[crosspost] P&P as fanfic
Feb. 16th, 2019 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineI vagueblogged at Tumblr:
If P&P were to be considered fanfic, it'd be closest to Much Ado About Nothing crossed with Burney's Evelina/Cecilia (not just Cecilia!!!).
The odd thing about the Much Ado/P&P parallels is that people have been noticing them FOREVER. As in, within a month of P&P's publication. But it gets weirdly dismissed at the same time. I think of it as more of a Clueless-style (for the 1790s/1810s) adaptation than fic per se, but once you drill down to the basic structure it's ... there's so much that aligns.
This is not remotely a criticism of Austen, btw. I think P&P improves on Much Ado tbh. In particular, I think that doubling the Hero/Claudio plot and demoting both of those to subplots while lifting her alt!Beatrice to lead role in the A-plot were A++ decisions.
(I just re-read Much Ado for yet another class and my conviction in this was only affirmed. I should really transcribe the thing about it.)
WRT Evelina, while Elizabeth owes a lot (a LOT) to The Beatrice Tradition, and almost certainly (per above) to Beatrice herself, there is so much with Darcy that's playing around with Orville. And generally, if you dial Evelina's melodrama down there there's a lot that's similar in the wider dynamics of the novel (in fairness, dialing down the melodrama in Evelina takes a lot of dialing, but still).
If P&P were to be considered fanfic, it'd be closest to Much Ado About Nothing crossed with Burney's Evelina/Cecilia (not just Cecilia!!!).
The odd thing about the Much Ado/P&P parallels is that people have been noticing them FOREVER. As in, within a month of P&P's publication. But it gets weirdly dismissed at the same time. I think of it as more of a Clueless-style (for the 1790s/1810s) adaptation than fic per se, but once you drill down to the basic structure it's ... there's so much that aligns.
This is not remotely a criticism of Austen, btw. I think P&P improves on Much Ado tbh. In particular, I think that doubling the Hero/Claudio plot and demoting both of those to subplots while lifting her alt!Beatrice to lead role in the A-plot were A++ decisions.
(I just re-read Much Ado for yet another class and my conviction in this was only affirmed. I should really transcribe the thing about it.)
WRT Evelina, while Elizabeth owes a lot (a LOT) to The Beatrice Tradition, and almost certainly (per above) to Beatrice herself, there is so much with Darcy that's playing around with Orville. And generally, if you dial Evelina's melodrama down there there's a lot that's similar in the wider dynamics of the novel (in fairness, dialing down the melodrama in Evelina takes a lot of dialing, but still).