Weekly Response Eight

“But that appreciation, no matter how intense, was always combined with an intellectual distance connected to the manner in which I had acquired this new competence, that is, in school classrooms and under the sway of authoritative experts. As a consequence, my new tastes somehow failed to duplicate precisely the passion of my response to those other, suspect, supposedly transparent, popular books. Those books prompted physical sensations, a forgetting of the self and complete absorption in another world. The books that came to me as high culture never seemed to prompt the particular shudder, the frisson I associated with the books of my childhood, because they carried with them not mere promise alone but also a threat, the threat that somehow I might fail to understand, might fail to recognize their reputed meaning and inherent worth. I developed, as a consequence, an aloof, somewhat puzzled relationship to ‘Literature’ and to the ways of reading required and rewarded in my graduate seminar.”

            - Radway, A Feeling for Books, “Introduction” Page 3-4

"Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved."

"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

"I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any."

            - Pride and Prejudice Page 76

Question: Did Jane Austen purposefully create Lizzy as an avid reader, although more middle-class, in comparison to Miss Caroline Bingley, who comes from a higher ranking family, yet has no interest in any kind of reading?

I can feel a strong relation to Radway’s statement about canonized, “real” literature in opposition to the “popular” books of our time. What is considered “classical literature” has interested me; I have been intrigued by the stories being told, the way they’re being told, and what exactly marks them as worthy of the praise that they have been given, but at the same time, it doesn’t hit me as hard as some of the popular books of today.

I think it’s important the Miss Bingley has no real affiliation with literature at all, especially because of the importance Darcy places upon reading. This further shows that Lizzy’s intellect ranks higher than that of Miss Bingley. Miss Bingley’s personality proves to be one of a more shallow substance than that of Lizzy’s, and I’m forced to wonder how strongly Austen believes that the interest in literature connects to this. It could almost be inferred that Miss Bingley would be more interested in the “supposedly transparent” popular books, although I’m not sure how books like that appeared in this time period. Regardless, the way the two women’s intellect is portrayed, it seems like Miss Bingley would be more inclined to take no interest in the more “complex” literature.