PCA Romance Panel 7: Romancing Vampires: Toothsome Heroes and Happy Endings

On this panel were Haley Stokes, Brent Gibson and Kat Schroeder. Jessica has "disabled comments on this post deliberately."

PCA Romance Panel 3: Nora Roberts: Food, Community, and Voice

Jessica's notes about this session are now available. The presenters were Tessa Kostelc, Glinda Hall, and An Goris.

Jessica's notes about An's paper mention the

Connected book format –which had been new in early 1990s, shift in genre and its publication practices

Genre of romance seems at first resistant to connected series, since each novel has a definitive ending [...] Roberts’ first use of connected books format was in 1985, 4 books about MacGregor siblings for Silhouette.

In fact, Mills & Boon had already published Mary Burchell's Warrender series, which began in 1965 with A Song Begins. Connected romances can also be found in the oeuvre of Georgette Heyer who is, of course, a highly influential figure in the genre and one of whom Nora Roberts is very well aware: Roberts has written that "Georgette Heyer has given me such great pleasure over the years in my reading, and rereading, of her stories. [...] I have Georgette Heyer's books in every room of my house." (i). As mentioned at Georgette-Heyer.com

Although Heyer didn't really write 'series', there are a few books that are linked by common characters. These are These Old Shades [1926] with Léonie and Justin parenting Dominic in Devil's Cub [1932] and Dominic and Mary are the grand-parents of Barbara in An Infamous Army [1937]. [...] In addition, the characters from Regency Buck [1935] are also featured in An Infamous Army. [...] her first novel, The Black Moth [1921] was revisited in These Old Shades. As Hodge says in the bio, "Devil Andover from The Black Moth has suffered a sea change into the wicked Duke of Avon (known as Satanas to his friends)."

An Infamous Army thus creates a cross-over between the books about two separate families.

Jessica added that "Sarah Frantz asks the first question, noting that it was in fact Sam and Alyssa, Suzanne Brockman’s characters, who first began their courtship in a book in which they don’t have their HEA." This made me think of Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire and Palliser novels. They're not strictly romances, but they do contain plenty of romance elements because Trollope apparently believed that "a novel can hardly be made interesting or successful without love" (Polhemus 383). Trollope's two series do eventually cross over, and in Phineas Finn in the Palliser series we can find Phineas beginning a romantic relationship that eventually concludes in Phineas Redux.

Can anyone else think of more examples of

• early romance series
• cross-overs between series
• characters whose courtships begin in one book in a series and end in a later one?

---

• Polhemus, Robert M. "Being in Love in Phineas Finn/Phineas Redux: Desire, Devotion, Consolation." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 37.3 (1982): 383-395.
• Roberts, Nora. Foreword. Frederica. By Georgette Heyer. Don Mills, Ontario: Harlequin, 2000. i-iv.
  

Love is "Woman's Whole Existence"?

Laura Vivanco

I recently came across some blog posts about polyamory at Feministe. In one of these Eleanor Sauvage stated that "The problem with many of our contemporary relationships is that we’re meant to be everything to another person: to fulfill all and every need" and in another linked post, Frau Sally Benz elaborated on this:

at the heart of nonmonogamy is we believe it’s impractical to assume that one person can be everything for another person. I personally think a lot of relationships have problems when you expect your partner to completely fulfill you mentally, emotionally, sexually, physically, and spiritually. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I think a lot of the time, people view love as their search for The One – the person who is 100% compatible with you, your perfect match.

Judging by what Julia writes in Byron's Don Juan, the idea that a romantic relationship should fill one's life to the exclusion of all else is hardly new, at least not for women:

Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,

'Tis woman's whole existence; man may range

The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart;

Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange

Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart,

And few there are whom these cannot estrange;

Men have all these resources, we but one,

To love again, and be again undone. (Canto I, verse CXCIV)

I'd like to look very briefly at what the romance genre has to say about monogamy and the idea that a romantic relationship could or should form a "woman's whole existence."

According to the RWA's definition of romance one of the two basic elements which make up every romance is "A Central Love Story: The main plot centers around two individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work." This element, as defined by the RWA, can, I think, be broken down into various parts

• "two individuals" - Admittedly there are some more recent romances which include more than two individuals in the central relationship, but those are relatively rare in the genre as a whole.
• "falling in love" - It may sound like stating the obvious, but these novels deal with a particular kind of love, the kind one "falls" into. The central couple are not two people who fall into friendship with each other, nor is the "central love story" in a romance going to be about the love of a parent for a newborn baby. Romances deal with relationships that have a sexual component, even if the sexual attraction between the individuals is never expressed explicitly in physical terms during the course of the novel.
• "struggling to" - The struggle may be the result of external factors which keep the central couple apart, but perhaps one may also get the impression from this wording that all relationships require some adjustment of the part of the individuals involved. The path of true love tends not to run smooth for both external and internal reasons.
• "make the relationship work" - This is very closely related to the previous point, but the wording does, it seems to me, hint that relationships require something to make them "work."

So how many people can there be in the central relationship in a romance? What is it that distinguishes their love from other kinds of love? Does the love between the individuals in the central relationship exclude other kinds of love and relationships? Why do they need to struggle? Do relationships require work? And, finally, does the romance genre present monogamous relationships as completely fulfilling the protagonists, "mentally, emotionally, sexually, physically, and spiritually"?

Those are far too many questions for me to attempt to answer in just one blog post, so I'll just take a quick look at the last one. It has been argued that some secular romances presented readers with a heroine who

is set in a social limbo: her family is dead or invisible, her friends are few or none, her occupational milieu is only vaguely filled in. As a result, her meeting with the hero occurs in a private realm which excludes all concerns but their mutual attraction; the rest of the world drops away except as a backdrop. (Jones 198)

In a romance of this type, it probably would be fair to say that the hero meets almost all of the heroine's mental, emotional, sexual, physical and spiritual needs. He may care for her, feed her, understand her sexual needs better than she does herself and provide a focus for her intellectual life (since she spends much of her time trying to understand him). It should be noted, however, that Jones was writing only about a small number of Mills & Boon romances from the early 1980s, and that she herself found some which seemed to open up the heroine's world to give her horizons which stretched beyond the hero.

As far as sexual needs are concerned, however, it's probably uncontroversial to state that in most romances, past and present, the central couple would be expected to find fulfillment for all of their sexual needs within their monogamous relationship. The situation is rather different when one looks at other needs.

As far as spirituality is concerned, Barrett states that "in Christian romance novels [...] God enter[s] this union, making it, for Christian women, ideal. This triad—God, man, and woman—forms the Christian marriage." Inspirational romances, then, present marriage as a relationship involving three individuals, two of whom are in a sexual relationship, and the third of whom supports the other two mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Sexual monogamy does not preclude the creation of a "triad" to fulfill other needs.

Many modern romance heroines and heroes have family and friends who provide emotional and mental support, and although many romance heroines still seem to have a rather magical ability to heal the hero's emotional trauma, in some novels, including Janice Kay Johnson's Snowbound, someone else may help to meet these needs.

Heroines, as well as heroes, often have careers and hobbies which provide intellectual stimulation that the central relationship cannot provide. AAR's Jean Wan recently commented that

Art is possessive and artists are obsessive and for many of them, love and art are mutually exclusive. When I encounter artists, musicians, actors, and such in romance novels, I often wonder how likely it is that characters of such creative brilliance can find equilibrium between their soul mate and their artistic soul. Many books never address this issue because the characters are given talented proficiency rather than brilliance, which is fair enough; few people are brilliant in real life.

As she observes, in addition to depicting characters who derive emotional or intellectual pleasure and stimulation from pursuits outside the central relationship, there are some romances which deal with characters for whom their art can perhaps be thought of as a third party in any relationship they form, and those romances, although rare, suggest that this can be made to work.

I'd also argue that there's an extra-textual dimension to the romance genre which reaffirms that the reader has individual needs which can be met outside a monogamous relationship with a spouse or partner. Barrett observes that

Since Christian novels are resolved in the always-loving nature of God, the reader, too, finally experiences God’s love when she puts her book down, as woman after woman testified during our discussions of reading.

The testimony of readers who spoke to Janice Radway confirms that secular readers, too, find that reading can fulfil needs that are not met elsewhere: "romance reading was important to the Smithton women [...] because the simple event of picking up a book enabled them to deal with the particular pressures and tensions encountered in their daily round of activities" (86). Of course, different readers will read for different reasons, but reading clearly does offer something to readers which other activities, and other relationships, do not provide. Interestingly, Dot revealed to Radway that some husbands considered books a threat to their monogamous relationship with their wives: "I think men do feel threatened. They want their wife to be in the room with them. And I think my body is in the room but the rest of me is not (when I am reading)" (87).

Romance reading, then, both intra-texually and extra-textually, can undermine the idea that the ideal monogamous relationship should meet both partners' "mental[..] emotional[...], sexual[...], physical[...], and spiritual[...]" needs. Instead it seems to me that most romances, while insisting that monogamous relationships can meet all of an individual's sexual needs, affirm that it is healthy and desirable for individuals to also have other relationships and interests.

• Barrett, Rebecca Kaye. "Higher Love: What Women Gain from Christian Romance Novels." Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 4 (2003).
• Jones, Ann Rosalind. "Mills & Boon Meets Feminism." The Progress of Romance: The Politics of Popular Culture. Ed. Jean Radford. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986. 195-218.
• Radway, Janice A. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. 1984. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina P., 1991.

Martyrs and Helen Hackett's Women and Romance Fiction in the English Renaissance

Laura Vivanco

This is really just a very quick note which I'm posting (a) because I thought it might be helpful to mention the older (and very different) genre of romance at some point, albeit I'm doing so very briefly here and (b) because it tied in with a discussion taking place elsewhere.

Hackett devotes the second chapter of her book to exploring whether or not there are any similarities between the modern romance genre and the romances of the English Renaissance. She begins, however, by describing the older romance genre, which

can require some acclimatisation from the modern reader, since it operates not by the familiar principles of the novel, but in the fantastical, non-naturalistic mode [...]. It tends to be concerned, for instance, with the adventures of elaborately named knights and ladies in exotic lands and/or in periods of distant mythologised history. [...] These fictions usually also involve supernatural interventions, amazing coincidences and twists of fate, amidst a general ambience of the marvellous and wondrous; and their style is highly rhetorical [...]. Renaissance romances can be long and highly digressive, often consisting of many strands of narrative; Philip Sidney's New Arcadia and Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene are obvious examples. These two romances underwent ongoing processes of revision and expansion by their authors and were left unfinished at their deaths, features which suggest open-endedness and the potentially infinite self-generation of the narrative. (1-2)

Given this description, it is not surprising that in the second chapter Hackett concludes that there are few similarities with modern romances: "analogies between Renaissance romance and modern romantic fiction depend upon a characterisation of Renaissance romance as a popular genre of courtship narratives offering escapist pleasures to women readers; yet each one of the terms of this equation is debatable" (32).

While I was reading Hackett's book, Jessica posted about rape in the romance genre and looked at it from a variety of perspectives, including that of sexual fantasy. One issue that Hackett's book raised, and which struck me as potentially interesting to explore in this context, is that it suggested yet another perspective:

What we often find in Renaissance romances is both the repression of female agency and, beyond this, the infliction of extreme torments upon female victims. [...] In all these episodes the infliction of pain or humiliation on a female body is dwelt upon in detail, with fascination, or even with relish. Violence and degradation serve either as a punishment of female characters who are transgressively dominant and sexual, [...] or as a test of heroines who prove their virtue through passive stoicism and noble self-denial. (28)

and

Rather than imposing stereotypical modern feminist definitions of heroism we need to reconstruct iconographies of martyrdom and sanctity which have become relatively alien to us [...]. In mediaeval literature, female saints and courtly-love mistresses were frequently addressed in virtually indistinguishable terms, while female saints’ lives recorded the bodily ordeals of virgin martyrs in ways which strikingly deployed potentially erotic material in the cause of holiness. [...] In Renaissance romances [...] heroines often adopt the behaviour of saints in the cause of love. An idea of ‘erotic sainthood’ might be a useful way of understanding the forms of female heroism found in these fictions, and the nature of their appeal to women. (32)

I suspect that although the "iconographies of martyrdom and sanctity" may have become "relatively alien to us," the eroticised martyr-heroine may still be with us, in a modified form. According to Rachel Anderson, writing about the beginning of the modern romance genre, "The ideals of most of the early romantic novelists were based loosely on Christianity. [...] But the majority of today's romantic novelists are far less specific about the motivating ideals behind their work" (275). Anderson was writing in 1974, so her study is hardly up-to-date, but nonetheless, as I've discussed before, there remains a very strong spiritual element in the genre. Looked at from this perspective, perhaps it's only to be expected that the genre might contain some martyr-like heroines who, though they lose their virginity to the sinner-heroes and/or are raped by them, can be thought of as ultimately triumphing over their seducers or rapists by redeeming them.

Jessica also wrote a review of one romance with a rapist hero in which she stated that "Great writers can make us believe in unbelievable things." I'd suggest that hagiographies can also make many people believe in miracles which they would dismiss as unbelievable were they to occur in other contexts.

Janine's response encapsulates why such romances may be felt by some readers to be positive narratives: "That Gaffney was able to begin the reader’s journey in such a dark place and then bring us out into the light is a lot of what makes the books so uplifting to me as well as so incredibly romantic." Are there any parallels to be found with the "uplifting" emotions that may be experienced by readers of narratives about female martyr saints as the focus shifts away from the torments inflicted upon their bodies by abusive, powerful men and towards a conclusion in which the souls of the martyrs are taken up into the light of Heaven?

• Anderson, Rachel. The Purple Heart Throbs: The Sub-literature of Love. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1974.
• Hackett, Helen. Women and Romance Fiction in the English Renaissance. Cambridge: UP, 2000. A description, and a pdf of the first ten pages of Hackett's Women and Romance Fiction in the English Renaissance are available from the University of Cambridge Press's website.

Sarah at Romancing the Blog

We've touched on the similarities between the "opium of the people" and the "prozac" of the "addicted" reader, i.e. religion and romance novels. Today at Romancing the Blog Sarah's been taking a closer look at the parallels. As she observes,

Romance is often derided for being addictive to its readers and for being repetitious. Critics argue, “How can you tell what’s basically the same story again and again without repeating yourself?” and the implied answer is that romances obviously ARE all the same and it’s precisely the repetition that’s addictive, and that the addiction is a bad thing.

Our analysis of this hymn can show us that romances provide us the comfort and the excitement of repetition with a difference. We’ve got the security of the “formula” or conventions of romance (the meeting, the conflict, the happy ending), with the interest and uniqueness of a new story each time we read a new romance.

The illustration is from Wikimedia Commons and is taken from Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé's Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz 1885, Gera, Germany. It is a depiction of the opium poppy, or Papaver somniferum.

Mary Balogh - The Secret Pearl (2)

Laura Vivanco

As discussed in my previous post, this is a novel underpinned by a particular moral view, namely that in the face of adversity one should behave in an oysterish manner, and in turn the morality in the novel is based on theology. Mary Balogh once wrote that

I make great claims for love. Occasionally, a reader will accuse me of putting too much faith in its power. I believe one cannot put too much faith in the power of love. The belief that love in all its manifestations (and I speak of love, not of lust or obsession) is the single strongest force on this earth is central to my very being. The universe, life, eternity would have no meaning to me if anyone could prove that something else – evil, for example – was more powerful. Love, I believe, can heal all wounds, pardon all offenses, soothe and redeem the deepest guilt. (1999: 27)

The use of theological terms such as 'faith', 'belief', 'lust' and 'evil' is clearly not accidental here. Balogh is described in North American Romance Writers as being 'involved in her local Catholic Church as an organist and cantor' (1999: 19). In this post I'd like to take a quick look at some of the theology which pervades The Secret Pearl.

Shortly after his encounter with Fleur, Adam misquotes William Blake:

"Every whore was a virgin once." The poet William Blake had written that somewhere, or words to that effect. There was no reason to feel any special guilt over being the deflowerer. Someone had to do it once the girl had chosen her course. If he had been her second customer instead of the first, he would not have known the difference and would have forgotten about her by that morning. (2005: 14)

Adam's attempt to rid himself of guilt by placing the blame upon the woman and her choices cannot help but recall the original Adam who declared 'The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat' Genesis 3:12. He is also twisting what appears to be the meaning of Blake's poem, To the Accuser Who Is the God of This World, the first verse of which reads:

Truly, My Satan, thou art but a Dunce,
And dost not know the Garment from the Man.
Every Harlot was a Virgin once,
Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan. (Wikisource)

According to Alfred Kazin,

The "Accuser" is Satan, who rules this world, which is "the Empire of nothing." It is he who tormented man with a sense of sin; who made men and women look upon their own human nature as evil; who plunged us into the cardinal human heresy, which is the heresy against man's own right and capacity to live. The "Accuser" is the age in which Blake lived and it is the false god whose spectre mocks our thirst for life. It is the spirit, to Blake, of all that limits man, shames man, and drives him in fear. The Accuser is the spirit of the machine, which leads man himself into "machination." He is jealousy, unbelief, and cynicism.

Blake's meaning isn't entirely clear, but it seems to me that he's implying that it's the essence of the woman that is important, and that that is not necessarily changed when her 'garment' is changed from that of 'virgin' to that of 'whore'. Certainly that's the case in this novel: Balogh both demonstrates that Fleur does not become a lesser woman because of becoming a whore and the novel also reveals the hypocrisy of those who judge 'fallen women' harshly while themselves being members of postlapsarian humanity.

Daniel Booth is a clergyman whom Fleur had once hoped to marry but after the turmoil and suffering she has experienced she comes to the conclusion that

"I think he is too good for me," she said. "He can see a clear distinction between right and wrong, and he will stick by what he believes to be right no matter what. I can see too many shades of gray. I would not make a good clergyman's wife." (2005: 330)

When Fleur uses the term 'good', however, she is perhaps meaning that he is 'good in the conventional sense', whereas she herself has a different, more nuanced and compassionate measure by which to judge both herself and others. Here is her response when Daniel asks if she repents of her choice to become a prostitute:

He lifted his head at last, though he did not turn around. "Are you sorry?" he asked. "Have you repented, Isabella?"
"Yes and no," she said steadily after a pause. "I am more sorry than I can say that it happened, Daniel, but I am not sorry that I did it. I know that I would do it again if it were my only means of survival. I suppose I am not the stuff that martyrs are made of."
His head dropped again. "But how can you expect God's forgiveness if you do not truly repent?" he asked.
"I think perhaps God understands," she said. "If he does not, then I suppose I have a quarrel with him." (2005: 316)

Daniel, it seems, would perhaps benefit from reading Matthew 7: 1-5 (which, incidentally, is followed by a verse which mentions pearls):

1. Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4. Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5. Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
6. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Ultimately Daniel does come to recognise his own hypocrisy:

"I thought," he said, "that it would be possible to love only someone I felt to be worthy of my love. I thought I could love other people in a Christian way and forgive them their shortcomings if they repented of them. But I could not picture myself loving or marrying someone who had made a serious error. I was wrong. [...] I have been guilty of a terrible pride," he said. "It was as if I believed a woman had to be worthy of me. And yet I am the weakest of mortals, Isabella. [...]". (2005: 363-64)

Unlike Daniel, Adam quickly recognises his own sinfulness, and he acknowledges that Fleur is, if anything, less culpable than he: '"If you are a whore," he said, "I am an adulterer. We are equal sinners. But you at least had good reason for doing what you did. [...]"'(2005: 147). He also responds in an extremely orthodox manner to his sin, working through the various stages of the sacrament of penance: 'The Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, c. 3) declares: "the acts of the penitent, namely contrition, confession, and satisfaction, are the quasi materia of this sacrament"' (New Catholic Encyclopedia)

1 - contrition:

interior repentance has been called by theologians "contrition". It is defined explicitly by the Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, ch. iv de Contritione): "a sorrow of soul and a hatred of sin committed, with a firm purpose of not sinning in the future". (New Catholic Encyclopedia)

Adam reaches this stage when, despite his attempts to convince himself that 'He had no reason to feel guilt' (2005: 14), he 'could not help feeling responsible' (2005: 15) and regrets the pain he has caused Fleur: 'If he had known [that she was a virgin], he could have done it differently' (2005: 14).

2 - confession:

Adam's confession of guilt occurs when he admits what he's done both to himself and to his 'sensible and hardworking and discreet' (2005: 57) secretary, Peter Houghton.

3 - satisfaction:

satisfaction regards both the past offense, for which compensation is made by its means, and also future sin wherefrom we are preserved thereby: and in both respects satisfaction needs to be made by means of penal works. (Aquinas, Summa theologica)

Adam means to make reparation for his sin by finding Fleur and offering her employment. He himself thinks of it in these theological terms: 'He had done his part to atone both for his sin of infidelity and for his part in setting the girl on the road to degradation and ruin' (2005: 73). In itself, merely giving Fleur employment did not involve him in 'penal works' but he confesses his sin to her, as well as to Houghton and promises to do 'penal works' should this be required: 'if there is ever no one else to whom you can turn, then come to me' (2005: 148), 'I was angry at my own weakness that night, Fleur, and I used you crudely and cruelly. I have much to atone for. I would like to do you a kindness' (2005: 149).

In fact it would appear that Fleur and Adam's sexual sin is actually quite minor because there are extenuating circumstances. Fleur prostituted herself only out of the direst necessity and Adam, in making use of her services, had been seeking 'a release from all the pain and self-consciousness and degradation he had lived with for six years' (2005: 73), 'The need to spend a night sheltered in the arms and body of a woman who would accept him without question. [...] The need for some peace. The need to soothe his loneliness' (2005: 127). In other words, his primary motivation was not lust, though he was guilty of cruelty and anger in his behaviour towards Fleur. Although technically he commits adultery, we eventually learn that his marriage has never been consummated, so there would be grounds for an annulment. In this context, when he and Fleur have a second sexual encounter, again at a tavern, but this time with love existing between them, spiritually if not technically he considers them to be married: 'In one way, Fleur, you will always be my wife, more my wife than Sybil is. And physically I will always remain faithful to you. There will never be any other women in my bed' (2005: 349).

Adam in fact comes to consider his original sin a felix culpa, since it saved Fleur: '"Thank God it was me," he said, his eyes burning into hers. "If it had to be anyone, then thank God it was me."' (2005: 308). This thankfulness for the original sin, given it's outcome, perhaps parallels the way in which the sin of the first Adam with Eve in the garden of Eden was sometimes described as a happy or fortunate sin and one for which people have also thanked God, 'Deo gracias!', because

Ne had the apple taken been,
The apple taken been,
Ne had never our ladie,
Abeen heav'ne queen.

Blessed be the time
That apple taken was,
Therefore we moun singen.
Deo gracias! (Adam Lay Ybounden, a 15th-century carol)

Fleur similarly feels that 'despite all the pain, despite all the despair, she would not wish to have lived her life without knowing Adam. Without loving him' (2005: 363) and she trusts that 'everything that happens in life happens for a purpose' (2005: 332), though her optimism is qualified by the words 'We become stronger people if we are not destroyed by the troubles of life' (2005: 332).

• Balogh, Mary, 1999. 'Do It Passionately or Not at All', in North American Romance Writers, pp. 24-28.
• Balogh, Mary, 2005. The Secret Pearl (New York: Bantam Dell).
• North American Romance Writers, 1999. ed. Kay Mussell and Johanna Tuñón (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press).

The picture is Albrecht Dürer's Adam and Eve (1507), from the Web Gallery of Art.

Romance Novel Sermon

Laura Vivanco

omance novels aren't usually the subject of sermons, but they were on the 17th of June 2007 at the Presbyterian Church of Laurelhurst. In the past I've posted about the theme of sin and redemption in the romance genre, and in that post I included a comment by Rev. Melinda. Now Melinda's posted a sermon in which she says that

romance novels, like so much other human art and expression—and indeed, like so much of our spiritual writing and faith life--and like our Bible passage for today, come to that—these novels deal with eternal and essential questions like “What is love? Do you love me? Do you know me? Am I worthy? Am I lovable? And how can I best reveal and express my love?”

I'd encourage you to go and read the whole of the sermon, but I'm going to quote from some of the passages in which she examines three common romance plots in order to discover what their underlying spiritual message. The first plot concerns the

powerful, handsome, wealthy Duke [who] falls in love with the mousy, intellectual, poverty-stricken, unsuitable governess—and sometimes she’s even in disguise—a woman no one else notices or thinks attractive. He sees her, though; he looks past the surface, sees through her disguise, thinks she is beautiful, and falls in love with the woman she really is.

I think this plot speaks to our overwhelming need to be seen for who we really are and loved anyway—even if we believe that “real, revealed self” is unworthy, or inadequate, or unlovable.

The second is about

the wild, frightening, tortured hero with dark secrets [who] meets a young sweet innocent woman who, against all reason, trusts him and believes in him. He saves her from disaster, and in turn he is changed and saved by her love.

Doesn’t this speak to us of our abiding hope that that that no matter what our dark secrets, sins or deficiencies, we can be loved enough to be forgiven, redeemed and saved?

and finally

In a marriage of convenience, the hero and heroine are forced to marry, usually at least one of them reluctantly and grudgingly. Along the course of the novel they encounter adventures, disasters, trials, and situations that require them to help, care, and support one another. Strangely enough they fall in love by the end of the book. Maybe because they’ve learned how to do loving things, and in the doing of love they’ve learned to embrace one another in love. [...] Love is not only a feeling. Love is a doing. Love isn’t something that happens to you. Love is something you do for others. It’s an active pursuit, a work of faith. And it’s revealed in your acts of service, your acts of kindness, your acts of mercy, your care for those around you who are in need.

The initial letter 'R' is an illumination in the Winchester Bible (1160-75), from the Web Gallery of Art. I hope it's alright for me to use the image, as it's for an educational purpose, this being an academic blog.

Augusta Jane Evans - St Elmo (2 - Religion and Sexuality)

Augusta Evans' intention in writing her novel was clearly didactic. She intended to instruct as well as to entertain. The instruction is derived from the story of the tribulations which Edna undergoes but which leave her faith unshaken, from the bringing of St. Elmo back to Christianity (as discussed previously) and from Edna's own writings, which, like Augusta Evans' own, are highly didactic in nature, though mixed with an element of entertainment. Here are Edna's thoughts on authorship:

To write [...] for the mere pastime of author and readers, without aiming to inculcate some regenerative principle, or to photograph some valuable phase of protean truth, was in her estimation ignoble; for her high standard demanded that all books should be to a certain extent didactic, wandering like evangels among the people, and making some man, woman, or child happier, or wiser, or better--more patient or more hopeful--by their utterances. Believing that every earnest author's mind should prove a mint, where all valuable ores are collected from the rich veins of a universe--are cautiously coined, and thence munificently circulated--she applied herself diligently to the task of gathering, from various sources the data required for her projected work: a vindication of the unity of mythologies.

Edna's plan for her first novel is criticised by the influential Mr Manning, the editor of a magazine which has published a couple of Edna's essays:

" [...] Unless I totally misunderstand your views, you indulge in the rather extraordinary belief that all works of fiction should be eminently didactic, and inculcate not only sound morality but scientific theories. Herein, permit me to say, you entirely misapprehend the spirit of the age. People read novels merely to be amused, not educated; and they will not tolerate technicalities and abstract speculation in lieu of exciting plots and melodramatic denouements. Persons who desire to learn something of astronomy, geology, chemistry, philology, etc., never think of finding what they require in the pages of a novel, but apply at once to the text-books of the respective sciences, and would as soon hunt for a lover's sentimental dialogue in Newton's 'Principia,' or spicy small-talk in Kant's 'Critique,' as expect an epitome of modern science in a work of fiction."

"But, sir, how many habitual novel readers do you suppose will educate themselves thoroughly from the text-books to which you refer?"

Edna's reply is, I suspect, one which Evans herself would have given since she integrated discussions about science, religion and the role of women into her novel. Edna's first novel is intended to 'tear the veil from oracles and sibyls, and show the world that the true, good and beautiful of all theogonies and cosmogonies, of every system of religion that had waxed and waned since the gray dawn of time, could be traced to Moses and to Jesus' and the analysis of world religions is mixed with fiction:

To avoid anachronisms, she endeavored to treat the religions of the world in their chronologic sequence, and resorted to the expedient of introducing pagan personages. A fair young priestess of the temple of Neith, in the sacred city of Sais--where people of all climes collected to witness the festival of lamps-- becoming skeptical of the miraculous attributes of the statues she had been trained to serve and worship, and impelled by an earnest love of truth to seek a faith that would satisfy her reason and purify her heart, is induced to question minutely the religious tenets of travellers who visited the temple, and thus familiarized herself with all existing creeds and hierarchies. The lore so carefully garnered is finally analyzed, classified, and inscribed on papyrus.

Taking non-Christian texts and finding in them a prefiguring of Christian motifs and teachings is hardly a new endeavour on Edna's part. Very early in the history of Christianity typology emerged as a means by which to interpret the Old Testament and

Saint Augustine further enriched this complex and amazing system of thought by including non-sacred history. The history of Rome, the history of Greece, the history of Egypt, and the history of Persia, all these are also speeches by God. What is the spiritual meaning of these histories? That's right: the life and teachings of Christ. So: Coriolanus besieges Rome for three days. What's the spiritual meaning? Christ in the tomb for three days. (Hooker: 1996)

In addition to studying history,

The Church Fathers emphasized the universal presence of the Logos, the Word, the principle of divine self-manifestation, in all religions and cultures. The Logos is present everywhere, like the seed on the land, and this presence is a preparation for the central appearance of the Logos in a historical person, the Christ. In the light of these ideas Augustine could say that the true religion had existed always and was called Christian only after the appearance of the Christ. (Tillich 1963: Chapter 2)

and

People like Erasmus, the Christian humanist, or Zwingli, the Protestant Reformer, acknowledged the work of the Divine Spirit beyond the boundaries of the Christian Church. The Socinians, predecessors of the Unitarians and of much liberal Protestant theology, taught a universal revelation in all periods. The leaders of the Enlightenment, Locke, Hume, and Kant, measured Christianity by its reasonableness and judged all other religions by the same criterion. They wanted to remain Christians, but on a universalist, all-inclusive basis. These ideas inspired a large group of Protestant theologians in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (Tillich 1963: Chapter 2)

According to Wayne Jackson, 'this field of study [Biblical typology] has fallen into disrepute in recent years and this can probably be accounted for' partly because 'the extravagant speculations of earlier typologists have left a bad taste for the study in the minds of many; they feel it has been discredited'. Edna's scheme is more akin to Augustine's and while in her view the similarities between the various world religions suggests that they point towards Christianity, the revealed truth, her speculations could equally well be used to support very different arguments, such as (1) if religions which have been discredited shared some beliefs with Christianity, perhaps there is equally little truth in Christianity, for example 'Some critics of Christianity teach that the Christian religion was not based upon divine revelation but that it borrowed from pagan sources, Mithra being one of them' (Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry), or (2) it could be argued that the similarities between religions suggest that perhaps there is no single way to God, but rather that all religions share insights into the Truth. However neither Edna nor Evans seem to consider these possible alternative interpretations.

One of the tensions created in the novel by Evans' merging of the didactic and the entertaining results from the way in which the marriage plot is combined with a need to redeem the sinful St. Elmo. Edna is clearly extremely sexually attracted to him, and although their physical relationship never progresses in the course of the novel beyond passionate kisses and embraces which, in general, are forced on Edna by the passionate St. Elmo, there is a great deal of sexual tension. Perhaps other modern readers won't agree with me on that point, but it seems to me that it would certainly have been felt by contemporary readers of St. Elmo. Without it, Edna's continuing refusal to succumb to St. Elmo would have little merit, and it is, in fact, presented as a struggle of immense proportions. She turns down a number of other suitors with little difficulty but St. Elmo, with his 'mesmeric eyes' is a rather different matter and I am sure that Evans Wilson intended readers to sympathise with Edna's dilemma as she makes her agonising choice not to become St. Elmo's wife, even though he tempts both her physically and spiritually, as when he suggests that her goodness would save him:

[St. Elmo] If I am ever to be saved, you, you only can effect my redemption; for I trust, I reverence you. Edna, as you value my soul, my eternal welfare, give yourself to me! Give your pure, sinless life to purify mine." [...]

[Edna] "No! no! I am no vicegerent of an outraged and insulted God! I put no faith in any man whose conscience another keeps. From the species of fascination which you exert, I shrink with unconquerable dread and aversion, and would almost as soon entertain the thought of marrying Lucifer himself. Oh! your perverted nature shocks, repels, astonishes, grieves me. I can neither respect nor trust you. Mr. Murray, have mercy upon yourself! Go yonder to Jesus. He only can save and purify you." (my emphasis)

Edna later explains a little more about the 'fascination' which he exerts: 'it is not love; for esteem, respect, confidence, belong to love. But I can not deny that he exerts a very singular, a wicked fascination over me.' Mr Hammond, the local minister, urges Edna to agree to a marriage, since then she will, as a good wife, have an immense influence over St. Elmo:

My dear little Edna, you are very lovely and winning, and I believe he would love you as he never loved any one else. Oh! I have hoped everything from your influence! Far, far beyond all computation is the good which a pious, consistent, Christian wife can accomplish in the heart of a husband who truly loves her. (my emphasis)

Again, I think, rather obliquely, Mr Hammond is alluding to the fact that St. Elmo feels considerably more than a simple delight in Edna's spiritual purity. Fekete Trubey states that

Edna’s relationship with St. Elmo is driven by the [...] erotics of domination and submission [...]. It is when St. Elmo is at his most brutal and misogynistic, demanding complete submission to his cruel will, that Edna feels the greatest desire for him. She finds him ‘‘handsomer than she had ever seen him,’’ for example, when he claims women know no useful facts, only obscure trivia (SE, 113) (Fekete Trubey 2005: 130)

And yet Edna resists her sensuality and even shuns the company of individuals whose use of language she deems indelicate:

Edna's abhorrence of double entendre and of the fashionable sans souci style of conversation [...] was not a secret to any one who read her writings or attended her receptions. [...]

She saw that the growing tendency to free and easy manners and colloquial license was rapidly destroying all reverence for womanhood; was levelling the distinction between ladies' parlors and gentlemen's clubrooms; was placing the sexes on a platform of equality which was dangerous to feminine delicacy, that God-built bulwark of feminine purity and of national morality.

That time-honored maxim, "Honi soit qui mal y pense," she found had been distorted from its original and noble significance, and was now a mere convenient India-rubber cloak, stretched at will to cover and excuse allusions which no really modest woman could tolerate. Consequently, when she heard it flippantly pronounced in palliation of some gross offense against delicacy, she looked more searchingly into the characters of the indiscreet talkers, and quietly intimated to them that their presence was not desired at her receptions. Believing that modesty and purity were twin sisters, and that vulgarity and vice were rarely if ever divorced, Edna sternly refused to associate with those whose laxity of manners indexed, in her estimation, a corresponding laxity of morals.

According to Hilary Hart, Edna becomes increasingly pure as she struggles against her physical attraction to St. Elmo: 'Her victories over her love for the Byronic St. Elmo seem to purify Edna, as evidenced by her increasing whiteness' (2004: 35).*

Brenda Coulter has written of the inspirational romance sub-genre that

In addition to the usual ups and downs of falling in love, the hero and/or heroine must overcome a spiritual obstacle, whether that involves finding God's salvation, learning to lean on Him, letting go of the past, etc.

Christian women find inspirational romance novels satisfying because they promote strong family values, emphasizing admirable qualities such as duty, honor, and integrity, all while delivering the guilt-free entertainment of a chaste romance story.

It seems to me that novels such as St. Elmo are the precursors of the modern inspirational romance, for though the modern romances may not include such large, undiluted passages devoted to theology as Evans' novel does, they, like St. Elmo, tend to be love stories with a very strong spiritual element and in which there is little or no depiction of sexuality, although sexual tension may be present. In addition, as we see in Brenda's description of the sub-genre, both have a didactic nature: they are, of course intended to entertain, but there is also a strong desire on the part of the authors to promote particular spiritual values. Faith, Hope and Love, the 'inspirational outreach chapter' of the Romance Writers of America has in its bylaws the statement that: "The purpose of Faith, Hope & Love, Inc., is to promote excellence in romantic and women's fiction that glorifies God and promotes biblical principles' (my emphasis). Evans and Edna might, however, view edgy inspirationals with a bit more caution. These novels are also written for Christian readers, but ones

who don’t necessarily want a conversion scene in every novel they read, yet who also don’t want to read about mainstream characters who live outside the reader’s value system. They are looking for a compelling, gritty novel about Christians who are flawed, tempted, imperfect and who willfully do things they know they aren’t suppose to do. Who have already accepted Christ and are wondering, "Then why the heck is my life so messed up?" They are looking for a character whose shoes they can slip on. Maybe even a novel that they can share with their non-Christian friend. (Deeanne Gist)

----

• Fekete Trubey, Elizabeth, 2005. 'Emancipating the Lettered Slave: Sentiment and Slavery in Augusta Evans's St. Elmo', American Literature 77 (1): 123-150.
• Hart, Hilary, 2004. Sentimental Spectacles: the Sentimental Novel, Natural Language, and Early Film Performance, University of Oregon theses, Dept. of English, Ph.D. (can be downloaded as a pdf from here).
• Tillich, Paul, 1963. Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions.

* The whiteness is physical as well as metaphorical: 'Edna’s skin grows whiter as the book progresses so that by the end she retains almost no human coloring. Not surprisingly, Augusta Evans, who wrote St. Elmo, also authored the white supremacist novel, Macaria, or, Altars of Sacrifice'. (Hart 2004: 34)

Augusta Jane Evans - St. Elmo (1 - Women and Marriage)

Augusta Jane Evans's 'novels were popular on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, although during the Civil War her works made their way north only through the daring of blockade runners' (Fekete Trubey 2005: 125) and St. Elmo (1866) (an alternative, paginated, online edition is available here)

was her most popular book, setting new sales records that prompted her publisher, G. W. Carelton, to announce that a million people had read it within four months of its first appearance. At once a traditional sentimental novel and a scholarly exploration of female intellectualism, St. Elmo depicts its heroine, Edna Earl, at war with herself, struggling with the accepted limits of femininity. Her brilliant career as an author pits her very body against itself: in the act of writing, she masochistically neglects her body while striving to maintain her pious, self-abnegating character. Given the novel’s postwar context, it is fascinating that Evans couches her heroine’s struggle with the competing roles of wife and writer in the slippery terms of slavery and freedom. (Fekete Trubey 2005: 125)

St. Elmo himself became 'a cult figure who several decades later was to inspire Margaret Mitchell' (Cadogan 1994: 41) and 'Augusta Jane Evans's St. Elmo was considered as recently as 1947 to be one of the ten most popular novels ever published in the United States' (Kolba 1980: 38).

Although the novel was undoubtedly a bestseller, its quality was questioned. It was parodied in Charles Henry Webb's St. Twel'mo, or, The Cuneiform Cyclopedist of Chattanooga (1867). In one review written in 1902 the reviewer observed that 'There never was a book written more open to ridicule. And yet, when that inclination to ridicule comes we pause, half ashamed. For under all the pompous phraseology we feel that there was a story to be told; that not a line of it was penned that was not inspired by sincerity and a belief in lofty ideals' or, as a very much more recent reader from the Young Ladies Christian Fellowship puts it: 'Even though the Latin phrases went right over my head, I was able to grasp a little of the vastness of the author’s knowledge by her references to history and science I had never even learned. Strong characters, and the heroine’s refreshing perspective on life would make the book in and of themselves—but the story of love, trust, and forgiveness is one you will never forget'.

The term 'sentimental novel', which is used to describe St. Elmo refers to:

a popular form of fiction that gained popularity in America from the late 18th century to the mid-19th century (although there are still manifestations of it today). In general, sentimentalism is didactic in form, “artless” in style, sincere in its tone, melodramatic in its plotting, and addressed overwhelmingly to a female readership. Often, the term “sentimentalism” is used in two senses:

1. An overindulgence in emotion, especially the conscious effort to induce emotion in order to enjoy it; expressing a “sensibility,” or susceptibility to emotions and sentiments (as opposed to logic or reason).
2. An optimistic overemphasis of the goodness of humanity, representing in part a reaction against Calvinism, which regarded human nature as depraved. (Derek P. Royal)

In other words, many of these novels can be viewed as precursors of the modern romance novel.

St. Elmo is prefaced by a quotation from John Ruskin:

Ah! the true rule is--a true wife in her husband's house is his servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever of the best he can conceive, it is her part to be; whatever of the highest he can hope, it is hers to promise; all that is dark in him she must purge into purity; all that is failing in him she must strengthen into truth; from her, through all the world's clamor, he must win his praise; in her, through all the world's warfare, he must find his peace."

I'm not sure precisely where this is taken from, but the sentiments seem identical to those in Ruskin's essay 'Of Queens' Gardens', in Sesame and Lilies, which deals with the question of chivalry and the role of women. St. Elmo is Augusta Jane Evans' contribution to the debate about these issues, and it is one which was very important at the time:

Many of the historical changes that characterized the Victorian period motivated discussion and argument about the nature and role of woman — what the Victorians called "The Woman Question." The extension of the franchise by the Reform Bills of 1832 and 1867 stimulated discussion of women's political rights. (from The Norton Anthology of English Literature online)

John Stuart Mill 'was the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century' (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) and in his The Subjection of Women he argued for equality between the sexes and the extension of the franchise to women. Both ideas are ridiculed by St. Elmo, who declares that 'I am quite as far from admitting the infallibility of man as the equality of the sexes. The clearest thinkers of the world have had soft spots in their brains [...] and you have laid your finger on the softened spot in Mill's skull, "suffrage". That is a jaded, spavined hobby of his'. Edna too is appalled by the idea of women voting:

my study of Mill's philosophy assures me that, if society should be turned over to the government of his theory of Liberty and Suffrage, it would go to ruin more rapidly than Frederick's province. Under his teachings the women of England might soon marshal their amazonian legions, and storm not only Parnassus but the ballot-box, the bench, and the forum. That this should occur in a country where a woman nominally rules, and certainly reigns, is not so surprising, but I dread the contagion of such an example upon America. [...] I think, sir, that the noble and true women of this continent earnestly believe that the day which invests them with the elective franchise would be the blackest in the annals of humanity, would ring the death-knell of modern civilization, of national prosperity, social morality, and domestic happiness! and would consign the race to a night of degradation and horror infinitely more appalling than a return to primeval barbarism.

Evans therefore sides with Ruskin on the issue of whether or not women should be 'Queens' of the hearth and Edna's second novel, titled Shining Thorns on the Hearth, is dedicated to 'my countrywomen, the Queens who reign thereon'. Nonetheless, Evans vehemently argues that women can benefit from an education and can, as writers, have much to contribute to their society. Her criticism of duelling points to a conflict of values within patriarchy. As Johnson observes,

Ironically, the southern brand of patriarchy, characterized by a pervasive obligation to personal honor, vowed to protect white women but was undermined by the premier expression of such honor: the duel. In practical and theoretical ways, the code of honor also undermined the minimal legal protections upon which a woman might rely. The duel could deprive women of economic and protective benefits when male relatives died in duels. (2001: 16)

Johnson goes further and suggests that not only does Evans criticise the practice of duelling, but also that she 'presents duels [...] as metaphorical representations of masculine violations of legal, religious, and familial codes' (2001: 14-15).

Within the novel St. Elmo is the embodiment of patriarchy's destructive power, and he is reclaimed for Christianity and chivalry by Edna, who has, among other works, written a 'little tale [...] to portray the horrors and sin of duelling', while another of her articles causes a 'rejoicing wife' to write her a letter 'eloquent with thanks for the good effect produced by a magazine article on a dissipated, irreligious husband and father, who, after its perusal, had resolved to reform'. As the quotation from Ruskin suggests, Edna's mission with regards to St. Elmo is that 'all that is dark in him she must purge into purity'. At the time it was a common view of women's mission in life: 'Nineteenth-century Americans believed that women had a particular propensity for religion. The modern young woman of the 1820s and 1830s was thought of as a new Eve working with God to bring the world out of sin through her suffering, through her pure, and passionless love' (Lavender). As I've discussed earlier, this redemptive role is a frequent one for heroines in romance, and the heroine's purity is hightened by contrast with the hero's extreme depravity. St. Elmo is compared to Lucifer himself: when he observes Edna he 'looked at the kneeling figure locked so closely in his mother's arms, [...] over his stern face broke a light that transformed it into such beauty as Lucifer's might have worn before his sin and banishment' and later when Edna refuses his proposal of marriage she states that 'I am no vicegerent of an outraged and insulted God! [...] I shrink with unconquerable dread and aversion, and would almost as soon entertain the thought of marrying Lucifer himself. [...] Go yonder to Jesus. He only can save and purify you'. It is, however, his love for Edna and the efficacy of her reproaches which begins his conversion.

Perhaps it is the opportunity to exert and demonstrate the power of feminine virtue which, at least in part, explains the attraction that some women feel for a man in need of 'taming'. Certainly, it was a matter which puzzled the parodist Charles Henry Webb who wrote of St. Elmo:

How such a fellow could win the affections of refined and cultivated women, I can not understand. For I have tried original verses, and pet names, and bouquets, and gentlemanly behavior, and the sweet influences of modest and unpretending merit, all in vain. (24-25)

and here's one modern explanation:

The phenomenon of "women going for jerks" is a real one, but there is a very, very important thing missing from the usual understanding of it. It is, I believe, a product of women's enculturated fantasies that jerks really AREN'T jerks down deep in their most hidden souls. The usual La-La Land construct is that jerks are really powerful, confident, and misunderstood men that the Very Special Women Who Truly Love Them can bring into the Light. (Grey 2005)

Edna is indeed a Very Special Woman and she fulfils a wish expressed by St Elmo's cousin Estelle:

There is some terrible retribution in store for your libels on our sex! How I do long to meet some woman brave and wily enough to marry and tame you, my chivalric cousin! to revenge the insults you have heaped upon her sisterhood!

Edna demonstrates that she is a Very Special Woman in a variety of different ways. She is intellectually talented and determined to succeed as an author, despite the prejudices that stand in her way. Early on one character, a Mr Wood, states that 'The less book-learning you women have the better', but his wife swiftly responds with words which silence him:

"I don't see that it is any of your business, Peter Wood, how much learning we women choose to get, provided your bread is baked and your socks darned when you want 'em. A woman has as good a right as a man to get book-learning, if she wants it; and as for sense, I'll thank you, mine is as good as yours any day; and folks have said it was a blessed thing for the neighborhood when the rheumatiz laid Peter Wood up, and his wife, Dorothy Elmira Wood, run the mill. Now, it's of no earthly use to cut at us women over that child's shoulders; if she wants an education she has as much right to it as anybody, if she can pay for it. My doctrine is, everybody has a right to whatever they can pay for, whether it is schooling or a satin frock!"

Later, when young Edna, the heroine, pursues her search for knowledge, her guardian, Mrs Murray, tells Edna's tutor

"I think the child is as inveterate a bookworm as I ever knew; but for heaven's sake, Mr. Hammond, do not make her a blue-stocking."
"Ellen, did you ever see a genuine blue-stocking?"
"I am happy to be able to say that I never was so unfortunate."
"You consider yourself lucky then, in not having known De Stael, Hannah More, Charlotte Bronte, and Mrs. Browning?"

he then proceeds to explain to the young Edna what is meant by the term 'bluestocking':

"A 'blue-stocking,' my dear, is generally supposed to be a lady, neither young, pleasant, nor pretty (and in most instances unmarried); who is unamiable, ungraceful, and untidy; ignorant of all domestic accomplishments and truly feminine acquirements, and ambitious of appearing very learned; a woman whose fingers are more frequently adorned with ink-spots than thimble; who holds housekeeping in detestation, and talks loudly about politics, science, and philosophy; who is ugly, and learned, and cross; whose hair is never smooth and whose ruffles are never fluted. [...]" [...] "The title of 'blue-stocking,'" continued the pastor, "originated in
a jest, many, many years ago, when a circle of very brilliant, witty, and elegant ladies in London, met at the house of Mrs. Vesey, to listen to and take part in the conversation of some of the most gifted and learned men England has ever produced. One of those gentlemen, Stillingfleet, who always wore blue stockings, was so exceedingly agreeable and instructive, that when he chanced to be absent the company declared the party was a failure without the blue stockings,' as he was familiarly called. A Frenchman, who heard of the circumstance, gave to these conversational gatherings the name of 'bas bleu,' which means blue stocking; and hence, you see, that in popular acceptation, I mean in public opinion, the humorous title, which was given in compliment to a very charming gentleman, is now supposed to belong to very tiresome, pedantic, and disagreeable ladies. Do you understand the matter now?"

Resolute and confident in her own abilities, Edna ignores the advice in her first rejection letter from an editor (yes, there are metafictional elements to this novel):

Burn the enclosed MS., the erudition and archaisms of which would fatally nauseate the intellectual dyspeptics who read my 'Maga,' and write sketches of home life-descriptions of places and things that you understand better than recondite analogies of ethical creeds and mythologic systems, or the subtle lore of Coptic priests. Remember that women never write histories or epics; never compose oratorios that go sounding down the centuries; never paint 'Last Suppers' and 'Judgment Days'; though now and then one gives the world a pretty ballad that sounds sweet and soothing when sung over a cradle, or another paints a pleasant little genre sketch which will hang appropriately in some quiet corner and rest and refresh eyes that are weary with gazing at the sublime spiritualism of Fra Bartolomeo, or the gloomy grandeur of Salvator Rosa.

During her long reverie, she wondered whether all women were browbeaten for aspiring to literary honors; whether the poignant pain and mortification gnawing at her heart was the inexorable initiation-fee for entrance upon the arena where fame adjudges laurel crowns, and reluctantly and sullenly drops one now and then on female brows.

Edna's intellectual and moral qualities are coupled with extreme beauty and she shows an affinity for children which makes them love her. She receives many offers of marriage and as the embodiment of Evans' (and Ruskin's) ideal of femininity she offers an alternative to the caricature that St. Elmo paints in his description of intellectual women:

Without doubt, the most thoroughly ludicrous scene I ever witnessed was furnished by a 'woman's rights' meeting,' which I looked in upon one night in New York, as I returned from Europe. The speaker was a raw-boned, wiry, angular, short-haired, lemon-visaged female of very certain age; with a hand like a bronze gauntlet, and a voice as distracting as the shrill squeak of a cracked cornet-a-piston. Over the wrongs and grievances of her down-trodden, writhing sisterhood she ranted and raved and howled, gesticulating the while with a marvelous grace, which I can compare only to the antics of those inspired goats who strayed too near the Pythian cave, and were thrown into convulsions. Though I pulled my hat over my eyes and clapped both hands to my ears, as I rushed out of the hall after a stay of five minutes, the vision of horror followed me, and for the first and only time in my life, I had such a hideous nightmare that night, that the man who slept in the next room broke open my door to ascertain who was strangling me. Of all my pet aversions my most supreme abhorrence is of what are denominated 'gifted women'; strong-minded (that is, weak-brained but loud-tongued), would-be literary females, who, puffed up with insufferable conceit, imagine they rise to the dignity and height of man's intellect, proclaim that their 'mission' is to write or lecture, and set themselves up as shining female lights, each aspiring to the rank of protomartyr of reform. Heaven grant us a Bellerophon to relieve the age of these noisy Amazons! I should really enjoy seeing them tied down to their spinning-wheels, and gagged with their own books, magazines, and lectures!

Unfortunately some of these stereotypes about intellectual women, particularly feminists, persist, but such views are in the minority and nowadays women scholars are not warned of dire consequences should they persist in their studies, unlike Edna, whose success is won at great personal cost. As Mr Hammond warns her:

The history of literary females is not calculated to allay the apprehension that oppresses me, as I watch you just setting out on a career so fraught with trials of which you have never dreamed. As a class they are martyrs, uncrowned and uncanonized; jeered at by the masses, sincerely pitied by a few earnest souls, and wept over by the relatives who really love them. Thousands of women have toiled over books that proved millstones and drowned them in the sea of letters.
How many of the hundreds of female writers scattered through the world in this century, will be remembered six months after the coffin closes over their weary, haggard faces? You may answer, 'They made their bread.' Ah, child! it would have been sweeter if earned at the wash-tub, or in the dairy, or by their needles. It is the
rough handling, the jars, the tension of the heartstrings that sap the foundations of a woman's life and consign her to an early grave; and a Cherokee rose-hedge is not more thickly set with thorns than a literary career with grievous, vexatious, tormenting disappointments.

In the nineteenth-century it was thought by many that education, and particularly the rigorous intellectual activities which Edna pursues, could damage a woman physically:

Physicians saw the body as a closed system possessing only a limited amount of vital force; energy expended in one area was necessarily removed from another. [...] A young woman [...] who consumed her vital force in intellectual activities was necessarily diverting these energies from the achievement of true womanhood. She would become weak and nervous, perhaps sterile, or more commonly, and in a sense more dangerously for society, capable of bearing only sickly and neurotic children (Smith-Rosenberg & Rosenberg 1973: 340)

Edna develops heart troubles (literally as well as metaphorically due to her love for St. Elmo) and is prone to fainting fits which greatly alarm her friends. Her doctor warns her that if she does not stop writing she may die at any moment. Edna will not stop, however and it is only after St. Elmo has reformed (she has saved him spiritually), and the two have been married, that he puts a stop to her writing career (thus saving her physically). Edna accepts his decree without demur, because he is her husband. As we have seen previously, both Edna and Evans herself were opposed to women's suffrage and while acknowledging and celebrating women's talents, they believed that these should remain in the service of a woman's husband (should she have one):

Jealously she contended for every woman's right which God and nature had decreed the sex. The right to be learned, wise, noble, useful, in woman's divinely limited sphere; the right to influence and exalt the circle in which she moved; the right to mount the sanctified bema of her own quiet hearthstone; the right to modify and direct her husband's opinions, if he considered her worthy and competent to guide him; the right to make her children ornaments to their nation, and a crown of glory to their race; the right to advise, to plead, to pray; the right to make her desk a Delphi, if God so permitted; the right to be all that the phrase "noble, Christian woman" means.
But not the right to vote; to harangue from the hustings; to trail her heaven-born purity through the dust and mire of political strife; to ascend the rosta of statesmen, whither she may send a worthy husband, son, or brother, but whither she can never go, without disgracing all womanhood. (my emphasis)

That a wife can 'modify and direct her husband's opinions, only if he considered her worthy and competent to guide him' is an indication of how unstable a wife's power can be. Given the immense power that a husband will have over her, the Christian woman who aspires to be a Queen of the Hearth must be careful when deciding who to accept as a spouse. Edna rejects St. Elmo because

Surely you would not be willing to see me marry a man who scoffs at the very name of religion; who wilfully deceives and trifles with the feelings of all who are sufficiently credulous to trust his hollow professions [...]! What hope of happiness or peace could you indulge for me, in view of such a union? I should merit all the wretchedness that would inevitably be my life--long portion if, knowing his crimes, I could consent to link my future with his."

As Mr Hammond has earlier told another suitor of Edna's,

Edna Earl will never coax and persuade herself to marry any man, no matter what his position and endowments may be. She is not a dependent woman; the circumstances of her life have forced her to dispense with companionship, she is sufficient for herself; and while she loves her friends warmly and tenderly, she feels the need of no one. If she ever marries, it will not be from gratitude or devotion, but because she learned to love, almost against her will, some strong, vigorous thinker, some man whose will and intellect masters hers, who compels her heart's homage, and without whose society she can not persuade herself to live. (my emphasis)

It would seem, then, that Evans adheres strictly to St Paul's words on the matter of husbands and authority: 'the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God' (1 Corinthians 11: 3) and his injunction 'Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers' (2 Corinthians 6: 14).

As Johnson observes, for many readers' Evans' championship of women's literary ambitions sits awkwardly alongside the final authority of the husband:

The aspect of St. Elmo that most puzzles and disturbs critics is Edna's ultimate capitulation to St. Elmo in marriage. Although Evans is keenly aware of the abuses of a patriarchy without Christian reform, she ultimately argues for a more gentle version of masculine control. The simultaneous advocation of patriarchy and the recognition of its potential threat to women creates an ambivalence in St. Elmo that is jarring to modern readers. In the final scene of the novel, as Edna finally submits to St. Elmo in marriage, St. Elmo clearly dictates the terms of their relationship:
"Today I snap the fetters of your literary bondage. There shall be no more books written! . . . and that dear public you love so well, must even help itself, and whistle for a new pet. You belong to me now, and I shall take care of the life you have nearly destroyed in your inordinate ambition" (365). Edna's literary ambition has become "inordinate," only because St. Elmo's threat to her has been diminished and the patriarchy of her personal world has been reformed. (2001: 25)

As a result, 'Although Edna has in some sense tamed St. Elmo into compliance
with codes of law, family, and Christianity, in the end she simply allows him to preside over a reformed patriarchy that offers some protection to women' (Johnson 2001: 26).

• Cadogan, Mary, 1994. And Then Their Hearts Stood Still: An Exuberant Look at Romantic Fiction Past and Present (London: MacMillan).
• Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll & Charles Rosenberg, 1973. 'The Female Animal: Medical and Biological Views of Woman and Her Role in Nineteenth-Century America', The Journal of American History, 60.2: 332-356.
• Fekete Trubey, Elizabeth, 2005. 'Emancipating the Lettered Slave: Sentiment and Slavery in Augusta Evans's St. Elmo', American Literature 77 (1): 123-150.
• Johnson, Bradley, 2001. ‘Dueling Sentiments: Responses to Patriarchal Violence in Augusta Jane Evans’ St. Elmo’, The Southern Literary Journal, 33.2: 14-29.
• Kolba, Ellen D., 1980. 'Stories for Sale', The English Journal, 69.7: 37-40.
  

Sin and Redemption

Yesterday Sarah commented that 'Persuasion is my favorite *Austen* [...] but I still think P+P makes a better ROMANCE'. Of course, I could just have asked her why she thought that, but I didn't. Instead I sat around pondering the comment, and as I was also reading Mary Jo Putney's Thunder and Roses, of which Putney has said ' I love all my stories, but must admit that for pure romance, it's hard to beat Thunder and Roses', some ideas began to appear.

As Eric noted not so long ago, there is a

deep, deep link between all the various genres of romance--the link that makes all romance "inspirational," I suppose, even if it isn't all exactly Christian. That's a topic I'll try to come back to as the year goes by.

I hope Eric does have time to come back to this. It was touched on briefly by Rev Melinda, a poster at the joint blog to which Putney contributes, who said that

romances in general often deal with issues that could be viewed as "spiritual" if not religious—love, death, meaning, trust, betrayal, redemption, self-sacrifice, reconciliation, cruelty, kindness, generosity of spirit—and did I mention LOVE [...]?

So as Putney added, there is therefore 'at least an implicit element of spirituality in most romances' and in some, as in Thunder and Roses, it's quite explicit: 'In my book, Clare’s spiritual dilemma is her secret belief that her faith is not what it should be'.

I'd also love to read Sarah's explanation of why she thinks Pride and Prejudice is a better romance than Persuasion but in the meantime, here are some of my thoughts on romance and religion.

It's impossible not to notice that a lot of romances have titles which refer to theological concepts and beings including: sin (An Invitation to Sin, One Little Sin, Lady of Sin, Lord Sin, etc) ; wickedness (When He Was Wicked, Your Wicked Ways, Wicked Widow, Ways to be Wicked, etc); temptation (Welcome to Temptation, Slightly Tempted, My Fair Temptress etc); devils (Devil's Cub, The Devil's Bargain, Devilish, etc); angels (Angel in a Red Dress, Angel in My Bed, Kiss an Angel, etc). Pride and Prejudice, of course, has one of the seven deadly sins in its title, and the hero of Thunder and Roses is known as 'Old Nick' and is part of a group known as the 'Fallen Angels'. In this context, Persuasion seems a very mild title, and while it does include a misunderstanding between the hero and heroine, a bit of caution and timidity on her side, and a bit of misunderstanding and pique on his, it can't compare with the very much stronger disagreement between Darcy and Elizabeth, and the sin of pride.

It would seem that as well as having at a hero who is strongly associated with sin/wickedness, it helps if a romance also has at least one evil villain or villainness. Pride and Prejudice has the wicked Wickham who lies, cheats and seduces; Persuasion has Mr Elliott, who admittedly has been instrumental in the downfall of Mr and Mrs Smith, and makes Captain Wentworth jealous, but he hardly reaches the level of depravity attained by the hero's first wife in Thunder and Roses.

The actions of villains often create the tormented/tortured hero so beloved of many romance readers. Robin Uncapher has observed that

If you read many historicals you will be hard pressed to find a hero without a terrible hurt in his past. They all seem to have at least one, but I don't think that they are all tortured. To this reader, "tortured" reflects the way the hero deals with the problem. A tortured hero tortures himself. He may be wracked with guilt. He may be bitter or angry. [...] A hero I see as not tortured, is one who is mentally healthy, often in spite of the awful things that have happened to him.

What they all have in common, according to Robin Uncapher, is 'a terrible hurt'. Darcy has Wickham's betrayal to deal with, Putney's 'Old Nick' has a past full of misery and betrayal, but Captain Wentworth's biggest emotional trauma is only a postponed engagement and, as he discovers, his (very minor) pride and misunderstanding are the causes of it:

a question has suggested itself, whether there may not have been one person more my enemy even than that lady [Lady Russell, who persuaded Anne not to marry Wentworth years before]? My own self. Tell me if, when I returned to England, in the year eight, with a few thousand pounds, and was posted into the Laconia, if I had then written to you, would you have answered my letter? Would you, in short, have renewed the engagement then?"

"Would I?" was all her answer; but the accent was decisive enough.

"Good God!" he cried, "you would! It is not that I did not think of it, or desire it, as what could alone crown all my other success; but I was proud, too proud to ask again. I did not understand you. I shut my eyes, and would not understand you, or do you justice. (Chapter 23)

and as a man who describes himself as having 'been used to the gratification of believing myself to earn every blessing that I enjoyed. I have valued myself on honourable toils and just rewards', he gives no indication of either great suffering or a tormented soul.

Another feature shared by both Pride and Prejudice and Thunder and Roses is that the hero is redeemed/'tamed' as a result of his association with the heroine and in many romances the importance of the heroine is saving the hero is demonstrated in a scene in which he has to 'grovel' or beg her forgiveness. Here is Darcy, for example:

I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing -- to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight-and-twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you I was properly humbled. (Chapter 58)

Anne Marble writes that 'many fans read romances with tortured (or even "alpha heel") heroes because they want to read the "grovel" -- the part where he apologizes to the heroine and redeems himself in her eyes' and she's written more about 'redemption romances' at All About Romance, where she quotes from one of the readers of the board who had defined the core of this sort of romance as being 'about someone who for whatever reason has behaved badly in systematic fashion - has been a bad person, and by the end of the book has been redeemed'. Marble notes that 'heroines don't get to be redeemed as often as heroes. In fact, heroines tended to be the saviors rather than the saved'.

The most famous humbling scene in the New Testament is probably St Paul's, which takes place on the road to Damascus, and the idea that it is precisely those who are the most sinful who should be the focus of attention and redemptive efforts is at the core of the New Testament's message:

[the] scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?
And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Luke 5: 30-32)

In Catholic theology, the Virgin Mary is sometimes described as a 'co-redemptrix'. The term is often misunderstood, and it does not imply that she took over Christ's work or was equal to him, but rather that 'she suffered WITH the Redeemer in his act of saving us' (Vidal, 2001). The romance heroine also often suffers greatly and she may bear some resemblance to the Victorian 'angel in the house'. For the Victorians 'the ideal of femininity was encapsulated in the idea of a "woman's mission", which was that of playing a model mother, wife and daughter. Women were also seen as moral and spiritual guardians' (Nead 2004). Perhaps these female role models contribute to the scarcity of romance heroines in need of redemption?

The hero's redemption is complete when he acknowledges his love for the heroine. As John states, 'love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God' (1 John 5: 7). Of course, John was probably not thinking of love as depicted in romance novels, but as Pope Benedict XVI recently wrote in his first papal encyclical, Deus Caritas Est,

eros and agape—ascending love and descending love—can never be completely separated. The more the two, in their different aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the true nature of love in general is realized

With regard to the romance genre, some readers would appear to prefer stories in which the hero is sinful and inflicts suffering on the heroine because the greater his sin, the more powerful her redemptive work is shown to be. However, as the plentiful examples in this At the Back Fence column demonstrate, even among these readers there are limits on how much they will accept with regards to both the hero's behaviour (and, consequently, whether or not they believe he really has been redeemed) and the heroine's virtue (which, in extreme cases might be described as naivety) .

Not all romances are like this, but I wonder if this type is seen as a 'better ROMANCE' because it has come to be seen as the essence of what a romance story should be, both by romance readers and the general public. Is this the sort of storyline that those who mock the genre expect to find within the covers of a romance novel? And is their mockery due to a lack of belief in the hero's redemption? Or is it that these stories simply seem so extreme and incredible to them that they cannot believe in the heroine's exemplary virtue and love for the hero? I do have some sympathy for this point of view since, as noted above, many romance readers themselves would consider some heroes in this type of romance to be bullies, while their heroines may sometimes be designated TSTL (Too Stupid to Live).

But could it be that what really motivates some of these critics' scorn for the genre is their lack of belief in True Love? Scrooge declares that Christmas is 'Humbug' because 'What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough. [...] I live in such a world of fools [...]. What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money [...]?', and I think many people look at romance readers and think us fools for not paying enough attention to the divorce statistics.* Maybe, then, some of the criticism of romance is due to its 'inspirational' nature which irks these non-believers.

Literature often requires some suspension of disbelief, but is enjoyment of the romance genre dependant on a sort of faith?

-----
* Stephanie Coontz suggests, however, that 'Throughout Europe and North America, divorce rates rose hand in glove with sales of romance novels'. I'm not sure what evidence she has for this, but her argument is that divorce rates rose precisely because of an increase in the belief in love as the basis for marriage because 'once marriage was based on love, people began to wonder if it wasn't better to be single than to marry or stay with someone you didn't love'.