Dear Woolfians,<br><br>Thank you so much for your thoughtful responses to my quick email. There's a lovely reference to Trollope as, with Jane Austen, a rare novelist who can convey being and non-being in MB (70). <br>
<br>And it looks to me like the most extensive commentary she made on Trollope was probably the couple paragraphs in 'Phases of Fiction' (1929).<br><br>Back to crafting this all into a tiny little note. <br><br>Thanks again for being such a helpful community!<br>
<br>Anne<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 9:30 PM, Emily Kopley <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ekopley@stanford.edu" target="_blank">ekopley@stanford.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Hi Anne, Harish, and All,<br><br> Woolf elaborated on that line from "The Novels of George Meredith" in the manuscript draft of "A Letter to a Young Poet." She writes, in my transcription:<br><br>
<p class="MsoNormal">...the two most perfect novels in the English language are
undoubtedly <s>that </s>Emma, + The Small House at Allington for one is wed[?] to the definite even if, as so often happens, <s>one
has to qualify the opinions in six months time</s>. this is an opinion that
needs qualification. And why is this? Because each does fully + completely what
the novel was meant to do. <s>By this I mean</s> that <s>the</s> the characters
in both of those books are wholly in being. <s>The author has nothing to add to
their sayings Nothing remains outside them</s></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">They take the whole burden of the book upon themselves. <s>No</s>
Its lights, its shadows, its wit, humour, tragedy, common sense, come[?],
soundly + completely, without distortion, dilution, effort or exaggeration from
the life of the men + women; <s>who live there</s> who are the inhabitants of
the book, + nothing is left over for Jane Austen or Anthony Trollope to explain
in her or his own person. The novel, I repeat, <s>was adapted for this end;
this</s> that I repeat was what the novel was meant to do,<span> </span>for all its characteristics were
adapted to create characters who are capable of <s>an</s> this rounded
independent existence.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At any rate, both these books <s>fulfil my the</s> stand the
test which, mentally, one applies to works of art. [end of quote]</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal">We see that here VW esteems <i>Emma </i>instead of <i>Pride+Prejudice</i>, and justifies her claim about "the most perfect novels in English": <i>Emma</i> + <i>Allington </i>allow the characters to dominate because they lack intrusions from the author figure. She goes on to say that George Eliot served as the serpent in this edenic garden of the novel, by introducing the narrator's voice and thought. "Novels became less + less in the hands of the characters
themselves," she writes. So, we might say that VW admired Trollope's birthing of characters with a "rounded independent existence" even as she recognized the need for novelists after him to advance upon the character-driven realism that he had mastered. (Yet the question remains of how VW distinguished Trollope's perfection from Austen's, since clearly she admired Austen more.)<br>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal">Best,</p><p class="MsoNormal">Emily<br></p>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im">On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 2:32 PM, Harish Trivedi <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:harish.trivedi@gmail.com" target="_blank">harish.trivedi@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div class="h5">
<div> </div><div>Well, yes, there is a little problem there! But VW's view of Trollope was a bit more complicated than that perhaps. </div><div> </div><div>Leslie Stephen, who had known Trollope, thought he looked like 'the ideal beef-eater' who could bring the roof down with his boisterous laughter. VW read <i>Barchester Towers</i> early, in 1897. She later wrote: 'We believe in Barchester as we believe in the reality of our own weekly bills.' But that wasn't of course a compliment; just for that reason, his 'two and thirty chapters' never took off. Must novels be like this, she seemed to have asked of just such novels. </div>
<div> </div><div>But then, there's also a surprisingly positive assessment, even if as an obiter dictum. She did say that <i>The Small House at Allington</i> and <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> were 'those two perfect novels.' ('The Novels of George Meredith,' 1928) One wishes she had explained fully why she mentioned the two in the same breath. The only hint we seem to have is that 'perfect' though those two novels may have been in their own way, Meredith was to be lauded for breaking away from that mould of perfection. 'English fiction had to escape from the dominon of that perfection...if fiction had remained what it was to Jane Austen and Trollope, fiction would by this time be dead.' </div>
<div> </div><div>But then, again: 'How admirable it all is -- but not symbolized -- therefore peters out -- dribbles away.' (Reading notes on The Small House...) </div><div> </div><div>So, it is a bit more complex than VW simply not liking Trollope. </div>
<div> </div><div>Best wishes.</div><div>Harish Trivedi </div><div> </div><div> <br><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div>On 8 January 2013 00:16, ANNE Fernald [Staff/Faculty [A&S]] <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:fernald@fordham.edu" target="_blank">fernald@fordham.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote"><div><div>Good afternoon, Woolfians,<br>
<br>I'm combing through the final bits and bobs of my edition of Mrs. Dalloway and I think I've found the source for "a look of John Burrows" (thanks to the Oxford database of all its reference books, as multiple other tries ended up blank): <br>
<br>It turns out that
<span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12pt">in Trollope’s <i>The Vicar of Bullhampton</i>
(1870), John Burrows is a notorious jailbird, also called ‘Jack the Grinder’,
who is convicted of the murder of Farmer Trumbull.</span>
<br><br>So, that seems right--a good shorthand way to indicate someone looks like a career criminal while at the same time remaining in the bounds of what one could say in Clarissa's drawing room.<br><br>That's the treat. Now, my query: does anyone have anything clever, relevant, or interesting to add about Woolf on Trollope? I'd be most grateful for your thoughts. Her words on him are few and I'm not turning up much of enough significance to add to the footnote, except to say---what? She knew his work but didn't particularly admire it? Well, duh....<br>
<br>All best to you in the New Year,<br><br>Anne<span><font color="#888888"><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div><span style="font-family:sans-serif"><a href="http://www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/english/faculty/english_faculty/anne_fernald_28537.asp" target="_blank">Anne E. Fernald</a></span><br>
<span style="font-family:sans-serif">Director of Writing/Composition at Lincoln Center,</span><br><span style="font-family:sans-serif">Associate Professor of <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/english/index.asp" target="_blank">English</a> and <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/womens_studies" target="_blank">Women's Studies</a></span><br>
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</font><span style="font-family:sans-serif"><a href="tel:212%2F636-7613" value="+12126367613" target="_blank">212/636-7613</a></span><br><a style="font-family:sans-serif" href="mailto:fernald@fordham.edu" target="_blank">fernald@fordham.edu</a><br>
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<span style="font-family:sans-serif">Director of Writing/Composition at Lincoln Center,</span><br><span style="font-family:sans-serif">Associate Professor of <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/english/index.asp" target="_blank">English</a> and <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/womens_studies" target="_blank">Women's Studies</a></span><br>
<span style="font-family:sans-serif">Fordham University</span><br><span style="font-family:sans-serif">113 W 60th St.</span><br><span style="font-family:sans-serif">New York NY 10023</span><br><font face="sans-serif"><br>
</font><span style="font-family:sans-serif">212/636-7613</span><br><a href="mailto:fernald@fordham.edu" style="font-family:sans-serif" target="_blank">fernald@fordham.edu</a><br><br></div><span></span>