The Female Reader in the English Novel

From Burney to Austen

Joe Bray

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781134156139
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This book examines how reading is represented within the novels of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Contemporary accounts portrayed the female reader in particular as passive and impressionable; liable to identify dangerously with the world of her reading. This study shows that female characters are often active and critical readers, and develop a range of strategies for reading both texts and the world around them. The novels of Frances Burney, Charlotte Smith, Mary Hays, Elizabeth Inchbald, Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen (among others) reveal a diversity of reading practices, as how the heroine reads is often more important than what she reads. The book combines close stylistic analysis with a consideration of broader intellectual debates of the period, including changing attitudes towards sympathy, physiognomy and portraiture.

1
‘The Easy Communication of Sentiments’

Frances Burney, Charlotte Smith and the Complications of Sympathy

This chapter looks at the representation of reading in the work of Frances Burney and Charlotte Smith, two leading exponents of the novel of sensibility. It argues that the development of this sub-genre was heavily informed by the key eighteenth-century concept of ‘sympathy’, which increasingly could be used to describe the relationship between writer and reader, and an especially active kind of reading. Sympathetic reading, in the sense of sympathy implied by David Hume and other moral philosophers of the early to mid-eighteenth century, is a welcome source of sustenance for the heroine in Smith’s first two novels, Emmeline, or The Orphan of the Castle (1788) and Ethelinde, or The Recluse of the Lake (1789), and it is also an attractive, though not always achievable, ideal in the early novels of Burney. However, by the 1790s reading of this kind is frequently portrayed as complicated and fraught, and an alternative model of sympathy, derived from Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) begins to inspire portrayals of the reading process. Focusing particularly on Burney’s last two novels, Camilla, or a Picture of Youth (1796) and The Wanderer, or Female Difficulties (1814), this chapter demonstrates that this new theory of sympathetic reading, based on an ‘actor/spectator model’, while potentially beneficial for the heroine if exploited skilfully, could also lead to a dangerous form of over-identification and a lack of both critical and moral judgement.

Crucial to the development of the key eighteenth-century concept of sensibility is the activity of reading. John Mullan has shown how Samuel Richardson, a leading figure in the development of the ‘sentimental novel’, fostered a ‘society of readers and correspondents’ in order to try and control the traffic of ‘sentiments’, or ‘harmoniously organized feelings’ (1988:6, 7).¹ Following Richardson, he argues, novelists ‘were able to position each private reader as the exceptionable connoisseur of commendable sympathies, and to imply such a reader’s understanding of the communication of sentiments and the special capacities of sensibility’ (13). He claims that ‘it is as if the very form of the novel in the eighteenth century implied a contract, by the terms of which a reader was set apart from the anti-social vices or insensitivities which the novels were able to represent’ (13–14). For Markman Ellis, too, ‘an ideology of reading’ is ‘implicit to the culture of sensibility’ (1996:43). He observes that ‘periodicals like The Lady’s Magazine launched repeated attacks on the pernicious influence of novels on the virtue of young women, but it is important to realise that they did so alongside their own examples of sentimental fictions, excerpted and serial novels and enthusiastic reviews of fiction’ (47). Ellis suggests that in eighteenth-century discourse on the novel ‘reading and writing are privileged locations of women’s sentimental reformation’ (47), and indeed that ‘reading sentimental fiction, writers imagined, was an active participation in the reform of society’ (48).

One way of configuring this relationship, this ‘contract’ between writer and reader, is through another concept fundamental to eighteenth-century thought: ‘sympathy’. According to David Marshall, ‘eighteenth-century works of fiction, autobiography, autobiographical fiction, aesthetics, and moral philosophy often turn and return to the question of the effects of sympathy: the question of what happens when readers of novels, beholders of paintings, audiences in the theatre, or people in the world are faced with the spectacle of an accident, suffering, or danger’ (1988:1). Marshall shows how ‘the effects of sympathy, the problem of theatricality, and the power of fiction’ (7) are interconnected in the work of Marivaux, Diderot, Rousseau and others, and argues that ‘works of fiction of the period can be read as philosophical meditations on both the effects of sympathy and what was seen as the problematic experience of reading novels’ (5). Working on a slightly later period, Thomas J. McCarthy has demonstrated how the hermeneutics of Friedrich Schleiermacher, in particular his belief that ‘successful reading and understanding spring from sympathy’ (1997:33), influenced Romantic writers and critics. McCarthy draws especially on the criticism of Coleridge and Hazlitt in order to ‘illustrate the extent to which sympathy was a value in this period, both as a way of interacting and as a way of reading’ (33). For Coleridge, McCarthy notes, sympathy makes the reader into ‘an active creative being’, and ‘the “conversation” between interpreter and text [ … ] can happen only after a reader is transformed into a participant, a process which must “come from within,—from the moved and sympathetic imagination”’ (47). McCarthy concludes that ‘the belief that sympathetic participation in a work of art played a vital role in the creative process was widespread in Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries’ (50).

This Romantic conception of sympathy, as an active, creative ‘way of reading’, evolved from its more socially-oriented connotations. According to the leading moral philosophers of the early and mid-eighteenth century, sympathy is a ‘natural affection’ that depends on social intercourse. Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, for example, sets out to prove that ‘to have the natural affections (such as are founded in Love, Complacency, Good-will, and in a Sympathy with the Kind or Species) is to have the Chief Means and Power of Self-Enjoyment: and that to want them is Certain Misery and Ill’ (1711:99). He equates ‘human Sympathy’ with ‘social Affection’, and claims that it ‘affords a greater Enjoyment in the way of Thought and Sentiment, than any thing besides can do in a way of Sense and common Appetite’ (107). This is proof, for Shaftesbury, ‘how much the mental Enjoyments are actually the very natural Affections themselves’ (107). He argues further that ‘An Enjoyment of Good by Communication, A receiving it, as it were, by Reflection, or by way of Participation in the Good of others’ (107) forms a ‘considerable part’ of all human happiness:

It will be consider’d how many the Pleasures are, of sharing Contentment and Delight with others; of receiving it in Fellowship and Company; and gathering it, in a manner, from the pleas’d and happy States of those around us, from accounts and relations of such Happiness, from the very Countenances, Gestures, Voices and Sounds, even of Creatures foreign to our Kind, whose Signs of Joy and Contentment we can any way discern. So insinuating are these Pleasures of Sympathy, and so widely diffus’d thro our whole Lives, that there is hardly such a thing as Satisfaction or Contentment, of which they make not an essential part. (108)

For later philosophers, sympathy can involve a range of emotions, and does not have to mean simply ‘sharing Contentment and Delight’. The crucial point is that it is a social experience and takes us into the feelings of other people. Thus for Francis Hutcheson, sympathy is a ‘Publick or BENEVOLENT Desire’, which involves pursuing ‘what we apprehend advantageous to others, and do not apprehend advantageous to our selves, or do not pursue with this view’ (1728:13). He criticises followers of Epicurus, who maintain ‘that all our Desires are selfish’ (13), arguing that this runs contrary to the feelings of ‘Natural Affection, Friendship, Love of a Country, or Community, which many find strong in their Breasts’ (14). Even the most staunch defenders of Epicurus acknowledge, he claims, ‘a publick Sense in many Instances; especially in natural Affection, and Compassion’ by which ‘the Observation of the Happiness of others is made the necessary Occasion of Pleasure, and their Misery the Occasion of Pain to the Observer’ (14). According to Hutcheson:

That this Sympathy with others is the Effect of the Constitution of our Nature, and not brought upon our selves by any Choice, with view to any selfish Advantage, they must own: whatever Advantage there may be in Sympathy with the Fortunate, none can be alleged in Sympathy with the Distressed: And every one feels that this publick Sense will not leave his Heart, upon a change of the Fortunes of his Child or Friend; nor does it depend upon a Man’s Choice, whether he will be affected with their Fortunes or not. (14)

Hutcheson explains further that we have ‘publick Passions about the State of others, as to Happiness or Misery, abstractly from their Moral Qualities’ (71). Thus while ‘we naturally desire the absent Happiness of others; rejoice in it when obtained, and sorrow for it when lost’, we also, according to Hutcheson, ‘have Aversion to any impending Misery; we are sorrowful when it befals any Person, and rejoice when it is removed’ (71). When our ‘publick Affections’ are joined with ‘moral Perceptions of the Virtue or Vice of the Agents’ (72) they are strengthened still further. Hutcheson comments that ‘when Good appears attainable by a Person of Moral Dignity, our Desire of his Happiness, founded upon Esteem or Approbation, is much stronger than that supposed in the former Class’ (72), while ‘the Misfortune of such a Person raises stronger Sorrow, Pity, or Regret’ (72).

It is not difficult to see how these passions about the happiness or misery of others could be extended to fictional characters. Hutcheson notes ‘how unfit such Representations are in Tragedy, as make the perfectly Virtuous miserable in the highest degree’, since ‘they can only lead the Spectators into Distrust of Providence, Diffidence of Virtue’ (73). Equally, in his view, ‘the Success of evil Characters, by obtaining Good, or avoiding Evil, is an unfit Representation in Tragedy’, since it raises the ‘Passions of Sorrow, Distrust, and Suspicion’ (76). Hutcheson discusses specific examples of ‘mixed Characters’ who ‘come short of the highest Degrees either of Virtue or Vice’ (77), including Oedipus and Creon, declaring that ‘all Dramatick Performances, both Antient and Modern’ are capable of raising such ‘complicated Passions’ (77). His theory of passionate response is, however, not confined to drama; he claims that ‘when we form the Idea of a morally good Action, or see it represented in the Drama, or read it in Epicks or Romance, we feel a Desire arising of doing the like’ (69).

For David Hume, too, our sympathy can extend to fictional characters. In A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740) Hume urges the reader to ‘take a general survey of the universe, and observe the force of sympathy thro’ the whole animal creation, and the easy communication of sentiments from one thinking being to another’ (1978:363). According to Hume, Man is ‘the creature of the universe, who has the most ardent desire of society, and is fitted for it by the most advantages’; indeed he claims that ‘we can form no wish, which has not a reference to society’ (363). It follows for him that ‘whatever other passions we may be actuated by; pride, ambition, avarice, curiosity, revenge or lust; the soul or animating principle of them all is sympathy; nor wou’d they have any force, were we to abstract entirely from the thoughts and sentiments of others’ (363). He claims that ‘no quality of human nature is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequences, than that propensity we have to sympathise with others, and to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own’ (316). As David Mercer observes, in the Treatise Hume ‘thinks of sympathy primarily as the transference or communication of an emotion, sensation, or even an opinion from one individual to another’ (1972:21). Mercer characterises Hume’s notion of sympathy as ‘a kind of emotional infection’ (21), and ‘a kind of infectious fellow-feeling’ (36), and notes that ‘the equation between sympathy and infection or contagion runs as a distinct thread through the Treatise’ (36).

The importance of sympathy for Hume becomes even more apparent in Book III of the Treatise (Of Morals), where he argues that it ‘produces our sentiment of morals’ (577). He explains that

[ … ] moral distinctions arise, in a great measure, from the tendency of qualities and characters to the interests of society, and that ’tis our concern for that interest, which makes us approve or disapprove of them. Now we have no such extensive concern for society but from sympathy; and consequently ’tis that principle, which takes us so far out of ourselves, as to give us the same pleasure or uneasiness in the characters of others, as if they had a tendency to our own advantage or loss. (579)

For Hume it is this ability to ‘take us [ … ] out of ourselves’ which ties sympathy so closely to moral virtue. He claims that

’tis impossible we cou’d ever converse together on any reasonable terms, were each of us to consider characters and persons, only as they appear from his peculiar point of view. In order, therefore, to prevent those continual contradictions, and arrive at a more stable judgement of things, we fix on some steady and general points of view; and always, in our thoughts, place ourselves in them, whatever may be our present situation. (581–582)

Hume thus rejects the idea that moral judgements are based on our ‘nearness or remoteness’ (582) to the person being judged. Instead he argues that ‘we over-look our own interest in those general judgements’ and ‘consider not whether the persons, affected by the qualities, be our acquaintance or strangers, countrymen or foreigners’ (582). It is vital for Hume that men ‘choose some common point of view, from which they might survey their object, and which might cause it to appear the same to all of them’ (591), since this will mean that ‘in judging of characters, the only interest or pleasure, which appears the same to every spectator, is that of the person himself, whose character is examin’d’ (591). This need for a ‘common point of view’ extends to the examination of ‘characters’ we have not met. Thus although ‘our servant, if diligent and faithful, may excite stronger sentiments of love and kindness than Marcus Brutus, as represented in history’, we do not say, according to Hume, ‘that the former is more laudable than the latter’ (582). He asserts that ‘experience soon teaches us this method of correcting our sentiments’, since ‘’twere impossible we cou’d ever make use of language, or communicate our sentiments to one another, did we not correct the momentary appearances of things, and overlook our present situation’ (582). Similarly, Hume argues that as long as we conform to ‘our calm and general principles’, we ‘blame equally a bad action, which we read of in history, with one perform’d in our neighbourhood t’other day’ (584).

For Hume then, sympathy is both ‘a very powerful principle in human nature’ and ‘the chief source of moral distinctions’ (618). It involves ‘the easy communication of sentiments from one thinking being to another’, and enables us to make ‘moral distinctions’ by ‘tak[ing] us so far out of ourselves’ and leading us to a ‘common point of view’. In Mercer’s words, sympathy is for Hume ‘the medium of moral judgement’ (45). The adoption of ‘steady and general points of view’ means that our judgement can extend to characters we read about as well as those we have met; whether these be historical or fictional. Indeed this is not a distinction that bothers Hume; in an early section of the Treatise he argues that ‘if one person sits down to read a book as a romance, and another as a true history, they plainly receive the same ideas, and in the same order; nor does the incredulity of the one, and the belief of the other hinder them from putting the very same sense upon their author’ (97–98). Reading is thus for Hume a potential site of sympathetic exchange and moral judgement; it has the ability to take us ‘out of ourselves’ and enable us to ‘arrive at a more stable judgement of things’.

Hume’s notion of sympathy as ‘infectious fellow-feeling’ informs depictions of reading in the novel of sensibility. In Frances Burney’s first novel, Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World (1778), for example, reading is able to evoke an ‘easy communication of sentiments’. In answer to some facetious Lords who are pestering the heroine, her mentor Mrs Selwyn reveals that Evelina passes her time in ‘“a manner that your Lordship will think very extraordinary [ … ] for the young Lady reads”’ (1968:275). Though few details are given throughout the novel of Evelina’s reading matter, and she is rarely shown reading, part of Lord Orville’s courtship involves their reading together:

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Table of contents

• Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 ‘The Easy Communication of Sentiments’
• 2 ‘Reading Responsive Emotions’
• 3 Elizabeth Inchbald
• 4 Comparing ‘Likeness’ with ‘Likeness’
• 5 ‘Absorbed Attention’
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index