|
From: Ellen Moody The anonymous reviewer who wrote in November
1811 in the Critical Review presents Elinor
has having great good sense and a proper quantity
of sensibility, while Marianne has good sense
but she lets her sense be overwhelmed by her
immoderate sensibility. Marianne is associated
with the word extravagance and by cherishing
a bad experience (Willoughby) almost destroys
herself; Elinor is said to have to subdue her
sensibilty with great effort, very painful, especially
since she is tender and patient with her sister.
The mother is said to be a woman of strong
sensibilities; though meaning to be sensible,
she fails her younger daughter badly.
We can observe that the word sensibility is used first
in the novel of Colonel Brandon (also said to
be a man with a thinking mind); then it is used
of Edward. Several times Elinor comments (ironically)
that Lucy is a person of good sense.
"Sense" and "sensibility" are highly complex words with
long histories. Their meanings intersect. In the 18th
century they took on charged associations, and when
Austen uses them, she means us to set the novel in
a tradition of novels where the chief heroine belongs to
a "cult of sensibility," the most famous exponent of
which was probably Rousseau's Heloise from his
novel of sensiblity called La Nouvelle Heloise. There
were novels with titles like The Man of Sensibility,
and we are told that sensibility is one of Brandon's
chief characteristics.
There is a chapter in William Empson's Complex
Words called Sense and Sensibility" in which he
traces the histories and uses of these two binary
yet intersecting words. The opening of Isobel
Armstrong's little Penguin book on S&S gives
us three pages of meditation on the pair. To sum
up the words is impossible, but one can point to
the most salient characteristics of each. A person
of sensibility could be called someone who is
unusually sensitive to the emotions and thoughts
of others; he or she is someone with a capacity
for a deeply imaginative response to impressions.
Such a person would like poetry, landscape, respond
deeply to changes in the seasons, to the
the arts and music, and is capable of great tact
to others (though Marianne is too egoistic to be
this way) and a discriminating response to a book. The
opposite of sensibility is insensible, the person
who is obtuse; Lydia Bennet is insensible in
many ways. Sensibility also denotes strong feelings;
it connotes a susceptibility to sexual
engagement and enthrallment. Anne Elliot
is a heroine of sensibility, so too Fanny Price.
They are, however, and especially Anne,
controlled by sense.
Sense covers the same territory as sensible (which
is not the opposite of insensible which means
obtuse or indifferent to the emotions of others,
or hard). A sensible person is one who may
have deep feelings (we are told Elinor has
an affectionate heart), but who controls them
through reason and judgement. Sense connects
up to common sense. The person who exemplifies
sense in their conduct draws back from the
immediate situation and tries to perceive the
truth of what's happening irrespective of
any immediate emotional reaction to impressions.
Thus Elinor stands back and asks questions
about Willoughby which her mother (who is
a sensibility figure) and sister do not. Sense
is not opposed to sensibility; it controls
it. The salient characteristic of sense is
sound judgement; Johnson called it strength
of natural reason. It also signifies moral
perception not based on personal delusions.
Sense does not exclude sensibility. Elinor
loves to draw; she is a passionate woman.
But she can control her emotions even
if it is a struggle for her. Both words should
be distinguished from the intense sexual
connotations of sensuousness, sensuality,
sensationality, and sensitivity. But it
is true that characters who are types of
sensibility are often alive to sensuousness,
sensuality, sensitivity and behave in
sensational self-indulgent ways, while
characters who are types of sense maintain
a distance from sensuousness, sensuality,
and sensitivity except in their dreams or
the arts (as when Jane Fairfax or Marianne
or Anne Elliot play music, or Fanny Price
sits in the landscape or looks at pictures
or reads). Thus heroines in Austen who
also exemplify sense include Anne Elliot
and Fanny Price (but not Jane Fairfax
for she has been enthralled and is not
using her judgement in an undeluded
way); other heroines of sense are
Elizabeth and Jane Bennet, Mary Crawford,
and both Emmas (Watson and
Woodhouse). Emma Woodhouse is a rare example
of a heroine who seems to have very little
sensibility.
For those reading S&S I cannot recommend
a better book than Isobel Armstrong's Penguin
volume called S&S. It is tiny, written
clearly, but does not simplify at all. Nor is
it tendentious or argumentative. It really brings
forth the content of this novel; Elizabeth Jenkins
chapter on the novel in her book is also
very very good. She conveys its inner deep
musing qualities. Finally Patricia Meyer
Spacks and Margaret Anne Doody both have
fine introductory essays on sex and
power and sex and money (centrally important in this book)
in paperback editions of the novel.
Ellen Moody
---
'It is not every one,' said Elinor, |