Dear Serial Readers,
In this segment we get a solid glimpse into the quagmire-marriage of "the young wife" (chap 27). In the collision between Romola and Tito--the "revelation" of the last chapter in the installment, divergent temporalities underwrites this conflict. Tito's interest in his own self-serving present, with an eye to the conveniences and comforts of the immediate future, jars with Romola's reverence for the past, for the power of memory, the trust of her dead father. It's also clear which relationship to time Eliot endorses. How does Savonarola fit into this temporal scheme?
This is approximately the half-way point of the full novel--the unraveling of the marriage already in full swing. Rather than the suspense of courtship we have the suspense of marital dissolution, or perhaps the possibilities for Romola given a culture where the wife along with her inheritance is her husband's property. Again, it's interesting to think about this novel as an early one in a continuum of Eliot's novels about troubled marriages. If we use the later ones to predict this earlier one (or, the past repeating the future), will Tito die or disappear?
I'm curious too about the dispersal of Bardo's library despite his desires (and Romola's to realize them) that his collection of books, manuscripts, and antiquities form a memorial to him and a kind of national or city-state archive. Since Eliot heavily researched the Italian Renaissance in the British Museum, it's intriguing to think about this element in relation to the Victorian equivalent of Bardo's dream. By 1862 Richard Owen was already supervising the transfer of the natural history collection at the British Museum elsewhere--to South Kensington eventually. Apparently Antonio Panizzi, Italian political refuge who was the principal librarian and creator of the Round Reading Room at the British Museum, had no interest in the science collection. We might think of Romola as the preservationist, Tito as the deaccessionist who disperses objects (Baldassarre's ring, Bardo's library) of the past for his own gain.
Tito informs Romola that the books were purchased for the Duke of Milan--I'll leave the hint of a Shakespearian allusion here to Maura!
Next week, installment #7 (Jan. 1863)--chaps 33-37).
Serially yours,
Susan
3 comments:
I am sorry to join in so late, but I have only just finished my German class for the summer and caught up with everybody.
I do not have much to say yet (but have enjoyed reading everyone's responses so far), and hope to have more to add soon. I think the one thing I am most interested in right now is the way Eliot not only brings into conversation how both Tito and Romola view attachments to historical objects, but also how they view attachments to current works of art, such as Piero di Cosimo's work (of which they are both subjects in different capacities). Though they appear together in the painting that conceals the crucifix, they also appear individually in Cosimo's paintings. Romola is seen as a fitting subject because of her beauty and the relationship she shared with her father; something about Tito catches Cosimo in a way that allows him to "see" something many other people cannot. While Romola is aware of her painted double, Tito is not. I am interested in how this element of representation will continue to develop, especially since it seems to speak to the ability of both new and old art to represent psychological or moral truths.
Just two other thoughts--I am wondering if the fact that this tale begins in 1492, with Columbus's voyage, might also ask us to reframe Romola and Tito's conflict about old and new? Of course, there is the war as well, which I admit I know little about, but perhaps these historical hinges or pivots might deepen the conflict between the two characters?
And lastly, apparently (maybe someone mentioned this already) there is a 1924 film version of Romola starring Lillian Gish, however, I cannot find it on Netflix, our modern day lending library!
I am still interested in some comments from the last section, too. I'm struck by Maura pointing out that Baldassare's "bonds" are cut right after Tito has displayed that he easily cut the bonds of filial duty and love--another external sign of an internal state as Julia observed (I was also struck by Romola's view of Piero's painting in chapter 28, and the insight of the visual artist.)
Maura also noted that Tito dismissed Baldassare with no conscious will-that was what convinced me that bad actions came more easily to him than good, and he has pretty much lost any desire for goodness that he may have had. Now, he only wants comfort. Yes, he's always wanted comfort, but sometimes he seemed to be at least intrigued by the idea of turning to good action.
Susan wrote about the marriage, and I was impressed that Romola moved from self-doubting, passive dupe (and more beautiful because more timid) to disillusion in one installment. I'm relieved about that, and like Susan, feel primary suspense at how Romola will find a way to thrive without Tito--or will it be a tragedy?
I am also struck that Baldassare turned into a more nuanced character in this section, at least partly, as he doubts himself and analyzes whether he might have perhaps misjudged Tito. As I was reading this chapter, I noted this sentence: "it is in the nature of all human passion, the lowest as well as the highest, that there is a point where it ceases to be properly egoistic, and is like a fire kindled within our being to which everything else in us is mere fuel." I was fascinated by the use of "egoistic"-I still need to look up what it would have meant in 1862. And I was struck by how the fire eats up the self.
I have two observations for this installment:
First, I was really interested in a new kind of internal/external space--the "space" of marriage. At the very end of the "Fruit is Seed" chapter, the narrator comments on the deteriorating marriage: "Poor Romola! There was one thing that would have made the pang of disappointment in her husband harder to bear: it was, that any one should know he gave her cause for disappointment. This might be a woman's weakness, but it is closely allied to a woman's nobleness. She who willingly lifts up the veil of her married life has profaned it from a sanctuary into a vulgar place" (p. 266). This suggests to me that Romola is in an impossible bind; her "nobleness" requires that she comport herself outwardly so that she doesn't reveal her true feelings. Reading Romola from a 21st century perspective, after so much has been done to try to encourage victims of bad marriages/domestic violence not to stay silent, I found this passage jarring. Did anyone else feel this same way? The fact that Tito uses this feminine virtue against Romola during their argument, stating "...sit down. You would hardly wish, if you were quite yourself, to make known to any third person what passes between us in private" (p. 273), makes the narrator's original comment all the more troubling. It seems strange that the positions of the narrator (a moral center) and the villainous Tito would merge on this point. Perhaps the novel is just revealing the ways in which "noble" qualities (especially in a woman) might subject a person like Romola to manipulation?
My second point is just to note that Tito seems to use "madness" as the answer to all opposition. We saw him call Baldassarre a madman earlier, and in this installment he tells Romola that "it is useless ...to answer the words of madness...Your peculiar feeling about your father has made you mad at this moment" (p. 274). In Tito's world, any kind of love, passion, or attachment seems to translate easily into "madness"!
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