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Class & Austen (with a side of Godwin)
Apr. 26th, 2024 11:35 amI've been thinking about ways in which Austen criticism has often fallen down wrt class analysis. Back in the 90s Julia Prewitt Brown wrote a "review" that is actually a guided tour through the failings of feminist analysis of Austen due to many things, but one of them was a failure of substantive class analysis in terms of gender. But I still see a lot of what she was talking about in both academia and more fandom or pop culture oriented interpretations—I'm inclined to think particularly when it comes from a contemporary US perspective.
I have way more thoughts about this than I have time to articulate, but I think US fans and academics in particular (though not exclusively) struggle to understand class in Austen's novels or other literature of the time in a way that is not simplified and enormously dependent on largely unfamiliar formal or legal categories rather than complex, sometimes contradictory or unpredictable, highly, highly striated structures that a quick consult of population breakdowns or tables of precedence is not going to explain. And at the same time, I think we (speaking as a US American!) often focus on the more (to us) exotic elements of 18th and early 19th-century British class dynamics rather than analyzing those dynamics in terms of class interests. These interests aren't purely financial (the understanding of class priorities purely in direct financial terms also seems very much a US perspective on it—maybe not exclusively again, idk).
Easy example, but: analysis of class in P&P tends to focus overwhelmingly on questions of exact legal status, precedence and large-scale categories (military, clergy, gentry, upper vs lower servants...), and reported income. And those things matter, for sure. But this tends to neglect how the characters perceive their own class interests (and how accurate their perception may or may not be), who their "natural" allies are, what larger social structures they benefit from or fail to benefit from (again, not only financially, though also that), their conflicts and alliances. Anne de Bourgh and Charlotte Lucas likely have either the same or quite similar ranks in formalized terms before Charlotte's marriage (as daughters of knights*) and are just about exact contemporaries, but the class structures around them are very different in ways that extend even beyond Anne's vast inheritance and Charlotte's lack of one. The image of Charlotte standing in the cold wind while a closely supervised Anne talks at her from her phaeton without any awareness of Charlotte's possible discomfort makes this seem especially stark.
This is even more glaringly apparent in something like William Godwin's Caleb Williams, in which the terrifying, relentless extent of aristocratic power over common people is represented by a country squire with six thousand a year. Legally that squire, Falkland, is no less a commoner than Caleb himself (relatedly, every member of the extended Fitzwilliam family appearing in P&P are also legally commoners). But that doesn't tell you anything about the sheer degree of power afforded Falkland and what six thousand a year signifies beyond direct buying power (that is very wealthy for the country gentry of the 1790s; it turns out a major part of his income, significantly, derives from slave plantations rather than his property in England; moreover, Falkland is able to bring power to bear everywhere Caleb goes in a way that only partly involves direct purchases).
I do seriously have to go write other things, but I wanted to get some part of this out of my head before I forget.
*Anne de Bourgh could be the daughter of a baronet rather than a knight, and thus higher-ranking than Charlotte in terms of strict precedence, but a) the distinction in precedence is so unimportant to understanding what she represents in class terms that we aren't told, and b) Sir Lewis is more likely to have been a knight than baronet IMO from what contextual information we do have.
I have way more thoughts about this than I have time to articulate, but I think US fans and academics in particular (though not exclusively) struggle to understand class in Austen's novels or other literature of the time in a way that is not simplified and enormously dependent on largely unfamiliar formal or legal categories rather than complex, sometimes contradictory or unpredictable, highly, highly striated structures that a quick consult of population breakdowns or tables of precedence is not going to explain. And at the same time, I think we (speaking as a US American!) often focus on the more (to us) exotic elements of 18th and early 19th-century British class dynamics rather than analyzing those dynamics in terms of class interests. These interests aren't purely financial (the understanding of class priorities purely in direct financial terms also seems very much a US perspective on it—maybe not exclusively again, idk).
Easy example, but: analysis of class in P&P tends to focus overwhelmingly on questions of exact legal status, precedence and large-scale categories (military, clergy, gentry, upper vs lower servants...), and reported income. And those things matter, for sure. But this tends to neglect how the characters perceive their own class interests (and how accurate their perception may or may not be), who their "natural" allies are, what larger social structures they benefit from or fail to benefit from (again, not only financially, though also that), their conflicts and alliances. Anne de Bourgh and Charlotte Lucas likely have either the same or quite similar ranks in formalized terms before Charlotte's marriage (as daughters of knights*) and are just about exact contemporaries, but the class structures around them are very different in ways that extend even beyond Anne's vast inheritance and Charlotte's lack of one. The image of Charlotte standing in the cold wind while a closely supervised Anne talks at her from her phaeton without any awareness of Charlotte's possible discomfort makes this seem especially stark.
This is even more glaringly apparent in something like William Godwin's Caleb Williams, in which the terrifying, relentless extent of aristocratic power over common people is represented by a country squire with six thousand a year. Legally that squire, Falkland, is no less a commoner than Caleb himself (relatedly, every member of the extended Fitzwilliam family appearing in P&P are also legally commoners). But that doesn't tell you anything about the sheer degree of power afforded Falkland and what six thousand a year signifies beyond direct buying power (that is very wealthy for the country gentry of the 1790s; it turns out a major part of his income, significantly, derives from slave plantations rather than his property in England; moreover, Falkland is able to bring power to bear everywhere Caleb goes in a way that only partly involves direct purchases).
I do seriously have to go write other things, but I wanted to get some part of this out of my head before I forget.
*Anne de Bourgh could be the daughter of a baronet rather than a knight, and thus higher-ranking than Charlotte in terms of strict precedence, but a) the distinction in precedence is so unimportant to understanding what she represents in class terms that we aren't told, and b) Sir Lewis is more likely to have been a knight than baronet IMO from what contextual information we do have.
