Andrew Davies & Co’s Sanditon, Episodes 5-8: Zigzagging into a Conclusion in which Nothing is Concluded

Esther Denham (Charlotte Spencer) and Lord Babbington (Mark Stanley) enthusiastically tie the knot (Sanditon Episode 8)

Mary Parker (Kate Ashcroft) and Charlotte’s adieu (Episode 8) — they had a real friendship

Mary: Despite everything, I do hope you don’t regret coming to Sanditon.
Charlotte: How could I? It’s been the greatest adventure of my life

Pleased and exasperated readers,

I follow on from my first blog review of this series.

Since Esther and Lord Babbington do marry and we see them making love in bed, it’s not quite true that Episode 5 through 8 take us through a series of ratcheted up climaxes as the character zig first this way to no purpose.  There is a slender skein of satire and sensible human feeling spun through the second half, with again an attempt at showing us, the viewers, a joyous time in the natural and romantic worlds:

Episode 5 gives us yet another repeat of Georgiana Lambe (Crystal Clarke) defying Sidney (Theo James) and her governess, Mrs Griffiths (Elizabeth Berrington), with the help of Charlotte (Rose Williams) and a decoy novel, Mary Brunto’s Self Control, more crises over money, ending in all down to the beach for a rousing game of cricket, with Charlotte taking Tom Parker’s [Kris Marshall] place as he characteristically lets everyone down and then tries to cover up and lie, demanding the referee take back a decision

Tom Parker as sore loser demanding a re-decision (Episode 5)

(5)

With good-natured Charlotte taking over and ever compromising decent James Stringer (Leo Suter) accepting the injust recall (Episode 5)

Episode 6 is zag again as Georgiana flees to London, with Sidney and Charlotte hastening after (in hot pursuit? arguing all the way, he Sherlock, she Girl Friday); they rescue Georgiana in a wild high speed chase of coaches from a brothel where she was improbably captured by a unscrupulous man to whom Georgiana’s gambling suitor, Otis, (Jyuddah Jaymes) was in debt and to whom Otis seems to have sold Georgiana! After which all who count return to Sanditon (Otis is out), where again we have a repeat of near bankruptcy (the now utterly disillusioned embittered Mr Stringer still trying to get Tom to pay him and his men), staved off this time by Charlotte’s idea “let’s have a regatta!” to make money, with time out along the way for Babbington and Esther to take a walk by a waterfall. The episode ends with a ball so we can watch Sidney and Charlotte enacting falling in love through elegant dancing:

During the coach chase, Sidney swings his body from one coach to another (Episode 6)

Dancing falling in love — another extravaganza of a ball, the 2nd of the series (Episode 6)

Then Zag in the divagating circles of Episode 7 as we begin move into various water antics, while the subplot of the fierce competition between Edward Denham (Jack Fox) and Clara Brereton (Lily Sacofsky) over who will inherit Lady Denham’s (Anne Reid) wealth as she seems truly to be on the edge of death, becomes absurdly melodramatic: the two fuck on the floor, they frantically seek the will and bargain and burn it. All to no avail, as Lady Denham suddenly gets better, after which she is seen in her usual nagging way commanding Esther to please (and this time marry) Lord Babbington. I have been omitting various walks and drives on the beach for Esther and Babbington (among others), and Sidney and Charlotte’s growing friendship, suddenly cut off by the appearance of Mrs Eliza Campion, now widow, once engaged to Sidney and come to fetch him back …

One appealing scene has Arthur (Turlough Convery) once again being kind to (talking sensibly as no one else does) to Georgiana (Episode 7)

From the water race (Episode 7)

I will not attempt to follow the zigzagging of the great crises of Episode 8, which include yet another extravagant ball, interrupted by a vast fire destroying all Tom Parker’s buildings, the death of old Stringer (caught in said fire), Sidney rushing once again to London for money, only to return to say he got some in the one way left – he has engaged himself again to Eliza. Vic Sanborn’s blog covers this episode step-by-hurried step.

Sidney now adding to all his hero’s deeds, frantic fire-fighting (Episode 8)

Stringer looking up at the fire and realizing his father has died beyond one of the upper windows(8)

Charlotte facing going home, trying to accept that Sidney now cannot marry her

As to the content of the stories, the only thing I regret is the sense Tom has he’ll be all right. He does not deserve to be all right. As written, it seems Charlotte may after all marry Mr Stringer, and he will be her reward as Esther’s is the Babbington as good husband material (she is rescued from the pit of incest and seething envy of Clara) and maybe Sidney will marry Eliza — all pragmatic. Diana Parker is for a moment desolate as all Arthur’s kindness to Georgiana begins in her mind to add up to love, until Arthur reassures her he has no desires for women (is homosexual) so will not marry Miss Lambe. Arthur with his money will go home with his faithful side-kick sister, Diana, so the comic spinster too will now not be alone — as she feared.

Diana and Arthur: she to him: “Home’s best. You’re so right, Arthur!” —

I dislike happy endings unless I am made to believe in them. Most of the time Austen qualifies her happy ending by ironies and other astringent comments or a downright melancholy possibility in the future (as in Persuasion‘s final paragraph). Sentimentality such as in the scene between Tom and his wife, and then Sidney and Charlotte on the cliff grates on me by its untruthfulness. You might say I so long for joy that meretricious substitutes depress me. In life this ending seems to me just what might happen. I can hope that after all Charlotte marries Mr Stringer and, like Esther, learns to love her worthy kind consistent tender hard-working husband (Stringer can still take up the offer of an apprenticeship to an architect in London once he recovers from his grief over his father’s death).

I wouldn’t mind if there was another season, but would be very unhappy if Charlotte did not marry Stringer as I find Sidney has shown himself to be a volatile, difficult and often tyrannizing violent man. As I feel that at no point did the writers make me truly believe in Georgiana or Otis (they were not created as portraits of African people as they really might have been snatched from their environment, given little security, disdained for their race), I don’t know what I want for her. I’m glad Edward is ejected (poetic justice there). I would hope Clara comes back and is reconciled with her aunt (though who would want to live with such a harsh bully?), but if we are to be treated again to these seething melodramatic absurdities I’d just as soon skip Clara doing more hand-jobs and Sidney exposing himself (low points in the series).

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This remains the best edition for the money — the editor is Margaret Drabble

This edition has a long full introduction (history, interpretation, text)

Again, the important questions to ask are, is this a good movie series? how does it relate to Austen’s Sanditon, its source (with or without continuations). To take the questions in reverse order: as opposed to the first four episodes (and perhaps some of what was planned) just about nothing from these 4 episodes comes from any Sanditon. All that could be taken was taken and now they are trying for further character development, changes and story matter. Much that is developed is melodramatic, cliched, and when written with some attempt at human truth, not given enough time for development. Continuity and smoothness of transition were ignored. The scenes between Sidney and Charlotte as they begin to try to get to know one another and seem to be much attracted needed much more time and words. Charlotte Spencer’s acting of Esther a difficult role was effective, and, given the number of swiftly juxtaposed scenes she was in, there was enough for the actress to convey a miserably abused young woman. Rose Williams’s Charlotte made sense and if more quiet time had been granted to Theo James as Sidney, not so much rapid switching back and forth, he might have conveyed a man whose masculinity and self-respect was threatened as he watches his family go broke. Tom suggests Sidney was in some before time jilted by Eliza; Sidney hints at remorse over his life in Antigua. But so little time was given for any development or nuanced dialogue.

Two of four shots of Charlotte walking along grieving … (Episode 8)

One sign of haste is the Deus ex machina of Lady Susan. She is suddenly there, is never explained.  Why should a high society woman, or (if she) a prince’s mistress take an interest in the obscure Charlotte and help her?

A shot from Chris Brindle’s Sanditon material

A dull fairy tale shot from this series

Perhaps the film-makers (writers, directors) didn’t trust their viewing audience for a moment not to be bored. Its dramaturgy reminded me of the new Poldark. I find the Outlander series vastly superior: why? they will sometimes spend (really) 10 minutes on a interlude; they give time to dialogues to develop and we get real thought from the characters. Not enough time or money was spent on the Sanditon sets: the buildings were uninteresting, shot from afar, with the same stills used over and over again. It was clear a minimum of what was suggestively needed inside was created; the best “sets” were the beaches and water.

It’s a shame since it did seem to me that the conception of the series suggested experimentation. Could they build another kind of Austen adaptation, one which took in contemporary attitudes towards family life, sex, money, and new film-making techniques and audience acceptance of lives not lived according to some narrow set of norms? They did not manage it because the series is not the careful work of art it needed to be – and I have seen many a Jane Austen adaptation have. There is a companion volume. It does not say much about the movie series. Why break a butterfly upon a wheel?

Ellen

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Foremother poet: Mary Jones (1707-78), Chantress

In one of her poem’s a heelpiece to a lady’s shoe (18th century of course) speaks

Her self-description: “a Traveller or Pilgrim, wandering about from House to House, in order to partake of the Benevolence of such good People [to her friends living in Windsor Forest] as you are … ” (ie., poor but honest & chaste) … Our real Worth must depend upon Our Selves (her brother, the Revd Olivier Jones and herself)

Friends and readers,

I thought the first couple of my new fore-mother poet blogs would be on women’s poetry which Austen could have read — and what’s more liked. There is no picture of Mary Jones (1707-78), so I have prefaced this with a pair of 18th century shoes and placed at the end a depiction of “a dreamer” as envisaged by a mid-18th century French poet, but we know a good deal about her outward life, and who she was related to, who were her friends (among these, Charlotte Lennox), where she lived, where she published. Her one Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (Oxford, 1750), which included verse, letters, translations, had a subscription list of 1,400 (some of them of high rank, many in the “fashionable world”) She had a place in Oxford literary circles, where she met Samuel Johnson, who called her “the Chantress” (her brother was Chanter at the Cathedral) and would quote Milton’s Il Penseroso to her: “Thee, Chantress, oft the woods among/I woo.” Her poetry and writing were praised and she seems to have been personally liked. Thomas Warton said of her she was “a very ingenious poetess … and, on the whole, as a most sensible, agreeable, and amiable woman.”

I’ve chosen three poems: first to Lady Bowyer, the friend  who helped her plan and publish her book by subscription: an intelligent and amusing poem:

An Epistle to Lady Bowyer

How much of paper’s soiled! what floods of ink!
And yet how few, how very few can think!
The knack of writing is an easy trade;
But to think well requires — at least a head.
Once in an age, one genius may arise,
With wit well cultured, and with learning wise.
Like some tall oak, behold his branches shoot!
No tender scions springing at the root.
Whilst lofty Pope erects his laurelled head,
No lays like mine can live beneath his shade.
Nothing but weeds, and moss, and shrubs are found.
Cut, cut them down, why cumber they the ground?

And yet you’d have me write! — For what? for whom?
To curl a favourite in a dressing-room? .
To mend a candle when the snuffs too short?
Or save rappee for chamber-maids at court?
Glorious ambition! noble thirst of fame! —
No, but you’d have me write — to get a name.
Alas! I’d live unknown, unenvied too;
‘Tis more than Pope with all his wit can do;
‘Tis more than you with wit and beauty joined,
A pleasing form, and a discerning mind.
The world and I are no such cordial friends;
I have my purpose, they their various ends
I say my prayers, and lead a sober life,
Nor laugh at Cornus, or at Cornus’ wife.
What’s fame to me, who pray, and pay my rent?
If my friends know me honest, I’m content.

Well, but the joy to see my works in print!
Myself too pictured in a mezzotint!
The preface done, the dedication framed,
With lies enough to make a lord ashamed!
Thus I step forth, an Auth’ress in some sort;
My patron’s name? ‘0 choose some lord at court.
One that has money which he does not use,
One you may flatter much, that is, abuse.
For if you’re nice, and cannot change your note,
Regardless of the trimmed, or untrimmed coat,
Believe me, friend, you’ll ne’er be worth a groat.’

Well then, to cut this mighty matter short,
I’ve neither friend nor interest at Court.
Quite from St. James’s to thy stairs, Whitehall,
I hardly know a creature, great or small,
Except one Maid of Honour”, worth them all.
I have no business there – -Let those attend
The courtly levee, or the courtly friend,
Who more than fate allows them dare to spend;
Or those whose avarice, with much, craves more,
The pensioned beggar, or the titled poor.
These are the thriving breed, the tiny great!
Slaves! wretched slaves! the journeymen of state.
Philosophers! who calmly bear disgrace,
Patriots who sell their country for a place.
Shall I for these disturb my brains with rhyme?
For these, like Bavius creep, or Glencus climb?
Shall I go late to rest, and early rise,
To be the very creature I despise?
With face unmoved, my poem in my hand,
Cringe to the porter, with the footman stand?
Perhaps my lady’s maid, if not too proud,
Will stoop, you’ll say, to wink me from the crowd.
Will entertain me, till his lordship’s dressed,
With what my lady eats, and how she rests:
How much she gave for such a Birthday-gown,
And how she tramped to every shop in town.

Sick at the news, impatient for my lord,
I’m forced to hear, nay smile at every word.
Tom raps at last — His lordship begs to know
Your name? your business?’ — ‘Sir, I’m not a foe:
I come to charm his lordship’s listening ears
With verses, soft as music of the spheres.’
‘Verses! — Alas ! his lordship seldom reads:
Pedants indeed with learning stuff their heads;
But my good lord, as all the world can tell,
Reads not ev’n tradesmen’s bills, and scorns to spell.
But trust your lays with me — some things I’ve read,
Was born a poet, though no poet bred:
And if I find they’ll bear my nicer view,
I’ll recommend your poetry — and you.’

Shocked at his civil impudence, I start,
Pocket my poem, and in haste depart;
Resolved no more to offer up my wit,
Where footmen in the seat of critics sit.
Is there a Lord whose great unspotted soul,
Not places, pensions, ribbons can control;
Unlaced, unpowdered, almost unobserved,
Eats not on silver while his train are starved;
Who, though to nobles or to kings allied,
Dares walk on foot, while slaves in coaches ride;
With merit humble, and with greatness free,
Has bowed to Freeman, and has dined with me;
Who, bred in foreign courts, and early known,
Has yet to learn the cunning of his own;
To titles born, yet heir to no estate,
And harder still, too honest to be great;
If such an one there be, well-bred, polite,
To him I’ll dedicate, for him I’ll write.

Peace to the rest — I can be no man’s slave;
I ask for nothing, though I nothing have.
By fortune humbled, yet not sunk so low
To shame a friend, or fear to meet a foe.
Meanness, in ribbons or in rags, I hate;
And have not learned to flatter ev’n the great.
Few friends I ask, and those who love me well;
What more remains, these artless lines shall tell.

Of honest parents, not of great, I came;
Not known to fortune, quite unknown to fame.
Frugal and plain, at no man’s cost I eat,
Nor knew a baker’s or a butcher’s debt.
O be their precepts ever in my eye!
For one has learned to live, and one to die.
Long may her widowed age by heaven be lent
Among my blessings! and I’m well content.
I ask no more, but in some calm retreat
To sleep in quiet, and in quiet eat.
No noisy slaves attending round my room;
My viands wholesome, and my waiters dumb.
No orphans cheated, and no widow’s curse,
No household lord, for better or for worse.
No monstrous sums to tempt my soul to sin,
But just enough to keep me plain and clean.
And if sometimes, to smooth the rugged way,
Charlot should smile, or you approve my lay,
Enough for me — I cannot put my trust
In lords; smile lies, eat toads, or lick the dust.
Fortune her favors much too dear may hold:
An honest heart is worth its weight in gold.

(wr, 1736, published 1750)

This second poem manages to put her genteel poverty into a acceptable yet real perspective:

Soliloquy on an Empty Purse

ALAS, my Purse! how lean and low!
My silken Purse! what art thou now!
Once I beheld — but stocks will fall —
When both thy ends had wherewithal.
When I within thy slender fence
My fortune placed, and confidence;
A poet’s fortune! — not immense:
Yet, mixed with keys, and coins among,
Chinked to the melody of song.

Canst thou forget, when, high in air,
I saw thee fluttering at a fair?
And took thee, destined to be sold,
My lawful Purse, to have and hold?
Yet used so oft to disembogue,
No prudence could thy fate prorogue.
Like wax thy silver melted down,
Touch but the brass, and lo! ’twas gone:
And gold would never with thee stay,
For gold had wings, and flew away.

Alas, my Purse! yet still be proud,
For see the Virtues round thee crowd!
See, in the room of paultry wealth,
Calm Temperance rise, the nurse of health;
And Self-Denial, slim and spare,
And Fortitude, with look severe;
And Abstinence, to leanness prone,
And Patience, worn to skin and bone:
Prudence and Foresight on thee wait,
And Poverty lies here in state!
Hopeless her spirits to recruit,
For every Virtue is a mute.

Well then, my Purse, thy sabbaths keep;
Now thou art empty, I shall sleep.
No silver sounds shall thee molest,
Nor golden dreams disturb my breast:
Safe shall I walk with thee along,
Amidst temptations thick and strong;
Catched by the eye, no more shall stop
At Wildey’s toys, or Pinchbeck’s shop;
Nor cheapening Payne’s ungodly books,
Be drawn aside by pastry-cooks:
But fearless now we both may go
Where Ludgate’s mercers bow so low;
Beholding all with equal eye,
Nor moved at — ‘Madam, what d’ye buy?’

Away, far hence each worldly care!
Nor dun nor pick-purse shalt thou fear,
Nor flatterer base annoy my ear.
Snug shalt thou travel through the mob,
For who a poet’s purse will rob?
And softly sweet in garret high
Will I thy virtues magnify;
Outsoaring flatterer’ stinking breath,
And gently rhyming rats to death.
(1750)

A print from Oxford, 1870s

She was born and grew up in Oxford. Her father was Oliver Jones of St Aldate’s, Oxford; her mother, a member of the Penn family of South Newington. In one letter Mary gives an account of her family. She grew up and was educated alongside her brother, eventually the Rev Oliver Jones (c 1706-75) at Oxford; his friends were her friends as she lived with . She was educated at Oxford, could read French and Italian and was translating from Italian at age 16.   There is a frequent sting in her poems as an outsider, the excluded woman. She does complain of the way “outsider” women were treated, but there seems to have been little overt anger. She seems to have thrived among groups of friends, especially women.  Among the poems by her I’ve read is a kindly one, “After the Small Pox,” seemingly addressed to a friend who has survived, but lost her outward beauty;” her poem about a great house is a comical sketch of hurrying to have dinner and become warm again (addressed to a friend, Charlot), “Written at Fern Hill, While Dinner was Waiting for Her. In Imitation of Modern Pastoral. ”

Printed books which contain some of her poems include British Women Poets of the Long Eighteenth Century, edd. Paula A. Backsheider & Catherine E. Ingrassio; British Women Poets, 1660-1800: An Anthology ed. Joyce Fullard (this is the best of the anthologies as Fullard has exquisitely good taste and an eye for living vivid poetry). Alexander Pope’s influence is often cited but I find the content and tone resemble far more other women’s poetry.  Much detail may be found in Roger Lonsdale’s short biography at the opening of each of his selections in The Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford paperback). See wikipedia. In an Eighteenth-Century Archive, many more of her poems may be found (you will see why her poems were widely read in her milieu and she was so liked).

I call special attention to and conclude with her moving poem in grieving for the death of a beloved friend:  Verses to the Memory of Miss Clayton (click for the whole poem from which I type the concluding stanzas)

Still, but for Thee, regardless might I stray,
Where gentle Charwell rolls her silent tide;
And wear at ease my span of life away,
As I was wont, when thou were at my side.

But now no more the limpid streams delight,
No more at ease unheeding do I stray;
Pleasure and Thou are vanish’d from my sight,
And life, a span! too slowly hastes away.

Yet if thy friendship lives beyond the dust,
Where all things else in peace and silence lie,
I’ll seek Thee there, among the Good and Just.
‘Mong those who living wisely — learnt to die.

And if some friend, when I’m no more, should strive
To future times my mem’ry to extend,
Let this inscription on my tomb survive,
‘Here rest the ashes of a faithful friend.’

A little while and lo! I lay me down,
To land in silence on that peaceful shore,
Where never billows beat, or tyrants frown,
Where we shall meet again, to part no more.”

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Jean Francois Gilles Colson (1733-1803): A Dreamer

Ellen

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