November 20, 2008

Main point:

     Today in class we focused largely on what was important or unimportant to Radcliffe in the novel.  She cares about the description in her novel as a means of creating verbal pictures to convey images of the sublime.  She likewise uses poetry throughout the novel to set the mood and tone.  We looked at the poem on page 42-43 and how the poem did not advance the plot but set the mood.  It prepares readers for the appearance of Hippolitus.  On the other hand, Radcliffe pays little attention to a comprehensive and intricate plot like Fielding.  Characters that Radcliffe has little invested in are presented as economically as possible.  For instance, Ferdinand pops up throughout the novel with little if any explanation of how he arrived.  On page 143 Radcliffe says that Ferdinand escaped imprisonment but does not detail how he escapes like she does with Julia’s escape.  Radcliffe also neglects to depict major action scenes, such as page 165.  She is not confident that she can describe such intricate scenes so side steps them with 3^rd person narration.

     The second portion of class focused on how Radcliffe organized her novel around doubling and circularity.  In doubling Radcliffe creates two characters that are very similar and uses their similarities to shed light on their dissimilarities.  Examples of doubling included Cornelia and Julia, Marquise and Abate, Madame de Menon and Louisa Bernini.  In circularity Radcliffe creates a novel with a series of escapes that repeats itself as the plot repeats itself.  Julia escapes the castle only to return back to it at the very end.  This cycle mimics the cycle female characters face in which they must liberate their mother in order to liberate themselves.

     Finally the end of class centered on how Maria de Vellorno is the odd woman out in the novel.  Radcliffe shows the other women band together as a means of combating patriarchy.  However, Maria is a free agent, betraying both men and women in her schemes.  She is the only character with a sexual drive and she is depicted as a monster.  Radcliffe shows through Julia and Hippolitus that the acceptable channel for sexuality is children. 

Close Reading #1:

In class today, we talked about how Radcliffe uses poetry in the novel, oftentimes to create an image with words of the sublime.  She forms a description of the picturesque.  We looked at pages 42-43, where Julia sings the ode “Evening”.  Radcliffe uses this poem to slow down the pace of the novel.  The ode is not about plot advancement; instead, it is meant to set the tone for the story.  Although it is tempting to jump over the poem to continue with the plot of the novel, Radcliffe is very interested in the setting and mood of the story, and she wants for her readers to feel the state she is creating with the poetry.  She is engaging all of the senses of the reader with this poem; it is a very descriptive piece.  With the first 8 stanzas, the poem is largely concerned with images.  It describes sight in much the same way the rest of the book does, where the colors fade out and just the outline is left (“Twilight and grey obscurity pervade”).  This obscurity of fuzzy outlines is an important feature of the sublime.  In the last 3 stanzas, the poem focuses on sound (“Low whisp’ring echoes steal along the glades / And thrill the ear with wildly pleasing fear”).  This idea of fear as a source of pleasure is also an important condition in feeling the sublime.  The whole poem is a sensory experience.  Julia puts herself into a trance, and then her lover appears.  Radcliffe suggests that she has earned the right to have her lover by first meditating on the scene around her.  So we, as readers, must also earn the right to the rest of the story by meditating on the scene that Radcliffe has set with poetry.

Close Reading #2:

Another passage we looked at in class today is on page 129, where the narrator is describing the Abate’s reaction to the letter he receives from Julia’s father which threatens the use of force if the Abate will not give Julia up to him.  When Madame de Menon goes in to see the Abate, the narrator describes that, “His countenance was pale with anger, and he was pacing the room with slow but agitated steps.  The stern authority of his look startled her” (129).  This description of the Abate portrays him much like Julia’s father.  He is also a tyrannical patriarch who holds control over Julia and attempts to force her to do things against her will.  The manner in which Radcliffe describes the Abate is typical of her descriptions of the secondary characters in her novel.  Rather than describing internal features, she describes external ones.  Internal feelings are written on the outside (his countenance expresses anger and his look expresses authority and sternness).  His proud and vindictive rage against Julia’s father for suggesting that paternal authority is greater than church authority is impressed on his face, by its “pale” appearance.  His steps also reveal his agitation.  The feelings of the characters in the novel are not hidden inside and only suggested at by the narrator; instead, they are evidenced by the outward expressions of the characters.  

Textual Referent:

One of the sources for Radcliffe’s Hippolitus is Euripides’ play Hippolytus.  Euripides’ character dedicates himself to the goddess Athena, pledging a life of chastity.  Consequently, Aphrodite wishes to punish him because of his lack of devotion to her and causes his step-mother, Phaedra, to fall in love with him.  Since Phaedra is unable to fulfill her sexual desire, she commits suicide and leaves a note claiming that Hippolytus has raped him. Consequently, Hippolytus is cursed by father, Theseus, and dies at the end of the play.  Although Radcliffe’s Hippolitus does not die, his relationships with Marian and Julia roughly follow that of Euripides’ Hippolytus.  He has the unwanted love of Maria, which causes complication in the novel.  Maria does eventually commit suicide, but instead of causing the death of Hippolitus she poisons the marquis.  Also, his relationship with Julia is marked by a lack of sexual passion.  Their interactions throughout the novel appear more filial than sexual. 

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/hippolytus.html

Online text for the play: http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/hippolytus.html