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This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights and duplication or sale of all or part is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for research, private study, criticism/review or educational purposes. Electronic or print copies are for your own personal, non- commercial use and shall not be passed to any other individual. No quotation may be published without proper acknowledgement. For any other use, or to quote extensively from the work, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder/s. /' { THE TECHNIQUE AND DEVELOPMENT OF DISRAELI'S NOVELS Dorothy Goldman Ph.D. 1979 ORIGINAL COPY IS TIGHTLY BOUND AND TEXT IS CLOSE TO THE EDGE OF THE PAGE ABSTRACT This thesis reveals how Disraeli adapts and develops fictional techniques. The nature of the less complex of these is defined in Part I, using five early novels. Ch. I establishes a characteristic and recurring trio, the hero, strong woman and sage, and their changing relationships. Ch. II analyses Disraeli's use of "doubles" and symmetry. Ch. Ill describes his literary background with reference to the fashionable novel, psychological study and Byronic influence, and it rejects autobiographical interpretations. Part II considers Disraeli's trilogy. Ch. IV is an analysis of the explicitly political Coningsby, laying particular emphasis on the novel's basic structure (the parallel between Coningsby and the "new" Tory party). Disraeli's incorporation of factual material in his fiction is introduced here. Ch. V. deals with the more socially concerned Sybil, extends the factual/fictional analysis and introduces Disraeli's increasing strength in embodying a novel's central theme - here in its language, in mysteries, misnamings, et al. Ch. VI treats Tancred as a failure, by virtue of its untenable central argument and fragmented style. Earlier works, Alroy and Iskander, illustrating Disraeli's previous attempts to deal with similar spiritual and racial questions, show the origins of the split between idealistic fervour and cynical mockery. Disraeli's inability to combine them in Tancred is examined. Part III studies two novels in which the previously described techniques are perfected. Ch. VII shows that Lothair. its argument dramatized in its structure and embodied in a characteristic vocabulary, achieves what Tancred could not, and considers Disraeli's style as especially apt for the political novel. Ch. VIII shows how Disraeli examines historical change in Endymion and dramatizes interpretations— chance, will, destiny, et al. — in a vocabulary which allows sincere appreciation and mocking rejection to co-exist successfully. The Conclusion brings the major techniques together and reveals their resemblance to each other. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PART I: EARLY NOVELS Chapter One: The Hero, the Strong Woman 1 and the Sage Chapter Two: Doubles and Symmetry 30 Chapter Three: The Fashionable, Psychological, 56 Byronic and Autobiographical Dimensions PART II: THE POLITICAL TRILOGY Chapter Four: Coningsby 78 Chapter Five: Sybil 119 Chapter Six: Tancred 173 PART III: THE CULMINATION Chapter Seven: Lothair 225 Chapter Eight: Endymion 275 CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY 337 CITATIONS FROM DISRAELI'S NOVELS Pages references to Disraeli's novels are to the Hughenden Edition, London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1881, with three exceptions: 1. All references to Lothair are to the Oxford English Novels Edition, ed. Vernon Bogdanor, London: Oxford University Press, 1975. 2. Certain references to material in Vivian Grey which Disraeli omitted from 1853— and which is missing from the Hughenden Edition— are cited from the Young England Edition, ed. Bernard N. Langdon-Davies, London and Edinburgh: R. Brimley Johnson, 1904. Such page references are preceded by the symbol YE— e.g,, YE, p.258. 3. Certain references to material in The Young Duke which Disraeli omitted from 1853— and which is missing from the Hughenden Edition— are cited from the Centenary Edition, ed. Lucien Wolf, London: De La More Press, 1905. Such page references are preceded by the symbol C— e.g., C, p .58. Page references are placed, where possible, in the body of the text. Small adjustments to the punctuation of quotations have been made— in the matter of single/double inverted commas, and the placement of commas and fullstops "inside" them— in conformity with the general typographical conventions of the dissertation. PART I : EARLY NOVELS 1. CHAPTER ONE: THE HERO, THE STRONG WOMAN AND THE SAGE Disraeli's novel-writing falls conveniently into three periods: the early novels, from Vivian Grey in 1826 to Venetia in 1837; the "Young England" trilogy, Coningsby, Sybil and Tancred, from 1844 to 1847; and the two novels of his old age, Lothair in 1870 and Endymion in 1880. Despite this division, the early group of novels already exercises the same talents which he would develop further in the five later novels. Though some of Disraeli's early novels do reward individual study, they will here be considered together, primarily to reveal the origin of interests and techniques which came to fruition in his major works and which will be discussed further in later chapters. At first sight there are three constant figures in each Disraeli novel: a young aristocratic hero seeking his fortune, at least one strong woman, and a mysterious stranger, full of gnomic wisdom. While it is true that these figures appear in nearly all Disraeli's books, they change, both in themselves and in their relative importance. 2 . l . The development of the hero will be best revealed by a comparison of his position in Vivian Grey, The Young Duke and Contarini Fleming. Arthur Frietzsche says that after the early novels "the hero... becomes a stock figure,"* but this is too simple. The young hero becomes progressively more passive. B.R. Jerman's opinion is more accurate; he says, "The central figure of each of his early... novels is the defiant, despairing wanderer.... By contrast his later heroes, Coningsby, Tancred, Lothair and Egremont do not live out their little lives as if the world depended on their finding their o destinies.1 2' The novels from the trilogy onwards, that is, show the hero in the process of discovering a positive understanding of the great principles on which to base his own conduct and the ordering of society, whereas earlier they do not: Vivian Grey ends with the probable death of the hero after he has lost his reputation and his love, and Contarini Fleming with the hero living in seclusion, his wife, child and father dead; Alroy is executed after deserting his God and in Venetia Cardurcis and Herbert, the joint heroes, both drown. 1. Arthur H. Frietzsche, "The Monstrous Clever Young Man": The Novelist Disraeli and His Heroes (Logan, Utah, 1959), p. 32. 2. B.R. Jerman, The Young Disraeli (London, 1960), p. 289. The original quotation runs, "The central figure of each of his early autobiographical novels is the defiant, despairing wanderer— young Dizzy himself." I have omitted the biographical bias above. 3 . Despair, cynicism and action mark the early heroes; optimism, education, and passivity the later. As Leslie Stephen put it, "The youthful heroes of Disraeli's early novels are creative; in his later they become chiefly receptive. Vivian Grey and Contarini Fleming show their genius by insubordination; Coningsby and Tancred learn wisdom by sitting at the feet of 3 Sidonia...." Coningsby, Egremont, Lothair and Endymion are actually seen learning how to live and their future seems secure. To begin with Vivian Grey: in Book I, Ch. VIII— originally Ch. IX and entitled "THE NEW THEORY"— Grey cynically speculates on which professional field he will enter. He dismisses the bar ("law and bad jokes till we are forty"), the services ("in peace... fit only for fools"), and the church ("the thousand and one chances against me!") (p.18). Then he makes "the Grand Discovery": while the influence of the millionaire is instantly felt in all classes of society, how is it that "Noble Mind" so often leaves us unknown and unhonoured?... Oh, yes! to rule men, we must be men.... Even in the same spirit, I would explain Jove's terrestial visitings. For, to govern man, even the god appeared to feel as a man; and sometimes as a beast, was apparently influenced by their vilest passions. Mankind, then, is my great game. At this moment, how many a powerful noble wants only wit to be a Minister; and what wants Vivian Grey3 3. Leslie Stephen, "Disraeli's Novels," Hours in a Library. New Ed. (London, 1892), 11.112. 4 . to attain the same end? That noble's influence. When two persons can so materially assist each other, why are they not brought together? (pp.18-9) In the later books, however, as in Disraeli's connection with the Young England group, it is not such young men, but the older generation of entrenched landowners who are cynically misusing their political power; as the very name of Disraeli's political group suggests, it was the young men who were to return the old to a sense of their duties. In the 1853 preface to Vivian Grey Disraeli says, "Books written by boys (1825-6), which pretend to give a picture of the manners, and to deal in knowledge of human nature, must necessarily be founded on affectation. They can be, at the best, but the results of imagination, acting upon knowledge not acquired by experience." Perhaps, given his later more idealized view of political aspirations, he was thinking as much of his earlier affected cynicism as he was of the adolescent posturing of parts of the novel. In Vivian Grey Disraeli attempts to protect his hero by attacking the circles in which he moved: "I conceived the character of a youth of great talents, whose mind had been corrupted as the minds of many of our youth had been, by the artificial age in which he lived.