greek sea nymph, divine wife of King Peleus, and Achilles’ immortal mother. Thetis bathed the infant Achilles in the River Styx to make him invulnerable to death, but she neglected to cover the one foot from which she held him.

 

Iliad--Greek epic poem written by the poet Homer around 700 B.C. The epic details the events of a two-month period during the war’s final year. After fighting for nearly ten years, Achilles withdraws from the war because he quarrels with King Agamemnon of Mycenae, who is leader of the Greek expedition. Achilles returns to battle to avenge the death of his companion Patroklos who was killed by Hector, the Prince of Troy and Troy’s greatest warrior. Achilles kills Hector and brutally defiles his body, but he returns the corpse to Priam, father of Hector and King of Troy, after the old man supplicates him in his tent.

 

Aeneid--Roman epic poem written by the poet Virgil after 29 B.C. The epic details the journeys of Aeneas, a survivor of Troy and son of the goddess Aphrodite. Achilles overcomes a shipwreck, his love affair with Queen Dido of Carthage, and his journey through the Underworld before he reaches Italy. Once in Italy, however, he must fight a civil war against the forces of Turnus in order to rule and win the Princess Lavinia. After achieving victory, Aeneas’ descendants become the founders of Rome.

 

Paradise Lost--masterpiece and epic poem written by the English author John Milton and published in 1667. The epic details the fall and exile of Satan, the creation of Adam, the Garden of Eden, the creation of Eve, and the fall of man through Adam’s disobedience.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Henriade--a long poem that imitates the style of Virgil written by Voltaire. It could also be a reference to the works of William Shakespeare. This title could be applied to Shakespeare’s history tetralogy that includes the plays Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V. The title could also be applied to the history tetralogy that includes the plays 1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, and Richard III.   (Wikipedia.org).

 

Amadis de Gaul--the tale of an errant knight first recorded by Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo in 1508. Amadis is the son of King Perion of Gaul and Elisena of England. He is the lover of Oriana of Great Britain with whom he has a son, Esplandian.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

The Cid--Spanish epic poem written by an unknown author around 1140. The epic details the adventures of Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, the Cid. Rodrigo is a loyal knight and defender of Christendom against the Moors.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Virgil--Rome’s greatest poet born Publius Vergilius Maro. Virgil lived from 70-19 B.C. His most famous works are The Aeneid, Eclogues, and Georgics.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Milton--reference to the English poet John Milton who lived from 1608-1674. Milton’s most famous works include Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, “Areopagitica,” and “On the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.” Milton suffered public dissension due to his siding with the Puritans over the Royalists during the English Civil War, and he suffered privately as he succumbed to blindness.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Voltaire--Enlightenment writer born Francois-Marie Arouet and who lived from 1694- 1778. His ideas influenced other thinkers of the period like John Locke. He believed that an enlightened monarch advised by philosophers should rule. His novel Candide is perhaps his most famous work.   (Wikipedia.org).

 

Dido--character from Virgil’s epic the Aeneid. Dido is Queen of Carthage when Aeneas and his fellow survivors finds themselves shipwrecked there. Dido cares for Aeneas and his men, and she neglects her city because she falls in love with Aeneas. After Aeneas spurns her to fulfill his fate of founding Rome, Dido commits suicide by stabbing herself and throwing herself upon a funeral pyre. Aeneas later sees her in the Fields of Mourning when he travels through the Underworld.

 

Inferno--first part of the trilogy The Divine Comedy written by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri. The trilogy was completed shortly before Dante’s death in 1321. The Inferno consists of 34 cantos, in which the character Dante and his guide Virgil travel three days from Good Friday to Easter through hell. Dante’s poem depicts the nine circles of hell in which sinners are punished accordingly to their crimes. The travelers overcome Satan trapped in ice in the final circle in order to move on to Purgatory.

 

Paradiso--third part of the trilogy The Divine Comedy written by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri. The Paradiso consists of 33 cantos. The character Dante and his guide Beatrice, Human Love, travel to Heaven to gaze upon the mystical rose. Here Dante sees saints, angels, Mary, and God. (Wikipedia.org).

 

Homer--Greek epic poet who lived sometime around the eighth century B.C. Homer is best known for his national epics The Odyssey and The Iliad, which recount The Trojan War and the adventures of its heroes Odysseus and Achilles.

 

Sidney--Philip Sidney was an English author who lived from 1554 to 1586. His famous works include the Defense of Poesy, a critical text; The Arcadia, a pastoral romance; and Astrophil and Stella, a sonnet sequence.   (Wikipedia.org).

 

Raleigh--Sir Walter Raleigh was an English writer, courtier, and explorer who lived from 1552-1618. He participated in the colonization of Virginia and furthered the myth of El Dorado. He was beheaded for treason against King James I.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Southampton--largest city on England’s southern coast. Also the name of those rulers/lords who inhabited and dominated the area.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Plato’s Republic--Plato was a Greek philosopher who lived from 429-347 B.C. Plato was a student of Socrates, and Plato recorded the major details about his teacher including his execution. In the literary text The Republic, which consists of ten books or codas,Plato asserts his belief that a state should educate its citizens and that its rulers and people must be just if they are to be rewarded by heaven.  (Wikipedia.org). 

 

Clio--In Greek mythology this is the name of the muse of history. Clio is a daughter of Zeus; lover of Pierus, King of Macedonia; and she is also the mother of Hyacinth.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

“Edwin the Fair”--tragedy written by the English dramatist Henry Taylor in 1842.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

“Philip van Artevelde”--tragedy written by the English dramatist Henry Taylor in 1834.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Mr. Kingsley--Charles Kingsley was an English novelist who lived from 1819-1875. He wrote the drama Saint’s Tragedy.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

“Saint’s Tragedy”--a drama by Charles Kingsley that supports Protestantism, for it attacks Catholicism, celibacy, and asceticism.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Wordsworth’s “Dion“--William Wordsworth was an English poet who lived from 1770- 1850. Wordsworth was a Romantic poet who believed in intuition and championed nature over reason. He is best known for writing Lyrical Ballads, a collection of innovative poems. (Wikipedia.org).

 

Mr. Taylor--Henry Taylor was an English dramatist who lived from 1800-1886. He was mostly recognized for his tragedies and romantic comedies, including Edwin the Fair and Philip van Artevelde.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Falstaff--Sir John Falstaff is William Shakespeare’s fictional cowardly, vain, and overweight knight. He is a character in the following three plays: 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. He is perhaps best known for being the companion of young Prince Hal whom the Prince later dismisses and rejects once he becomes Henry V.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Malvolio--character in William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night. Malvolio is the steward of Olivia’s house. Malvolio is considered to be a Puritan, and he is tricked by other characters within the household who make him believe that Olivia loves him.

 

“Ellen Middleton”--a novel written by the English novelist Lady Georgiana Fullerton in 1844.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

“Pickwick”--Reference to Pickwick Papers, the first novel by Charles Dickens, the English novelist. It was published between 1836-1837. The novel details the adventures of Samuel Pickwick, who travels throughout the English countryside with his friends.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Bulwer--Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton was an English author and politician who lived from 1803-1873. As a member of Parliament he supported the Reform Bill of 1832, which granted seats in the House of Commons to many populous cities that sprang up as a result of the Industrial Revolution. While it increased the number of males eligible to vote, it disenfranchised women.  (Wikiepdia.org).

 

Ernest Maltravers--a novel written by Bulwer in 1837. The story centers around Ernest, a wealthy man and his love for the poor young Alice Darvil.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Hamlet--the tragic hero of William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, which was written between 1599-1601. Hamlet, urged by the ghost of his father, seeks revenge against his Uncle Claudius who murdered his father and married his mother Gertrude. Hamlet does succeed in killing Claudius, but Hamlet also dies from a wound he received during his duel with Laertes, who poisoned his sword.

 

Polonius--character from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Polonius is the scheming, foolish counselor to King Claudius. Polonius is the father of Laertes and Ophelia, lover of Hamlet. Hamlet rashly kills Polonius whom he takes for Claudius as he spies on him in his mother’s bedchamber.

 

Thersites--lowly soldier in Homer’s The Iliad who speaks out against the greed of King Agamemnon and the cowardice of Achilles. For his insubordination he is beaten by Odysseus with Agamemnon’s scepter.

 

Carlyle--Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish writer who lived from 1795-1881. A few of his major works are Sartor Restartus (1832), Past and Present (1843), and Frederick the Great (1858-1865). His works influenced others for their themes of revolution, individualism, and passion.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Garrick--David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, and theatre manager who lived from 1717-1779. His first play was called Lethe: or Aesop in the Shade (1740). However, he is best known for his acting in which he attempted to bring Shakespeare to his audience. He also both wrote and performed The Farmer’s Return from London (1762).  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Othello--the tragic hero of William Shakespeare’s Othello, which was first performed in 1604. Othello is considered a Moor, but he is a great general who serves the Duke of Venice. After he secretly marries Desdemona, his jealous ensign Iago plots his destruction by making him believe that Desdemona is unfaithful. Othello succumbs to Iago’s vengeance and kills his wife. Once Othello learns of Iago’s deception, he stabs Iago and commits suicide.

 

Johnson--Benjamin Johnson was an English dramatist and contemporary rival of William Shakespeare. He lived from 1572-1637. Two of his most famous comedies are Volpone (1605) and Alchemist (1610).  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Iago--William Shakespeare’s manipulative villain in Othello. Iago seeks revenge against his general Othello who did not promote him and who is said to have slept with his wife Emilia. After driving Othello mad, Othello murders his wife. Othello stabs Iago before he commits suicide when he learns about Iago’s deception and evil.

 

Aristotle--Greek philosopher, student of Plato, and teacher or Alexander the Great who lived from 384-322 B.C. Wrote several works on logic, physics, politics, ethics, and rhetoric, including Poetics.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Gorgias--Greek sophist who lived from 487-376 B.C. One of his most famous works is Encomium of Helen, which praises Helen for her departing with Paris to Troy.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Ion--the title character of Plato’s dialogue Ion. In this dialogue Ion and Socrates discuss whether a poet’s skill and knowledge or his virtue and divine guidance influence his creations and performances more.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Mrs. Marcet--Jane Marcet was an English author of scientific books. Her most famous works are Conversations of Natural Philosophy (1819) and Conversations on Chemistry (1805).  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Goldsmith and “Deserted Village”--Oliver Goldsmith was an Anglo-Irish writer who lived from 1730-1774. His most famous novel is The Vicar of Wakefield (1766). His famous pastoral poem “The Deserted Village” (1770) was written in memory of his brother. The village is Auburn, and Goldsmith writes against wealth and modernization because both lead to the decay of men.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Don Juan--Lord Byron’s masterpiece epic that tells of the adventures of the legendary libertine. However, Byron portrays him as a victim of Catholicism, desire, and misfortune.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Charles Lamb--English essaysist who lived from 1775-1834. His most famous works are Tales from Shakespeare (1807), The Adventures of Ulysses (1808), and Essays of Elia (1823).  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Dumas--Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) was a French author who wrote several romances and historical novels. His most famous novels are The Count of Monte Cristo (1845-1846) and The Three Musketeers (1844).  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Sue--Joseph Marie Eugene Sue was a French novelist and a Romantic author who lived from 1804-1857. His works include “The Wandering Jew” (1842-1843) and “Seven Deadly Sins” (1847-1849).  (Wikipedia.org).

 

George Sand--pen name of Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, Baronne Dudevant, a French novelist, who lived from 1804-1876. Sand’s many works focused on rural settings, theatre pieces, autobiographical pieces, and political subjects.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Parthenon--most significant site in Greece. This temple was built in the 5^th century B.C. to honor the goddess Athena. It is considered to be the supreme example of Doric Order architecture.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Mr. Thackeray--William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist who lived from 1811-1863. His most famous work is the satirical work Vanity Fair, which details with the advententures of the heroine Becky Sharp.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Blue: Terms 

 

Hibernicism--speech peculiar to the Irish English or Irish.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Provincialisms--specific trait or reference to a province.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Fuliginous--sooty, smoky description of a setting.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Sagacity--keen, sound judgment  (Dictionary.com).

 

Charity-school girl--Charity schools in England were elementary schools formed and operated by church parishes to educate poor children in reading and writing. The education and clothing of the poor was possible due to charitable and voluntary contributions. They began in London but soon also developed in the surrounding urban areas. After receiving an education, a student would most likely be apprenticed in some trade or service.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Governess--an unmarried, educated middle class woman who taught school-aged children in order to support herself. She would teach reading, writing, math, languages, music, and painting within wealthy households. She was often isolated because she was neither a servant or a family member. Her position was never secure as she could be dismissed and due to the fact that the children would grow up and no longer require her services.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Moral Jacobinism--reference to a person who supported extreme revolutionary ideas.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Unction--term for anointing someone for a ceremony or a rite. The person may be anointed in oil, grease, or milk.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Panegyrical--referring to someone or something highly praised in a speech or in writing.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Naturalist--a person who studies natural history, that which consists of animals and plants. This person is generally more of an

observer and researcher than one who conducts experiments.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Supernatural--that which is considered to be beyond the control of nature. Anything supernatural is often unexplainable, and it may even be associated with magic.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Adamant--term referring to a hard substance like a diamond. This terms can also be applied to someone or something that cannot be tamed or easily changed. (Dictionary.com).

 

Patron--a person who gives financial aid and support to a person or an organization.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Bashaw--term for the earlier form of Turkish pasha. Also a haughty, imperious man.  (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Clergyman--a leader of his/her religion. In Christianity clergyman are deacons, priests, ministers, and bishops.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Missionary--someone who works and travels to gain converts to his/her faith.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Seraph--a celestial being mentioned in The Book of Isaiah in the Bible. A seraph is an angel of the highest rank.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Badinage--playful speech, banter. (Dictionary.com).

 

Drawing room--room within an estate or household in which guests are entertained.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Coquetry--playful, flirtatious behavior. (Dictionary.com).

 

Novelist--one who writes a prose narrative. In English literature the novel was considered to have been invented in the early 18^th century.   (Wikipedia.org).

 

Troubadour--medieval composer and performer of songs. The troubadours were most prominent and influential from 1200-1300. Their songs were mainly about chivalry and courtly love.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Romance--genre of fiction/literature that was prevalent from 1000-1500. Romances were written to inspire virtues. The romances were written in verse form and detailed the adventures of their aristocratic subjects, often knights or heroes.  (Barton and Hudson 170-171).

 

Ballad--narrative poem that is often set to music. It consists of quatrains, has trimeter and/or tetrameter form, and has an ABAB or ABCB rhyme scheme. The ballad often tells a story about lovers or heroic adventurers.  (Barton and Hudson 21-22).

 

Epic--long narrative poem that celebrates a hero and his/her quest. In a traditional/folk epic like The Odyssey or The Iliad, the hero is a representative of his/her nation. In a literary/art epic like The Aeneid, Divine Comedy, or Paradise Lost, there is an imitation of a folk epic or a focus on Christian ideals. The form became unpopular during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but it was revived in the twentieth century by Ezra Pound and James Joyce.  (Barton and Hudson 58-60).

 

Puritanism--referring to the Puritan faith that was prominent and influential in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Puritans were often considered radical Protestants who separated from the Church of England, seeking to be true adherents of worship and doctrine. The Puritans rejected church rituals and ornaments, and they dominated the political arena during the English Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Drama--a performed fiction, includes dance numbers, music, and choral odes. The Athenians wrote and performed three kinds of drama: tragedy, comedy, and satire.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Utopia--term for an ideal society, a Paradise, or a perfect world. Also the name of a work by Sir Thomas Moore written in 1516. In this work Moore creates a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Polity--Greek city states that allow for the assembly of citizens who can participate in politics. (Dictionary.com).

 

Comedy--form of drama that provokes laughter. A comedy is a drama with a happy ending. A comedy may also ridicule an individual or an institution.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Tragedy--form of drama that details the downfall of a noble hero. This hero is actually responsible for his downfall because he makes a mistake or errs in judgment.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Tailor--late eighteenth-century term for a person who sews menswear, particularly jackets and trousers.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Schoolmaster--In England this was the term for a male teacher. It also might have referred to the teacher in charge of a school also known as the headmaster.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Soliloquies--long speeches delivered on stage to an audience by an isolated character. In this speech the character reveals the thoughts and motives of his inner mind.  (Barton and Hudson 183-184).

 

Asides--short speeches or remarks made on stage to an audience by a character. The character makes his remarks in the presence of other characters, but they are meant to be heard only by the audience. The remarks reveal the two-sided nature of the speaker. While he may act loyal to the other characters, he will reveal his discontent and scheming to the audience.  (Barton and Hudson 18-19).

 

Integuments--coverings.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Knave--a male servant or a domestic worker. (Dictionary.com).

 

Philosopher--one who loves wisdom. A philosopher concerns himself with ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and logic.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Psychology--the study of people’s mental processes and behaviors; the study of the mind.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Ethics--branch of philosophy, the study of what comprises right conduct and a good life. The pursuit of determining what life is worth

living and what makes life satisfactory.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Patristic--reference to the Church Fathers, the early writers and teachers of the Christian faith. The Church Fathers are those who wrote and taught during the first five centuries of Christianity; they include St. Gregory the Great, St. Augustine of Hippo, and St.

Ignatius of Antioch; however, they were not always saints.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Omnipresent--term that means one has the ability to be anywhere/everywhere at anytime/every time. This is a key trait of the Christian God.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Upas--an evergreen tree that has white bark, red or purple fruit, and can grow 25-40 meters tall. The tree’s latex can also be used as a poison, and in legend it was said to be capable of destroying all animals within 15 miles of its presence.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Humbug--a term that means a hoax or a jest. It can also be a person who is a fraud or an imposter.  (Dictionary.com).

 

“Greek-fire”--a burning liquid weapon used by the Byzantine Empire; it was responsible for many of the Byzantines naval victories over the Arabs, Chinese, and Mongols because it was not immediately extinguished once it came into contact with water.  (Dictionary.com).

 

“Levin-brand”--brand of fire, flame, or lighting.  (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Iconoclast--person who destroys religious symbols or relics.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Piquancy--lively, agreeable, and stimulating.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Ladies--female counterpart of a gentleman/lord. The lady is the mistress of the household.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Modern languages--languages, such as German and French, that were used in schools/educational settings studied for communicative value, not cultural or linguistic value like Latin or Greek.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Zoology--the study of animals. (Dictionary.com).

 

Botany--the study of plants. (Dictionary.com).

 

Mineralogy--the study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical properties of minerals. (Dictionary.com).

 

Conchology--the study of mollusk shells. (Dictionary.com).

 

Geology--the study of the solid matter that makes up the Earth. (Dictionary.com).

 

Astronomy--the study of the celestial objects, stars, galaxies, etc. Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Geography--the study of the Earth, its people, its features, etc.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Drawing--visual art to mark a two-dimensional medium. This art uses graphite pencils, charcoals, chalks, and pastels as instruments. (Dictionary.com).

 

Painting--the application of color to a surface, such as wood, paper, or canvas.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Gymnastics--sport in which one performs exercises of strength, agility, and coordination.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Cantankerous--disagreeable, ill-tempered. (Dictionary.com).

 

Querulous--discontented, complaining. (Dictionary.com).

 

Quarterings--lodgings, places where one may be assigned to stay and be provided for.  (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Lady’s maid--the female personal attendant of the lady of the house. The maid usually manages the lady’s wardrobe and accessories. She is also a needle worker and a hairdresser. The maid has precedence over other servants within the household.  (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Lower servants--individuals who work and live within the home of their employer. These servants are compensated for their work, which may include cooking, cleaning, and caring for the grounds.  (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Mutton--the meat of a domestic sheep. (Dictionary.com).

 

Smallest beer--beer/ale that contains little alcohol. This beverage could also be beer made from the runnings of a very strong beer mash.  (Dictionary.com).

 

Dependence--state of subordination, low rank.  (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Landing-place--a place where passengers/guests and goods are landed; a resting place. (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Work-box--a box containing instruments and materials for needlework.  (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Encyclopedia in bombazeen--bombazeen is a twilled or corded dress material. This may be composed of silk and worsted (wool), cotton and worsted, or just worsted.  (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Calisthenics--gymnastics exercises; physical education for girls. Rhythmical movements with wooden rings and wands to piano music. (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Wool-work--needlework executed in wool, usually on a canvas foundation; knitted wool fabric. (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Housemaid--female servant, one who especially takes charge of the reception and bed rooms.  (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Red: Places

 

North of England--mountainous area surrounding the Pennines Mountains. This region includes the counties of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Midlands, Chesire, Cumbria, Manchester, and Northumberland. (Wikipedia.org).

 

Ramoth Gilead--(Ramoth-Galaad) city of refuge on the east of the Jordan River. See notes above for Micaiah and Ahab.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Scandinavian--refers to anything relating to the geographical region that includes Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. This region may also include Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Kirby Lonsdale--Lake District of England, the settlement in the Lune Valley on the boundaries of Cumbria, Lancashire, and Yorkshire. (LakeDistrict.uk7.net).

 

Prussian--During the nineteenth century, Prussia was a kingdom (1701-1918) and a part of the German Empire (1871-1918).  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Chesterfield--market town and largest town in Derbyshire, England.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Cyprus--third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. This island is east-southeast of Greece. It was a British colony during the nineteenth century until 1960.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Governesses’ Benevolent Institution--institution established in London in 1843.  It offered temporary assistance to governesses.  For instance, it provided governesses in need of a job to register, granted annuities for old woman and retired governesses, and provided housing for governesses who were seeking a new household.  (pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/janeeyre/governess.html).

 

Bohemia--region in Central Europe that occupies two thirds of the Czech lands, Czech territory, Moravia, and Czech Silesia. It was part of the Habsburg Empire from 1526-1918.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Abyssinia--British name for Ethiopia. Between 1755-1855 it was isolated from Europe due to religious conflicts. However, in 1855, it restored alliances with Britain.  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Berlin--capital of the Kingdom of Prussia (1701-1918) and the German Empire (1871-1918).  (Wikipedia.org).

 

Green:  Foreign Expressions  

 

Nom de guerre--term that means war name; often used to discuss pseudonyms. (Dictionary.com).

 

E converso--on the other hand. (Dictionary.com).

 

Vinum daemonum--Devil’s wine. (Dictionary.com).

 

Amende--pecuniary punishment or fine. (Dictionary.com).

 

Experimentum crucis--critical experiment. Dictionary.com).

 

Imprimis--in the first place. (Oxford English Dictionary).

 

Per diem--an allowance for daily expenses, paid by the day. (Dictionary.com).

 

                Commentary on the Text

 

 

In addition to notes on particular words/phrases in a text, you may be asked to provide some analysis or commentary on the text as a whole, or to comment on other collaborator's comments.  Your instructor will give you specific directions about what might be required/included here.  Please format comments as the example below indicates:

 

Kristena Stachura, February 24, 2008

 

     The review of Jane Eyre found in Littel’s Living Age reveals the challenges of being a writer, especially a female writer, in the nineteenth century. According to the author, there is still some question about the gender of Jane Eyre’s author. Furthermore, there seems to be surprise and revulsion over the “unfeminine” (481) descriptions/traits in the novel. Finally, there would have been a threat of a critic assuming that the author and main character are the same, and that the novel is actually an autobiography. Indeed the review’s author suggests that Bronte/Jane Eyre is a selfish “hater” (481) because Jane rebels against characters like Brocklehurst and Mrs. Reed, who are unjust. The author seems to miss that Bronte’s point, perhaps, is to call attention to the abuses of children by those in authority because he/she thinks Bronte is vain and self-praising. The author of the article also thinks that Bronte’s descriptions of Rochester’s social gathering are inaccurate and not very satirical. Thus, a female writer may not have always been taken seriously or acknowledged as ridiculing an institution or a vice in society.

     The author’s digression in the middle of the review is long-winded but also interesting. It does reveal that people in the nineteenth-century were well read and appreciative of literature. For instance, this author refers to Renaissance authors like Shakespeare and Johnson, ancient authors like Plato and Sappho, and contemporary authors like Thackeray and Dickens with ease and confidence. There is no doubt that the author is well aware of theses authors and their works. Furthermore, this author can describe the various genres of literature like Epic, Romance, and Tragedy. This section further gives an account of how literature has evolved from the epic to the novel. Nevertheless, the article’s author asserts, because the novelist writes in an age after that of the classical poets and in the shadow of Shakespeare, he/she is faced with the challenge of writing for good intentions, or in other words, of being a conscience for society, and not merely to amuse an audience or to be a “humbug” (486). Thus, it seems that a novelist of the nineteenth century had the responsibility to instruct society as long as his/her message was acceptable, realistic, and moral. 

     Unlike other reviews about Jane Eyre this one does have a more positive and tolerant attitude towards the work. For instance, this review does not declare Bronte or Jane to be anti-Christian. In fact, the author is eager to read another book by Bronte as long as she can tone down her language and cease “to think of herself as Micaiah, and of society as Ahab” (487). While this author does not dismiss Bronte completely, he/she still reveals that many critics/readers during the eighteenth-century did have difficulty reading literature that might urge them to social action. For example, readers might have a problem with reading about Jane because she does climb in status by marrying Rochester, because she does have a hard, isolated life as a governess before Rochester proposes, and because she rejects St. John.

     The first article/cartoon “College for Governesses” reveals the importance of training young woman to be a governess. The image is of a young governess in training sitting nearby a “cantankerous” old woman. The young woman seems to be humble, obedient, and respectable as she looks downward and holds her hands together on her lap, perhaps imitating the old woman. Her appearance is simple as she wears a long, collared dress and perhaps a cap. In the background there are globes and in the front beneath the dog there is a book. These details emphasize the vast amount of knowledge a governess must have had especially as she would teach several subjects to children of varying ages. The room is only furnished with a table and a few chairs, revealing the poor and lowly state of governesses. The other young woman passing by in the background could be a servant because her head appears to be covered.  Thus, servants and governesses did not always get along or associate.   Overall, the tone of this image seems to be somber in order to display the serious nature of the governess and of the need to find impoverished, educated woman positions. Clearly, the governess is a major figure in Victorian literature. Thus, this article/cartoon goes along with the review because Jane is extremely obedient and lonely within Rochester's household before his proposal. 

     The second article/cartoon “A Model Governess” is clearly more of a contrast, for it is satirical and playful. Its combination of distorted/exaggerated figures and animals reveals how a governess would be pulled in every direction and used by everybody/taken advantage of by others. Some figures appear to be kings, horse riders, and goblins. They all seem to pursue or come to the aid of a female figure.  In Jane Eyre Jane is forced to submit to patriarchy and the scrutiny of wealthy people like the Reeds and Ingrams.  This article/cartoon reveals that the governess would have been torn in pieces by her situation.  For instance, the children might have rebelled against her or played tricks on her.  Young men and guests at the household may have tried to seduce her or get her in trouble. Thus, this article goes along with the review because it does ridicule Jane and her troubles as she struggles to find herself at Thornfield. 

 

 

 

 

 

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                Works Cited

 

 

Please be sure to cite reference works, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, scholarly articles, other 19th century sources, and other websites that you used in preparing this page.  In particular, it is extremely important to use quotation marks when copying material directly from another source, to provide a parenthetical citation to the source and relevant page number, and to include that source here.  If you do not know how/when to decide what to cite or how to format citations in MLA Style, please consult your instructor. [Please retain these directions.]

 

Barton, Edwin J. and Hudson, Glenda A.  A Contemporary Guide to Literary Terms with Strategies for Writing Essays About    

Literature.   New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997.

 

Dictionary.com. <Dictionary.reference.com>.

 

"Governesses Benevolent Institution." 23 Feb. 2008 <pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/janeeyre/governess.html>.

 

 Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes.  Warner Books, 1999.

 

"Kirby Lonsdale." 23 Feb. 2008 <lakedistrict.uk7.net/kirbylonsdale.html>.

 

Oxford English Dictionary. <dictionary.oed.com.ezproxy.emich.edu/entance.dtl>.

 

"Pecksniff." Charles Dickens Page. 23 Feb. 2008 <charlesdickenspage.com/char_n-q.html#P>.

 

"Squeers." Charles Dickens Page 23 Feb. 2008 <charlesdickenspage.com/char_r-s.html#s>.

 

Wikipedia. <Wikipedia.org>.

 

 

 

 

                For Additional Reading

 

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                Project Group Members

 

Member Name	University	Course
Kristena Stachura	Eastern Michigan University	Literature 565

 

 

 

 

 

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a novel written by the English novelist Lady Georgiana Fullerton in 1847. Lady Fullerton lived from 1812-1885.