Dear Serial Readers,
Building on Julia's comment about Eliot's treatment of Romola's bad marriage, it's interesting that while the narrator seems to forbid Romola to divulge Tito's betrayal and the strains within their marriage, in this installment Romola disguises herself and takes flight. I found this particularly interesting--this concerted attention to "the act of quitting a husband who had disappointed all her trust" at a historical moment (post 1857 Divorce Act) when women's legal ability to extricate themselves from a harmful marriage was gaining more attention, and Eliot had her own particular interests in the legal complexities that made divorce impossible even if both parties desired this (she and her partner G.H. Lewes could not legally marry because Lewes was unable by law to divorce his wife Agnes although she had already had children with another man and they had not lived together for years). For Romola, too, "the law of her affections" trumps the law of church or state: "She was not acting after any precedent, or obeying any adopted maxims."
I'm intrigued too by how Romola's activities around her divorce from Tito are so self-empowering, even prompting her to scholarly pursuits as she hopes to consult Cassandra Fedele, "the most learned woman in the world," The note in my edition describes Fedele (1465-1558) as "renowned throughout Italy for her Greek and Latin learning." I think Eliot's concluding line to the installment is rather radical for its times (double times even--early modern and Victorian): "She was free and alone." Better "free and alone" than enslaved through marriage--that the novel opens up this space beyond marriage and domesticity for young women is, to my mind, quite remarkabale.
As Emily pointed out, Eliot develops her characters through object relations. As Romola prepares to flee her marriage, the betrothal ring and the tabernacle almost become characters themselves in the scene. I hope Maura will continue with her reading of Eliot's use of the Ariadne myth here, especially with a chapter titled: "Ariadne Discrowns Herself"!
This episode reminded me how much Eliot's novel seems to negotiate some of the common threads of the popular sensation novels that were ubiquitous serials in magazines in the 1860s. The "bigamy plot"--a staple in sensation fiction--becomes more apparent in this installment where we see Tessa and her "bambino" cloistered in the country where she occasionally sees her husband "Messer Naldo" (aka Tito) when he pays his visits. Tito is two-timing, living as occasional husband to two different women here. This kind of betrayal of Romola's trust, one she doesn't even know about, is then coupled with his betrayal toward his father Baldassarre whom he encounters as Tessa's new "stranger." Romola's flight from Florence also parallels Tessa's, and I'm wondering if they too will encounter each other, just as Tessa meets Baldassarre. While I wasn't surprised that Baldassarre spurned Tito's self-serving attempt at reconciliation, I also don't think revenge sits well in Eliot's moral universe. As a historical novel too I find this a bigamous narrative--wedded to the past of 1492 and the present of print publication time, 1862-63. There are so many textual markers of "then and now," so that readers might be encouraged to read the past of Renaissance Florence as a disguise for modern Britain?
Disguises and feigned identities also populate sensation narratives. But Romola's disguise as a religious sister (who then resembles her brother Dino/Fra Luca) seems a way for Eliot to approach the question of spirituality and belief despite Romola's "contempt from childhood" for the religious devotion of "howling fanatics and weeping nuns." Eliot often seems interested in how to manage a life of genuine spiritual and moral integrity coupled with intellectual engagement, where belief and reason are not in opposition. Perhaps Eliot also is working out this question through her use of the prophetic narrative, like Fra Luca's dying vision. Savonarola, we're waiting for your return here! Maybe next time--chapters 38-41.
Serially yours,
Susan
2 comments:
Hello everyone! I apologize for my very late appearance - a (rather desperate) job hunt and some family issues have been a tax on my time lately. I meant to introduce myself to the group well before now. :) I'm still catching up with the reading, but I wanted to drop in and say hello! I hope I'm not intruding too late.
I'm interested in seeing Eliot work the sort of plots found in her day's pulp fiction with her own masterful skill, as she does with other aspects of 'silly novels'. I'll try to have something more useful and interesting to say once I've fully caught up!
I would also like to read Maura's analysis of Ariadne discrowned! It seems that as long as Romola believes the marriage will work, she cannot raise the veil on her marital problems--a section that also struck me very much, in part as an ideal still living in many people's conceptions of marriage--but once she has been totally betrayed by Tito, she can leave *and* let people know what's happening, as she does send her things to her godfather. I'm a bit surprised she doesn't have Maso just send them himself instead of asking Tito to do it.
There seems to be much foreshadowing of pitfalls to come for Romola as she prepared to leave in Chapter 36. I wonder whether it's just to let us know that Romola could face trouble as a single woman, even disguised as a nun, or to prepare us for what is to come.
In thinking about inside/outside, I'm struck by Romola's regret at having uttered unkind words to Tito, thus suggesting to me that there are many layers of inside: things that should only be kept to oneself, things that can be shared with a spouse, things that can be shared with other family, things that are said in the market place. Interesting that there are no market place scenes in this installment.
Romola feels "tingling shame" that she said to Tito "have you robbed someone else who is *not* dead?". And Eliot observes "Hard speech between those who have loved is hideous in the moemory, like the sight of greatness and beauty sunk into vice and rags." Of course, Tito *has* robbed someone else who is not dead, both Baldassare and Tessa, really, and is himself beauty sunk into vice.
Post a Comment