Saturday, February 16, 2008

Getting "Crabbey" with Jane Austen

On Sunday, Feb 3, I watched Masterpiece's, The Complete Jane Austen's new biopic Miss Austen Regrets. One scene shows Miss Austen's introduction to a young MP (member of parliament) named Stephen Washington. The meeting takes place in a library, and the young man begins to quote a poet named Crabbe:
"All around these silent walks I tread
These are the lasting memories of the dead."

Since I collect library and book quotes and I had never heard this one before, I had to find out more about Crabbe and the source of the quote.I found that George Crabbe was one of Jane Austen's favorite poets, and that the source of the quote is a poem he wrote called The Library. It's a very long poem, but here is the section that the quote came from:

With awe, around these silent walks I tread;
These are the lasting mansions of the dead:-
"The dead!" methinks a thousand tongues reply;
"These are the tombs of such as cannot die!"
Crown'd with eternal fame, they sit sublime,
"And laugh at all the little strife of time."

Hail, then, immortals! ye who shine above,
Each, in his sphere, the literary Jove;
And ye the common people of these skies,
A humbler crowd of nameless deities;
Whether 'tis yours to lead the willing mind
Through History's mazes, and the turnings find;
Or, whether led by Science, ye retire,
Lost and bewilder'd in the vast desire;
Whether the Muse invites you to her bowers,
And crowns your placid brows with living flowers;
Or godlike Wisdom teaches you to show
The noblest road to happiness below;
Or men and manners prompt the easy page
To mark the flying follies of the age:
Whatever good ye boast, that good impart;
Inform the head and rectify the heart.


Crabbe also seems to have been Jane Austen's source for the name of the heroine of Mansfield Park, Fanny Price.

"In The Parish Register, Part II (1807), Jane Austen’s favourite poet Crabbe had written:

Sir Edward is an amorous knight
And maidens chaste and lovely shun his sight;
His bailiff’s daughter suited much his taste,
For Fanny Price was lovely and was chaste


(from E.E. Duncan-Jones in Jane Austen and Crabbe, The Review of English Studies, 1954) ht: oldgreypony

Crabbe also appears on a table in Fanny Price's study. The speaker in the following excerpt is Fanny's cousin, Edmund Bertram, speaking to Fanny:
Mansfield Park
Volume I
Chapter 16
You, in the meanwhile, will be taking a trip into China, I suppose. How does Lord Macartney go on?"--opening a volume on the table and then taking up some others. "And here are Crabbe's Tales, and the Idler, at hand to relieve you, if you tire of your great book. I admire your little establishment exceedingly; and as soon as I am gone, you will empty your head of all this nonsense of acting, and sit comfortably down to your table. But do not stay here to be cold."

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