Ghent University Faculty of Arts and Philosophy

Canon, Fantext, and Creativity: An Analysis of Pamela Aidan‘s Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman as a ―Fanfictional‖ Response to Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice.

Paper submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of ―Master in de Supervisor: Taal- en Letterkunde: Engels – Nederlands‖ Prof. Dr. Jean Pierre Vander Motten by Veerle Van Steenhuyse

May 2009 Van Steenhuyse i

Acknowledgements

I am particularly grateful to my supervisor, Prof. Vander Motten, who supported me in my choice of subject, in spite of its unconventionality. In addition, he read through my drafts, and alerted me to stylistic flaws and obscurities. I would also like to note that my understanding of American popular culture was shaped by the classes of Prof. Ilka Saal. I am no less thankful to my family, who encouraged me when I needed it. Pamela Aidan, too, deserves my thanks, as she supplied some facts about her fic‘s history which I could never have found on my own. Margaret

D, of the Derbyshire Writers‘ Guild, also deserves a special mention here, because she directed my search to new areas in cyberspace. Finally, I would like to thank the fan writers and readers of the Austen fandom, particularly of the Republic of Pemberley and the Derbyshire Writers‘

Guild, for creating something as wonderful as fan fiction. Van Steenhuyse ii

Contents

0. General Introduction 1

1. Fan Fiction

1.0 Introduction 5

1.1 Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman 7

1.2 Fan Fiction: Terminology 9

1.3 A History of Fan Fiction 13

1.4 The Singular Nature of Fan Fiction 17

1.5 Conclusion 21

2. Canon

2.0 Introduction 24

2.1 Austen Fans‘ Fidelity to Canon 26

2.2 Fitzwilliam Darcy in Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice 31

2.3 Fitzwilliam Darcy in the BBC/A&E Adaptation of Pride and Prejudice 35

2.4 Conclusion 39

3. Fantext

3.0 Introduction 42

3.1 Janeitism and Comfort 44

3.2 Adaptation Fandom and Stylistic Transparency 49

3.3 Pamela Aidan‘s Interpretation of Fitzwilliam Darcy 54

3.4 Conclusion 59

4. General Conclusion 63

5. Works Cited 67

Van Steenhuyse 1

0. General Introduction

According to Time journalist Lev Grossman, 2009 is witnessing ―one of the greatest economic and technological transformations‖ in centuries, one which will turn the novel ―into something cheaper, wilder, trashier, more democratic and more deliriously fertile than ever‖ (54).

Increasingly, he insists, novels are ―shrugging off their expensive papery husks‖ and are

―transmigrating digitally into other forms‖ (54). As a consequence, they are also ―becoming detached from dollars,‖ which is a very first ―in modern history‖ (54). To illustrate this trend,

Grossman refers to ―fan fiction, fan-written stories based on fictional worlds and characters borrowed from popular culture—Star Trek, Jane Austen, Twilight, you name it‖ (54). He remarks that the number of stories online is so ―staggering‖ that fan fiction could already be treated ―as a literary form in its own right‖ (54). It is no wonder, then, that his vision of future fiction shares some of its formal features: it is electronic, episodic, and ―ravenously referential and intertextual,‖ with high-paced narratives aimed at easy processing and ―immediate gratification‖

(55). Relying on precedent, moreover, Grossman predicts that authors who want to publish their work will self-publish, while publishing houses will ―monitor the performance‖ of such books, and buy only those that prove successful (55). On the basis of two existing trends, then,

Grossman announces a reformation of the literary marketplace.

While it is impossible to say if Grossman‘s trends will really push through, his article illustrates that popular media have picked up on the fan fiction phenomenon. Typically, however, journalists have only discussed the genre because of its unconventionality: just as

Grossman focuses on fan fiction‘s revolutionary form, other ―mainstream journalistic representations‖ centre on ―m/m (male/male) slash‖ fics (Busse and Hellekson 17; Pugh 91), stories in which ―the sexual orientation of characters is altered from straight to gay to suit the fan‘s needs‖ (Jones, ―Shooting‖ 264). According to Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse, academics have likewise preferred to study ―slash fiction‖ (17), even to the extent that the

―history of fan fiction studies, for the most part, is a history of attempting to understand the Van Steenhuyse 2 underlying motivations of why (mostly) women write fan fiction and, in particular, slash‖ (Busse and Hellekson 17). In actual fact, slash fics are less numerous than other types of fan fiction

(Pugh 91), more specifically than ―het‖ fics, featuring heterosexual relationships, and ―gen‖ fics, which do not feature sex (Pugh 90) or even romance (Driscoll 83-4). As this is especially true for

Austen fan fiction (Pugh 104), which is my object of study here, fanfic scholars have often overlooked stories based on Austen.

While fan fiction studies have, for the most part, ignored Austen fan fiction, Austen scholars have come to see how such stories can provide new insights into Austen‘s current reception. As Deborah Kaplan notes, research on this subject has, until recently, focussed on

―highly literate groups such as 19th-century reviewers for periodicals or early-20th-century women novelists‖ because other readers do not usually ―create a written record of their responses‖ (―Pride‖). To broaden their perspective, ―some scholars have gone directly to the products of Austenmania, the film and television productions‖ (Kaplan, ―Pride‖). These responses, however, are the responses of ―filmmakers, some of whose views of the novels were influenced by academic scholarship‖ (Kaplan, ―Pride‖). Fan fiction, by contrast, can offer researchers insight into the motives of a wider range of ―real-life readers‖ (Kaplan, ―Pride‖).

Rather than simply ―alluding to Austen Web sites‖ and ―various online conversations about the novelist,‖ Kaplan insists that scholars should write ―sustained explorations of the numerous responses that have been collecting in cyberspace‖ (―Pride‖). My master paper is an answer to that ―call for papers.‖ As such, it is part of a larger project, in which Austen fan fiction is examined to determine how the novelist‘s work is currently received in non-academic circles.

While my conclusions, then, will not go beyond the narrow scope of my work, I aim to provide material for future research—and, considering the unique nature of fan fiction, perhaps also an example.

As my object of study is, in the first place, fan fiction, I have based my approach on recent trends in fan fiction studies. This discipline has its earliest roots in the 1980s, when Van Steenhuyse 3 scholars began to discuss slash fics in the context of ―feminist pornography debates‖ (Busse and

Hellekson 17). It was not until the early 1990s, however, that ―three studies‖ introduced a number of ―central readings and theoretical approaches to fan fiction‖ (Busse and Hellekson 17-

8). Firstly, Henry Jenkins‘ Textual Poachers (1992) approached the genre from ―audience studies,‖ highlighting fans‘ ―resistance to the seemingly all-encompassing force of commercial media‖

(Busse and Hellekson 18). Secondly, Camille Bacon-Smith‘s Enterprising Women (1992) took ―an anthropological approach,‖ and researched ―the community of women and their interaction and ties‖ (Busse and Hellekson 18). Lastly, Constance Penley‘s ―Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the

Study of Popular Culture‖ (1992, 1998) investigated fans‘ identification processes from a psychoanalytic point of view (Busse and Hellekson 19).

While these early studies focussed primarily on offline fan communities (Busse and

Hellekson 19), more recent works represent fan fiction first and foremost ―as an interpretative gesture, thus using fan fiction to gain further insight into a particular source text‖ (Busse and

Hellekson 20). Although most of these build on the theories of Jenkins, Bacon-Smith, and

Penley (Busse and Hellekson 20), some scholars have ―tried to use different paradigms and methodologies‖ (Busse and Hellekson 21), most importantly by ―letting fans speak for themselves‖ (Busse and Hellekson 21), or, if they are also fan writers, by analysing ―their own writing practices‖ and ―experiences‖ (Busse and Hellekson 21). Necessarily, such studies draw on, or add to, the ―corpus of literature‖ fans have written about their own activities, and which they have posted on sites like ―the Fanfic Symposium‖ (Busse and Hellekson 23). In general, recent research has incorporated Nicholas Ambercrombie and Brian Longhurst‘s ―new model of the consumer,‖ which represents consumption as active rather than passive (Busse and

Hellekson 22). As a result, it has moved ―away from studying the community to studying the individual fan, in particular her underlying motivations and psychology‖ (Busse and Hellekson

23). Unfortunately, this also means that some researchers have failed to take into account ―the specific particularities of the fannish community‖ (Busse and Hellekson 23). Van Steenhuyse 4

Even more recently, scholars have pointed out the analogies between fan activity and academic research. Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse claim, for instance, that ―the act of performing fandom parallels the act of performing academia,‖ and that a familiarity with both practices can help scholars ―to see a more comprehensive picture of fandom‖ (25). Similarly, Juli

J. Parrish emphasises how the ―analogy between fan writing and student writing‖ (153) can make the latter more attractive (149-51). These trends have determined my approach in two ways.

Firstly, I will examine only one fic by one fan, namely Pamela Aidan‘s Fitzwilliam Darcy,

Gentleman. I have chosen this particular fic because it was self-published before it was discovered by Simon & Schuster—making it a prime example of Grossman‘s ―New Publishing‖ (55). Not only did this make it more practical to discuss her text, but it also ensured that her fic was not changed drastically when it appeared offline. In addition, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman has been called ―superior‖ to other published Austen sequels (Karen 2L; Shinjinee, 21 March 2004). In my first chapter, I will give a thorough introduction to Aidan‘s trilogy. As I want to discuss it as a piece of fan fiction, moreover, I will also provide a detailed overview of the genre and its context. Secondly, I will analyse this fic as an ―interpretative gesture.‖ In accordance with

Kaplan‘s call, in other words, I aim to find out how Aidan interprets her source text. This is why

I will devote my second chapter to Aidan‘s ―canon,‖ which consists of Jane Austen‘s Pride and

Prejudice and the 1995 BBC/A&E adaptation of the novel. This will enable me to discuss the subtleties of Aidan‘s fic efficiently. At the same time, I will not ignore the ―particularities‖ of her text‘s original context. I will open my third chapter with a discussion of how Aidan‘s work was influenced by the interpretations of other Austen fans, which accumulate in the Austen fandom‘s

―fantext‖. Only then will I analyse Aidan‘s own reading of Pride and Prejudice. As the structure of my master paper indicates, Aidan‘s response to Austen is my first concern. However, I will also consider how the strained relationship between Austen scholars and Austen fans has influenced the latter, and how Aidan‘s work resembles a critical essay.

Van Steenhuyse 5

1. Fan Fiction

1.0 Introduction

As Grossman points out, fan fiction owes some of its recognition as a ―literary form‖ to quantity rather than quality (54). In fact, the sheer ―quantities of material involved‖ make it impossible to have an ―exhaustive knowledge‖ of the subject (Pugh 7). As Juli J. Parrish notes, internet fan fiction1 alone ―is a vast and vibrant textual system, made possible by the work of tens of thousands of writers and comprised of hundreds of thousands of texts (and even those numbers are probably underestimations)‖ (8). What is more, every text is ultimately produced by one of various ―collectives,‖ called fandoms (see below p. 10), which have particular rules and conventions (Busse and Hellekson 6). This makes it particularly difficult to define fan fiction, as no definition can cover every fic. As a result, Parrish finds that

uncomplicated definitions of fan fiction seem to be the province of online

glossaries and articles in the arts and culture sections of newspapers rather than

critical studies, which tend instead to annotate such definitions carefully and at

length or, more commonly, to reach provisional, even implied definitions, over

the course of their work. (11)

She, too, uses a ―tentative working definition of ‗internet fan fiction‘ or fanfic‖ (11) rather than an authoritative one. Next to a text‘s being published on the Internet (11), she claims it has to meet three criteria. First, internet fan fiction is written ―by amateur fans of a particular media text or texts (television program, book, film, role-playing game, anime, cartoon, etc)‖ (11). Second, it starts ―from (but [is] not limited to) some of the characters and sometimes premises of that text or those texts‖ (11). And third, it has to distinguish itself as fan fiction (11).

On the whole, academics tend to concentrate on particular criteria, according to the focus of their work. In The Democratic Genre: Fan Fiction in a Literary Context, for example,

1 ―Fan fiction‖ does not have to be published on the Internet—unlike the ―internet fan fiction‖ Parrish discusses (see below, p. 15). Online fandom, however, is unique, because ―technological tools affect not only dissemination and reception, but also production, interaction, and even demographics‖ (Busse and Hellekson 13). Because Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman originated as an internet fic, I will use Parrish‘s criteria. Van Steenhuyse 6

Sheenagh Pugh sees ―fan fiction as writing, whether official or unofficial, paid or unpaid, which makes use of an accepted canon of characters, settings and plots generated by another writer or writers‖ (25). Although she discusses texts which were published online as ―fan fiction‖ by fans of a variety of media texts, her definition privileges strictly textual qualities. This allows her to discuss fan fiction as a literary form2. Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse‘s Fan Fiction and Fan

Communities in the Age of the Internet, by contrast, focuses on the similarities between ―fannish expressions‖ (Busse and Hellekson 6)3 and the ―fandoms‖ that produced them (8). To capture this similarity, they use the metaphor ―work in progress,‖ which, in the world of fan fiction, is ―a piece of fiction still in the process of being written but not yet complete‖ (6). They argue that this incompleteness characterizes every aspect of fan fiction, including any attempt to define it.

After all,

[t]he source texts in many cases are serial, in progress, and constantly changing, as

are the fan stories set in these universes. Fans‘ understanding of the characters

and the universes the characters inhabit changes, just as scholarly understanding

of fans and their relationship to one another, to the source text, and to the texts

they generate is constantly being revised and rewritten. (7)

Because Busse and Hellekson take into account fan and text, they can no longer give a definitive definition4.

I, too, will take into account fan and text. As I have noted, however, I will discuss only one text, one fan, and a limited number of communities. In using this approach, I do not deny fan fiction‘s fundamentally dynamic nature; rather, I feel that the analysis of individual responses

2 In ―Writing Bodies in Space: Media Fan Fiction as Theatrical Performance,‖ Francesca Coppa defines fan fiction even more narrowly, ―as creative material featuring characters that have previously appeared in works whose copyright is held by others‖ (226). Because she discusses the genre as a dramatic form, Coppa stresses the use of characters rather than settings and plots. 3 These ―fannish expressions‖ include ―fan fiction, fan art, and fan vids‖ (Busse and Hellekson 6). For brevity‘s sake, however, I will refer only to fan fiction. 4 Busse and Hellekson prefer ―instead to accumulate a set of definitions based on the overall work‖ of the essays Fan Fiction and Fan Communities brings together (Parrish 15). Others, like Angela Thomas, do try to define fan fiction as a creative process instigated by fans (Parrish 13; Thomas 226), but end up annotating their definitions until they become unwieldy (Parrish 11). Van Steenhuyse 7 is necessary to piece together an overview of fan activity. In this chapter, I will first give a detailed history of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman, the text of my choice. This allows me to illustrate the key concepts of fan fiction in a coherent way. Similarly, I will refer to the Republic of

Pemberley, an online community, to elucidate the history of fan fiction. Finally, I will discuss the singular nature of fan fiction, and the way in which it affects my research.

1.1 Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman

Pamela Aidan‘s Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman first appeared online as The Chronicles of

Pemberley (Austenesque). A librarian from Pennsylvania (Wytherngate Press, Pamela Aidan),

Aidan had no writing experience ―beyond college papers‖ (Aidan, Q&A, Assembly 252). She had, however, been a fan of Pride and Prejudice since secondary school, reading the novel ―again and again‖ (Aidan, Q&A, Assembly 252). After 1995, her admiration reached new heights. That year, the BBC/A&E‘s adaptation of the novel made its American debut, and caused a veritable ―Jane

Austen revival and explosion‖ (Irene). Colin Firth‘s rendering of Fitzwilliam Darcy, in particular, opened Aidan‘s eyes. While she had found the character ―so sketchy in Austen and very unlikable,‖ Firth‘s performance ―brought to the fore intriguing suggestions of who Darcy might really be. Darcy‘s side of the story suddenly begged to be explored‖ (Aidan, Q&A, Assembly 252).

Because she ―could not get enough of the film,‖ she went in search of ―more‖ on the Internet

(Irene). She came across a number of sites devoted to Austen and the BBC/A&E adaptation. To satisfy her craving, she started reading fan fiction, which she found in the sites‘ archives (Irene).

Eventually, she became ―most familiar with and appreciative of The Republic of Pemberley

(pemberley.com) and The Derbyshire Writer‘s Guild (austen.com)‖ (sic) (Aidan, Q&A, Duty

286). Aidan soon became convinced that she could make a contribution of her own. To test the waters, she wrote a short fic, which was very well received (Irene). Noting a lack of fics that told

―the story in real time from Darcy‘s point of view,‖ following the changes he goes through, she decided to write The Chronicles of Pemberley (Irene). She posted her first instalments in 1997, which Van Steenhuyse 8 appeared on four sites: the Republic of Pemberley, the Derbyshire Writers‘ Guild, Austenesque, and Firthness (Aidan, private email; Aidan, Q&A, Assembly 247)5. Almost immediately, she began receiving positive feedback—eventually from readers in over a hundred different countries

(Irene). One of those readers was her future husband, with whom she struck up an invaluable correspondence. He would read through the rest of her instalments before they were posted, and point out what did not feel ―right‖ to him (Aidan, private email). As she continued writing, her audience encouraged her to go on. Their feedback not only assured her that her grasp on Darcy‘s character was firm, but also that she ―could depart from Austen, sometimes in some very shocking ways, and still not only keep [her] readership but get them to agree to the twists [she] was giving the story‖ (Aidan, private email). Once completed, her work comprised three parts:

At An Assembly Such As This, Duty and Desire, and These Three Remain6. She posted her last instalments in 2005.

At this point, several readers had asked her to publish her trilogy, so that ―they would not have to carry around notebooks filled with copies‖ (Irene). Aidan complied, and considered contacting Print On Demand. At a book fair, however, she came into contact with their printer, and decided to publish the series with her own publishing house, Wytherngate Press. Her husband helped her to prepare the manuscript for publishing (Irene). They altered the text in two ways. First, they decided to add a part of Duty and Desire to At An Assembly Such As This, to make the two books about the same size (and, as a consequence, about the same price). Second, they increased the plot tension by making Dyfed Brougham, one of the secondary characters, more enigmatic in the beginning of the series (Aidan, private email). On the whole, however, the trilogy was still aimed at an audience familiar with Austen (and Austen fan fiction). An Assembly

Such As This was published first, in December 2003 (Amazon.com, Assembly). Duty and Desire and

5 Pamela Aidan created Austenesque to archive her own fan fiction. This is why I will not treat it as a site that shaped her interpretation of Pride and Prejudice. 6 Although all three books were removed from the Republic of Pemberley, the Derbyshire Writers‘ Guild, Austenesque, and Firthness when they appeared in print, they are still archived, and can be retrieved with the Wayback Machine (see Aidan, ―At An Assembly,‖ ―Duty,‖ and ―Three‖). The title of At An Assembly Such As This was ultimately changed to An Assembly Such As This. Van Steenhuyse 9

These Three Remain hit the marketplace soon after, in August 2004 (Amazon.com, Duty) and

October 2005 (Amazon.com, Three). Because of her novels‘ success, Aidan was contacted by

Simon & Schuster, who offered to buy the series. She turned them down twice. Ultimately, however, she contacted a lawyer, and sold the books for five times their original offer (Irene).

The spelling was changed to American English, but Aidan made sure that the original text remained intact (Aidan, private email). Simon & Schuster published the series in three

Touchstone Books, between 2006 and 2007. By then, bookstores had already sold seventy thousand copies of each novel (Irene). Wytherngate Press has remained active, publishing audiobooks of the trilogy, as well as similar works, such as Susan Kaye‘s Frederick Wentworth,

Captain. The Press‘s aim is to ―bring worthy literary works into publication that may not meet the highly-charged marketing criteria of the major publishing houses‖ (Wytherngate Press, home page). Like her publishing house, Aidan is still very approachable, giving book-signings (Irene), inviting readers to contact her for phone interviews or group chat sessions, maintaining a blog

(Wytherngate Press, Pamela Aidan), and encouraging personal contact via email (Austenesque).

Since its appearance, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman has inspired its own fan fiction, telling the story of Dyfed Brougham (Irene).

1.2 Fan Fiction: Terminology

First of all, I have called Pamela Aidan a ―fan‖ of Pride and Prejudice. This label is important, because ―[c]ritical opinion more or less agrees on the fact that fan fiction is written not by casual viewers, readers, or players but by fans, people who generally have an extensive and expansive knowledge of the specific text about which they are writing‖ (Parrish 11). Aidan qualifies as a fan, because she read the novel several times and became a devoted viewer of the series. As a result, her knowledge of Pride and Prejudice (both of the novel and the series) is above- average. As a fan, Aidan has a particular ―fandom‖—a group of fans ―assembled around common fan interests‖ (Parrish 26). In Aidan‘s case, this is the Austen fandom, which, it can be Van Steenhuyse 10 argued, ―was one of the first to generate fan fiction‖ (Pugh 27; Derecho 62; see below p. 14).

According to Parrish, ―fandom‖ should not be confused with ―community‖ (26-7)7. Before fans moved their activities to the Internet, these terms were virtually synonymous, but they have grown apart ever since (see below p. 15). An online ―community‖ is a specific group of fans who interact socially on ―bulletin boards, mailing lists, forums‖ and the like (Parrish 26), for example on a site like the Republic of Pemberley. According to Parrish, these communities resemble

―discourse communities,‖ because their ―social interactions‖ are ―highly conventionalized,‖ as is the way their members view the world (Parrish 84). Similarly, a community‘s ―interpretive conventions‖ (Parrish 85) determine how characters ―should‖ behave, by accepting ―particular details or character readings‖ which do not necessarily conform to canon (Busse and Hellekson

9; Sabotini, ―Big Bully‖. Often, for example, ―various fan-favored romantic pairings‖ will develop particular sets of expectations, which then act ―as perceived limitations or restrictions that fan authors . . . follow or break‖ (Stein 248; see also chapter 3)8. A ―fandom,‖ on the other hand, refers much more to the interests fans share. This implies that fandoms may overlap, as groups of fans can share several fields of interest (Parrish 26). To sum up, fans who frequent

Firthness or the Derbyshire Writers‘ Guild have the same fandom because they share an interest in Austen, but do not necessarily belong to a community like the Republic of Pemberley.

The ―specific text‖ about which a fan writes is called ―canon,‖ and consists of ―the events presented in the media source that provide the universe, setting, and characters‖ of a fic

(Busse and Hellekson 9). Canon is the opposite of ―fanon,‖ i.e. ―the events created by the fan

7 In this, I follow Parrish rather than Busse and Hellekson, who see ―fandom‖ in general as a ―community‖ (6). While they acknowledge that fandom is a non-cohesive ―collective‖ (6), divided according to the fans‘ fields of interest into smaller regulating centres, they also see it as a ―shared space‖ that promotes the ―erasure of a single author‖ (Busse and Hellekson 6). Naturally, the Austen fandom shares some features with other fandoms, on the basis of which they could be taken together in one overarching fan community, but I feel this concept is too abstract for my purposes here. ―Fandom‖ is also used to refer to the fannish phenomenon in general (see for example Coppa, ―Brief History‖ 44). 8 Notably, ―fandom‘s constant awareness that every reading is provisional and that every characterization yields one variation among a nearly countless number of others‖ (Busse and Hellekson 8) makes communities constantly revise and negotiate character readings (see below p. 13). Otherwise, fandom could never be a ―work in progress‖ (Busse and Hellekson 7). As I will argue in chapter IV, moreover, fans tend to uphold similar expectations if, for example, they are devoted to the same romantic pairing. Van Steenhuyse 11 community in a particular fandom‖ (Busse and Hellekson 9). Technically, an addition only becomes fanon when ―it is generally accepted and used by other writers‖ (Pugh 41), even to the extent that it has become cliché (Driscoll 90; Marley)9. What is canon and fanon, however, is debatable (Busse and Hellekson 9). While Aidan, for example, accepts the BBC/A&E adaptation as canonical, other Austen fans may refuse to do so. After all, there is a ―great divide‖ in Austen fandom, ―very apparent in the fanfic and paraliterature, between those fans who are primarily inspired by Messrs. Firth and Macfadyen and those who, while enjoying the movies, focus principally on the books and claim, justly or not, some intellectual superiority over the first group‖ (Thompson)10. Notably, such debates are also held in other ―multimedia‖ fandoms (Pugh

27), such as Lord of the Rings (Busse and Hellekson 9-10). Usually, communities are devoted to one particular configuration of texts, most often the one preferred by ―the website owner‖

(Parrish 86). Increasingly, however, they single out a more limited field of interest, such as a romantic relationship in a particular text (Parrish 86; Busse and Hellekson 15; see chapter 3).

According to Pugh, a fan can either want ―more of‖ or ―more from‖ canon (42; Jones

2000). Fans like Aidan, who crave ―more of‖ it, ―cannot bear to leave‖ the universe of their choice and create additional material to prolong the experience (Pugh 42; Clerc 218). ―Missing scenes‖ (Pugh 63) or ―fill-ins‖11 (Parrish 30) are a typical product of such a response, because they are based on ―missing scenes‖ (Pugh 39)—―incidents, conversations, interactions, that take place within the timescale of canon and are compatible with canon, that might have happened and in some cases must have happened, but which are not seen on the page or the screen‖ (Pugh

9 According to Catherine Driscoll, ―fanon‖ implies ―undiscerning identification with an unreal object‖ (90), as well as ―naive writing styles‖ rather than ―stylistic sophistication‖ (90). I will refer to ―fantextual‖ readings or elements when I discuss the way in which Aidan‘s work was influenced by other fics, because that influence is not always negatively connoted. 10 The Republic of Pemberley, which originated as ―a support group for people addicted to‖ the BBC/A&E adaptation, addresses this divide in its Frequently Asked Questions. Because the site still honours its ―gushing roots, and the Austen-for-the-masses feel that a demonstrative love of the adaptations brings to the site,‖ fans who think otherwise are advised to try another community (Pemberley.com, FAQ). 11 Although Parrish uses ―fill-ins‖ in connection with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (30), the term can be used to describe any fic based on a ―missing scene‖. Fill-ins are always written in the ―spirit‖ of canon (Parrish 30). Because fan fiction almost never merely summarizes canon (Parrish 30), ―missing scenes‖ are about as faithful to canon as fan fiction gets (Parrish 30). Van Steenhuyse 12

57). Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman, for example, contains ―filled-in‖ fragments, because Aidan wrote out some of the all-male scenes which are ―missing‖ from Pride and Prejudice (Pugh 39, 195;

Birtwistle and Conklin 4). In the Austen fandom, fill-ins are fairly common, because fan writers want to respect the ―spirit‖ of Austen‘s work, and insist on writing in her idiom (see also chapter

2). If fans want ―more from‖ canon, on the other hand, they feel that their canon is not ―perfect or fully realised,‖ and see ―possibilities in it which were never explored as they might have been‖

(Pugh 43). As a result, a fan will write stories that depart from canon (Parrish 30), such as

―Alternate Universes‖ (AU) in which ―familiar characters are dropped into a new setting‖ (Busse and Hellekson 11). Departures from canon can also be less invasive, however. According to

Pugh, a ―missing scene‖ becomes an ―alternate universe‖ story the moment it seems illogical that later canonical action follows from it (63). By these standards, a story in which Elizabeth believes a warning about Wickham earlier in the story, and changes her behaviour toward Darcy, is an alternate universe story, while a story in which she dismisses such a warning is a missing scene

(Pugh 63-4).

Aidan‘s case shows, however, that fans do more than write stories. They also encourage and correct each other by giving feedback (Parrish 105; Pugh 119). The role of Aidan‘s husband, in particular, resembles that of a ―beta-reader,‖ i.e. ―a friend, usually a fellow-writer, who will read a fic in detail and comment, also in detail, before it is sent anywhere or shown to anyone else‖ (Pugh 120). This revision can be very extensive, including such aspects as ―spelling and grammar, style and structure, and canonicity and remaining in character‖ (Busse and Hellekson

6). Though less specified feedback does not often change the direction of a fan‘s writing12 (Pugh

229), as it did not in Aidan‘s case, it makes possible discussions about characterization, and changes in ―[f]ans‘ understanding of the characters and the universes the characters inhabit‖

(Busse and Hellekson 7). As a result, the ―fantextual or fanon understandings of characters and

12 Pugh believes that fanfic writers feel that they ultimately ―write what they want to write,‖ precisely because they are ―part of the same fan community as their readers,‖ and, therefore, share many of their preferences (229). The fact that fans‘ understanding of canon keeps changing (Busse and Hellekson 7), however, indicates that there is room for negotiation in the community. Van Steenhuyse 13 relationships‖ which ―provide a new set of limitations within which an author must work‖ (Stein

248) are never carved in stone (Busse and Hellekson 7; Pugh 222). Because fan readers are active too, and keep interpreting a work of fan fiction differently, a fic can remain a work in progress even if it appears in print like Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman (Busse and Hellekson 7). By reading, writing, and reviewing fics, fans constantly add to the ―fantext‖ of their fandom, i.e. ―the entirety of stories and critical commentary written in a fandom (or even in a pairing or genre)‖ (Busse and Hellekson 7). Because each community produces texts from particular character readings, this fantext contains ―multitudes of interpretations of characters and canon scenes,‖ which are

―contradictory yet complementary to one another and the source text‖ (Busse and Hellekson 7;

Kaplan, ―Construction‖ 137). The impact of this fantext is enormous, as every fan‘s

―understanding of the source is always already filtered through the interpretations and characterizations‖ that it contains (Busse and Hellekson 7). Fan fiction, then, may be inspired by canon, but it also impacts the way in which that canon is read. In that sense, a fan-produced text like Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman and a canonical text like Pride and Prejudice are completely equal.

1.3 A History of Fan Fiction

It is difficult to give a general history of fan fiction by tracing the history of Austen fandom. Although Janeites are ―fans‖ in many respects, the highbrow status of their object of affection distinguishes them somewhat from other fandoms (Pugh 27; Johnson 224; see chapter

2). Therefore, I will give a history of media fandom—which tends to apply more generally—and refer to Austen fandom where the two overlap. Reaching a consensus about the origin of fan fiction seems about as difficult as seeing eye to eye about a definition of the genre13. According to Abigail Derecho, there are ―three general lines of thinking on the origin and nature of fan fiction‖ (62). In the first, fan fiction ―originated several millennia ago, with myth stories, and

13 In fact, the way academics define fan fiction necessarily influences the way in which they delineate the genre‘s history. When Coppa, for example, restricts the term ―to reworkings of currently copyrighted material‖ (―Writing Bodies‖ 226), she limits ―the definition not just to the modern era of copyright, but to the even more recent era of active intellectual property rights enforcement‖ (Coppa ―Writing Bodies‖ 226). Van Steenhuyse 14 continues today, encompassing works both by authors who identify themselves as fans and those who do not write from within fandoms‖ (62). This stance seems to be taken by Pugh, whose definition (see above p. 6) is so broad that it includes stories about Robin Hood, King Arthur, and ―the characters of ancient myth‖ (Pugh 9)14. The second line of thinking is probably held by most fans (Pugh 25), and posits that ―fan fiction should be understood as a product of fan cultures, which began either in the late 1960s, with Star Trek fanzines, or, at the earliest, in the

1920s, with Austen and Holmes societies‖ (Derecho 62). Francesca Coppa, for instance, argues that ―fan fiction has its roots in fan-written contributions to the 1920‘s periodical Amazing

Stories‖ (sic) (Parrish 12; Coppa, ―Brief History‖ 42)15. In the third line of thinking, which is adopted by Derecho herself, fan fiction is seen as ―a subgenre of a larger, older genre of literature‖ called ―derivative,‖ ―appropriative,‖ or, as Derecho calls it, ―archontic‖ literature16

(63). The history of archontic literature then includes such ―milestones‖ as ―the Jewish exegetical tradition of midrash; John Lydgate‘s 1421 continuation of Chaucer‘s Canterbury Tales, called The

Siege of Thebes; Milton‘s Paradise Lost; and the entire body of Shakespeare‘s plays‖ (66).

Ultimately, these three groups seem to debate whether fan culture and its expressions are unique or stand in an older tradition, which is a question I will leave unanswered here. Instead, I will discuss the development of media fandom. As Coppa notes, media fandom has its earliest roots in early-twentieth-century science fiction fandom (―Brief History‖ 42). To compensate ―for deficiencies and gaps in the marketplace‖ (Coppa, ―Brief History‖ 42), science fiction fans began to publish ―fan art‖ in fanzines and ―amateur press association zines,‖ and started to organise

14 Parrish feels that a definition like Pugh‘s is ―overly elastic,‖ because ―[s]tretched to its limits, considering the inherently intertextual nature of language, this definition could be considered to include all literature‖ (12). Nonetheless, she acknowledges the worth of studies by Roger C. Aden, Stephen Duncombe, and Pat Pflieger and Roberta E. Pearson, who have argued (respectively) that fan fiction has its roots in ―the collective oral storytelling traditions dating back to Ovid,‖ ―anonymous and sometimes plagiarized magazine stories of the 19th century,‖ and ―19th century sensational novels‖ (Parrish 12). 15 Coppa‘s claim that ―science fiction literature enthusiasts . . . developed much of the fannish infrastructure, jargon, and language still in use today‖ implies that science fiction fandom was the earliest form of fan culture (―Brief History‖ 42). 16 Unlike ―derivative‖ and ―appropriative,‖ ―archontic‖ implies that canonical and fan-produced texts ―are impelled by the same archontic principle: that tendency toward enlargement and accretion that all archives possess‖ (Derecho 64; see below p. 18). This does not mean, however, that all literature is archontic, as Derecho‘s definition only includes ―those works that generate variations that explicitly announce themselves as variations‖ (65). Van Steenhuyse 15 conventions (Coppa, ―Brief History‖ 43)—which they continue to do to date (Pugh 117; Parrish

24; Coppa, ―Brief History‖ 43). Media fandom ―emerged from within science fiction fandom around 1966‖ (Coppa, ―Brief History‖ 43) after the launch of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-8) and Star Trek (1966-9) (Coppa, ―Brief History‖ 43-4). Soon, the two fandoms grew apart, as many science fiction fans wrongfully dismissed media fans as ―nonreaders‖ (Coppa, ―Brief

History‖ 45). A similar rift would occur in the Austen fandom in the 1990s, between fans who accepted the adaptations as canonical, and those who refused to acknowledge any material that did not appear in the novels (see above p. 11). A very ―small pool‖ of media fans remained

(Coppa, ―Brief History‖ 44), who attended conventions (by proxy) to get hold of fanzines

(Parrish 24). Because ―fandom was a face-to-face proposition‖ (Busse and Hellekson 13), being a fan meant being active in a community17, with its own processes of ―enculturation‖ (Busse and

Hellekson 13; Karpovich 178) and physical ―fan artifacts‖ which did not often cross

―geographical boundaries‖ (Busse and Hellekson 13).

From the early 1990s onwards, however, fans moved their activities online (Busse and

Hellekson 13). According to Susan Clerc, this transition did not go smoothly. In the past, media fans (and especially fan writers) had typically been female, ―better educated than most, heavy readers, and scientifically literate‖ (Coppa, ―Brief History‖ 45, 47)18. Likewise, Jane Austen

Societies all over the world were dominated by female members (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 115). These fans initially refrained from going online. Though media fans, especially, were by no means technologically inept, they suffered ―from the same societal attitudes about gender and technology as everyone else‖ (Clerc 219). Having a smaller ―disposable income,‖ moreover, and satisfied with the offline contacts they had (Clerc 219), women entered ―cyberspace‖ later than men (Clerc 219). Increasingly, however, female fans overcame these barriers. The Republic of

17 As a consequence, some of the earliest studies of fan fiction treat ―fandom‖ and ―community‖ as synonyms (Parrish 23-4). 18 Coppa notes that, ―[a]lthough there were and are many men in Star Trek fandom—making visual art, writing articles, organizing conventions—Star Trek stories are written almost entirely by women‖ (47). This has changed only slightly after fans moved online (Jenkins, ―Moby-Dick (Part One)‖). Van Steenhuyse 16

Pemberley, for instance, now has a ―citizenry‖ of ―at least 92 percent women,‖ and, as a consequence, a ―matriarchal governance‖ (Pemberley.com, FAQ). Not only female fans found their way to the Internet, however. According to Busse and Hellekson, ―ever-younger fans‖ enter

―fannish culture‖ without the help of their parents (13). In effect, the Republic of Pemberley‘s youngest members are nine years old (Pemberley.com, FAQ). On the whole, the Internet has changed the size and diversity of fandom drastically, as more and more ―individuals who may not have been, or considered themselves to be, fans found their way to fan activity through the internet‖ (Parrish 25). This has made fandom more anonymous. Fan writers can now post stories online not knowing ―that they are part of a wider community,‖ while so-called ―lurkers‖ can

―consume fannish artifacts without interacting with other fans‖ (Busse and Hellekson 13).

Because texts are electronic, moreover, they are much more ―transient‖ and harder to control

(Busse and Hellekson 13). As such, online communities have a harder time ―enculturating‖ their members, and have dropped many rules that seemed fundamental in the past (Busse and

Hellekson 13).

Not every change was for the worse, however. For community members, keeping in touch with other fans became easier because of online mailing lists, which also made limited

―financial resources‖ and ―national boundaries and time zones‖ less of an issue (Busse and

Hellekson 13; Clerc 219). Such lists were ―generally run off a university server by someone who worked or studied there‖ (Coppa, ―Brief History‖ 53). AUSTEN-L, from which a group of future ―Pemberleans‖ spun off in 1996, is such ―an email discussion list,‖ whose List Owner, Dr.

Jacqueline Reid-Walsh, works at McGill University (Pemberley.com, FAQ; Pemberley.com,

AUSTEN-L). Technologies like ―Usenet, ListServs, newsgroups, and bulletin boards‖ have also allowed fans to discuss topics more efficiently (Busse and Hellekson 14). One of the fans who left AUSTEN-L, for example, founded a ―one-horse web bulletin board‖ called ―P&P2BB‖ to discuss the BBC/A&E adaptation (Pemberley.com, FAQ). Ultimately, this bulletin board evolved into the Republic of Pemberley, where members can post on a number of boards, some Van Steenhuyse 17 of which are devoted to ―non-Austen‖ topics (Pemberley.com, home page). Ironically, more advanced technologies such as LiveJournal and other blogs have recently re-introduced the

―more personal and less topic-driven interaction fans enjoyed before the advent of the Internet‖

(Busse and Hellekson 14). Because a journal may also include ―real-life . . . rants, political discussion, and non-fannish musings,‖ there seems to be ―a return to the sense of interaction with a person with a variety of interests, only one of which happens to be fandom‖ (Busse and

Hellekson 14).

1.4 The Singular Nature of Fan Fiction

According to Henry Jenkins, fans do not approach their canon as other readers would, but search instead ―for unrealized potentials in the story that might provide a springboard for their own creative activities‖ (Jenkins, ―Moby-Dick (Part Two)‖; Thomas 227, Parrish 32)19. On his blog, Jenkins tries to capture this process in a ―participatory model of reading‖ (Jenkins,

―Moby-Dick (Part One)‖)20. Fans, he argues, look for ―negative capability‖—a term he borrowed from Keats ―to refer to any meaningful gap or detail in a text which allows readers to draw on their own imaginations‖ (―Moby-Dick (Part One)‖; Pugh 41; Collins 37)21. This concept is related to the ―encyclopedic impulse‖ most fans share, i.e. an in some cases obsessive desire to ―know all of the details of a favorite story‖ (Jenkins, ―Moby-Dick (Part One)‖; Jenkins ―Nitpicking‖).

Ultimately, it is the compatibility of negative capability and encyclopaedic impulse that makes the relationship between producers and consumers successful (Jenkins, ―Moby-Dick (Part One)‖).

19 This statement should be seen in light of Pugh‘s ―more of,‖ ―more from‖ theory, to which Jenkins refers in the first part of ―How Fan Fiction Can Teach Us a New Way to Read Moby-Dick‖. As I have noted, however, fans‘ ―creative activities‖ shape most pieces of fan writing, including fill-ins. 20 Like most blogs, ―Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins‖ features a great variety of posts, ranging from academic material to accounts of Jenkins‘ everyday life. It was started up as a space where Jenkins could ―play catch-up‖ with the subjects he discussed in Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (2006). After all, ―one of the challenges of writing about contemporary media change is that many of the specifics of popular culture will have shifted by the time a print book appears‖ (Jenkins, ―Welcome‖; Busse and Hellekson 9). The blog also features discussions between other authorities in the field, such as Deborah Kaplan, Francesca Coppa, Catherine Driscoll, Roberta Pearson, Abigail Derecho, Louisa Stein, and Karen Hellekson (Confessions of an Aca- Fan, archives). 21 In ―How Fan Fiction Can Teach Us a New Way to Read Moby-Dick (Part Two),‖ Jenkins specifies this concept by distinguishing ―five basic elements in a text that can inspire fan interventions‖ (namely ―Kernels,‖ ―Holes,‖ ―Contradictions,‖ ―Silences,‖ and ―Potentials‖). Van Steenhuyse 18

Fans‘ search for negative capability has two major consequences. ―First,‖ Jenkins claims, ―fans generally focus on characters and their relationships as their point of entry‖ (―Moby-Dick (Part

Two)‖). This preference is confirmed by a survey Tara Collins conducted in five fandoms

(Collins 36), in which she asked a number of fanfic authors to rate seven characteristics they found attractive in stories (Collins 38). Ultimately, ―[t]he majority of the ratings (88 percent) showed that plot, characters, and dialogue were most likely to be the key factors in the reader‘s enjoyment of stories‖ (38). In this light, it is not surprising that fan fiction is often ―charged with being . . . too narrowly focused on bodies and character at the expense of plot or idea‖ (Coppa,

―Writing Bodies‖ 229), a ―value‖ which is typically characterized as ―female‖ (Coppa, ―Writing

Bodies‖ 233).

In this respect, Derecho‘s representation of the text as an archive can clarify how fans see characters. As she explains it,

[a]n archontic text‘s archive is not identical to the text but is a virtual construct

surrounding the text, including it and all texts related to it. For example, we have

Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice (P&P) as a story that consists of several thousand

specific words given in a specific order, and we also have a P&P archive, which

contains such usable artifacts as Elizabeth Bennett, Fitzwilliam Darcy, the

sprawling estate of Pemberly, and Austen‘s particular version of English manners

and morals. Many writers, such as Linda Berdoll . . . and Pamela Aidan . . . have

made withdrawals from the P&P archive, used their selections to make new

texts, and deposited their new creations back into the P&P archive. The P&P

archive thus contains not only Austen‘s novel, but Berdoll‘s, Aidan‘s, and the

hundreds of other stories based on Austen‘s novel that have appeared in print

both officially (issued by publishing houses) and unofficially (issued in zines and

Web sites). (sic) (65) Van Steenhuyse 19

Fans believe, in other words, that ―fictional characters and universes can transcend both their original context and their creator‖ (Pugh 222). When they withdraw characters from their original context—i.e. the canon‘s archive—they commit to respecting the nature of those characters, which cannot be altered without a valid explanation22 (Pugh 65-6). They accept, in other words, that canonical characters ―are already complex creations complete with physical descriptions, histories, personalities, and rich fan interpretations‖ (Kaplan, ―Construction‖ 135), and treat them as real individuals (Pugh 70-1)23. I will adopt that attitude here, and only discuss characterization to give an idea of the characters Aidan has selected (see chapter 2). The second consequence of reading like a fan is closely related to the first. Jenkins states that ―fans look for worlds that are richer, have greater potentials, than can be used up within a single story. They are particularly interested in back story—the untold narratives that explain how the characters became the people we encounter within a particular story‖ (―Moby-Dick (Part Two)‖). As a result, ―[f]an stories are not simply ‗extensions‘ or ‗continuations‘ of the original series. They are constructing arguments through new stories rather than critical essays. . . . You will find all kinds of argumentation about interpretation woven through most fan-produced stories‖ (―Moby-Dick

(Part Two)‖; Kaplan, ―Construction‖ 151; Parrish 78-9). Hence Aidan‘s insistence that she wanted to make ―a character study of Darcy, not just tell the story from a male point of view‖

(Irene). Keeping this in mind, I will analyse the way in which Aidan defends her interpretation of

Darcy (see chapter 3).

22 Fan Asuka notes, for example, that ―[t]here is a commonly held sense of characters that most readers hold. . . . Change these for no apparent reason and you‘ve made yourself the helpless target of the character nazis. Give us an event that changes the character, however, and you have crossed to character development and exploration, one of the values in fanfiction writing.‖ Sheenagh Pugh summarizes this when she notes that while ―[y]ou can set the story in a different timeline, cross it with other fictions, write before it began or after it ended or even make it go in a different direction,‖ you must ultimately ―work with a particular set of people and whatever situation you put them in, they must behave and speak like themselves‖ (Pugh 67). 23 As Pugh notes, this attitude is so strong that fans‘ ―level of emotional engagement‖ with their characters (Pugh 75; Thomas 232) and the way they talk about them (Pugh 221) tends to suggest that they see them as real people—while they can, in fact, distinguish reality from fiction as well as non-fans (Pugh 75). Aidan, for example, claims that she sometimes ―felt more like a secretary taking down dictation from all [her] characters than their creator‖ (Aidan, Q&A, Three 447). Van Steenhuyse 20

According to Jenkins, this alternative way of reading originated fairly recently, when a

―shift in cultural logic‖ created a ―participatory culture,‖ i.e. a culture in which ―consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections between dispersed media content‖ (Jenkins, ―Welcome‖). To characterize the role of fan writers in this new culture,

Jenkins appropriated ―textual poachers,‖ a term from Michel de Certeau‘s The Practice of Everyday

Life (Parrish 54). As Jenkins explains, ―poaching‖ media fans are ―readers who appropriate popular texts and reread them in a fashion that serves different interests‖ (as quoted in Parrish

54). As a result, they are more than mere ―receivers‖ of information, as de Certeau would characterize them (Parrish 56). Jenkins and his followers celebrate the fan as someone who enters into an ―active engagement with media texts‖ (Parrish 57), and whose reading and writing of fan fiction is a ―necessary corrective cultural act‖ (Parrish 65)24. When media fans write fan fiction, for example, they can be said to poach the ―intellectual property‖ of the corporations which own their object of affection (Parrish 69; Bowles 18; Derecho 72). As Parrish points out, this idea became widely popular among fans and academics alike (Parrish 57), but does not underlie every form of fan fiction (Parrish 69-70). Austen fans, for example, know very well that

Jane Austen‘s work ―is out of copyright,‖ and, as a consequence, ―fair game‖ (Austen.com, contributor guidelines). Because Austen is not ―a multinational media corporation with corporate lawyers swinging to her defense‖ (Bowles 19), her fans hardly qualify as poachers. Apart from its limited applicability, moreover, the term ―poachers‖ has some very negative connotations. After all,

a poacher trespasses on someone else‘s land in order to get game; a viewer

encroaches on the creative enterprise of someone else‘s television show in order

to get creative material. . . . In the poaching relationship, the boundaries of the

space understood to be violated by the act of poaching remain fixed and

24 As Robert Jones notes, ―slash fan fiction . . . is perhaps one of the more common examples‖ of such corrective action (264). Van Steenhuyse 21

permanent, while any activity of the poachers is ephemeral and ineffectual

beyond the material reduction of stock. (69)

To free fan writers from these connotations, Parrish prefers a characterization suggested by

Constance Penley, whose ―fans do not take something from a private cultural preserve; instead, they reimagine the preserve itself. For Penley, most importantly, fan writing is not about guerilla action, borrowing from a system, or taking the goods that belong to others; instead it is ‗a way of thinking‘ ‖ (67-8). This definition places the ―poacher‖ and the ―owner‖ of the preserve on the same level, and accepts the creative input of both in an equal measure. When fans judge each other‘s fiction, they similarly take into account these two levels, and rate it on ―adherence to canon—writing characters that readers will recognize—and also divergence from canon— writing stores that are unique, fresh‖ (sic) (Parrish 34, 138; Busse and Hellekson 10; Eros,

―Archetype‖). In effect, Aidan‘s work is commended by other fans because of her original point of view (Terry; Shinjinee, 18 March 2004; Kathleen Glancy), with which she defends her take on

Darcy‘s ―thoughts, feelings and motives‖ (Vania), because she stays ―true to JA‘s Darcy‖ (Lele;

JaneGS), and because she uses an authentic—be it a bit ―too wordy and flowery‖ (Vania)—―tone and language‖ (Shinjinee, 21 March 2004). My research, then, can never focus entirely on

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman or on Pride and Prejudice; rather, it has to examine the rewritten

―preserve,‖ with its complex interplay of canon, fantext, and individual creativity.

1.5 Conclusion

Although the Austen fandom is broader and more diversified than a group of filmmakers, its reception of Austen is still very distinct. This is why I have prefaced my exploration of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman with a detailed characterization of fan fiction, as a genre, and of its context. Using as illustrations the text, fan, and communities of my choice has also allowed me to pinpoint those traits which make my object of study a ―fic‖. Because the vast amounts of material involved in studying fan fiction make generalizations inadequate, I have Van Steenhuyse 22 implicitly measured Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman against Parrish‘s working definition of ―internet fan fiction‖. Pamela Aidan‘s trilogy qualifies as an internet fic, because its writer is an amateur

Austen fan who uses Darcy‘s point of view to explore the characters and premises of Pride and

Prejudice. In addition, she published her trilogy online between 1997 and 2005, in the fan fiction archives of the Republic of Pemberley, the Derbyshire Writers‘ Guild, Austenesque, and

Firthness. Defining Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman thus has two consequences. First, it implies that

Aidan‘s work shares some characteristics with other pieces of fan writing. In effect, its writer is a fan with an extensive knowledge of Pride and Prejudice. This trait is a result of fans‘ encyclopaedic impulse, which makes them find out everything they can about their object of interest. Aidan‘s interest in Austen binds her specifically to the other fans of her fandom, who may socialize in various communities. These communities tend to accept a version of canon, on which its members then base their fan fiction. In the Austen fandom, this canon is usually a particular configuration of Austen novels and/or adaptations. Aidan used a combination of Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice and the BBC/A&E adaptation of the novel, a configuration which is accepted by the four sites I mentioned. She also picked up fanon and fantextual elements from other fics. As a result, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman is written from a distinct reading of canon, which may contrast with the readings of other communities. By reading, writing, and reviewing stories from different character readings, Austen fans constantly add to the fantext of their fandom, which can be characterized as a ―work in progress‖.

Second, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman specifically resembles other internet fics, even though it eventually appeared in print. By the time Aidan posted her work, the online Austen fandom had acquired some characteristics which distinguish it from its offline equivalent. In terms of demographics, Aidan‘s audience was larger and more diverse than it would have been offline.

Though most of her readers were female, she was faced with a great variety of ages, nationalities, and levels of commitment to the Austen fandom. Fortunately, the increased anonymity of online fandom, which allowed her to ―lurk‖ before posting her work, and the stream of feedback her Van Steenhuyse 23 instalments generated, assured her that her audience‘s preferences either mirrored her own or could be guided in that direction. As an electronic fan artefact, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman was initially transient. Ironically, this became particularly apparent when the trilogy appeared in print, and was removed from the Internet. Appearing in print did not finalize the text, however, as its readers continue to write reviews and keep adding to the story, for example by working out the character of Dyfed Brougham. Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman remains a work in progress because it is read by Austen fans. These look at characters as they would at real people, who have natures which can only change when they are confronted with their world. As such, fans withdraw characters from canon as they would artefacts from an archive, explaining the state they are in and trying not to ―damage‖ them further without a solid justification. As a result, fan-produced texts often defend a particular character reading. This reading does not have to be canonical, but tends to resemble the fantextual reading the writer‘s community accepts. The deviant nature of some of these readings has made scholars characterize fans as ―textual poachers,‖ readers who take action to correct their canon. From this perspective, Aidan seems to have failed as a fan.

Like most Austen fan fiction, her trilogy does not deviate radically from canon, which, in any case, is not protected by copyright. What fans like Aidan do is far less resistive: they rewrite the

―preserve‖ itself, by adding elements of their own creation to what they find in canon. This representation characterizes fan writers more positively and conforms better to their view on each other‘s work, while it still captures their unique ―fannish‖ approach to canon. Retracing that approach in my research, I will begin my exploration of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman as a fan would, and examine why Aidan is fascinated by Austen‘s characters.

Van Steenhuyse 24

2. Canon

2.0 Introduction

Up to now, I have discussed canon and fantext as two sides of the same coin, and underscored that it is impossible to discuss one without at least alluding to the other. In short, I have mentioned that the members of a community agree on a particular canon, and share certain conventions about character interpretation. These conventions can apply to any aspect of canonical characters, including their personality, physical appearance, and history. As a consequence, fans treat characters as ―real‖ people in their own universe. At the same time, community members can defend slightly different character readings, whether in meta-texts like reviews or in their own fan fiction. When enough members agree, a community may even accept readings which are not supported by canon. Although this representation is somewhat simplified

(see chapter 3), it emphasises that canon is a jumping point for fans‘ creative efforts; and as advanced online technologies have allowed fans to narrow their focus (Busse and Hellekson 15), that creativity has taken ever more of them away from canon. Still, compared to other fandoms,

Austen fans have remained remarkably faithful to her work. What is more, this attitude is promoted by the largest fan fiction archives of the fandom, the Republic‘s Bits of Ivory and the

Guild‘s Epilogue Abbey (O‘Connell 1), both of which request that their writers stay true to the

―spirit‖ of Austen‘s work (Pugh 43, 37-8; Pemberley.com, Bits of Ivory guidelines; Austen.com, home page)25. Considering that canon is a ―prompt,‖ this is an intriguing request, as it seems to limit the creativity of Austen fanfic writers.

It is no coincidence, then, that Pugh mentions the Republic of Pemberley for its extreme

―faithfulness‖ to canon, noting that, in some ways, ―Pemberley‘s guidelines are more

25As Pugh points out, ―[s]ites which exist to promote and preserve book-based fan fiction in its original form tend to be extremely protective‖ about the quality of the fics they archive, and their faithfulness to canon (Pugh 121-2). It should be noted, however, that the Derbyshire Writers‘ Guild also houses a Fantasia Gallery for ―modern stories, time-shifted stories, stories with fanciful elements, or more irreverent stories‖ (Austen.com, home page; O‘Connell 1). This can be seen as a reaction to the Republic‘s more rigid standards, as the Guild was founded in 1997 ―as an offshoot of the Republic of Pemberley‘s Bits of Ivory board‖ (Austen.com, home page).

Van Steenhuyse 25 prescriptive, and restrictive,‖ than those of other fan universes (37). Amongst others, the community prohibits ―profanity, violence or ‗adult‘ content‖ in its fan fiction, because ―Jane wouldn‘t have done it‖ (Pugh 38). Because the Republic also expects its writers to set their story in ―the same historical era‖ as canon (Pugh 38, 40) and to ―present the characters ‗in a manner faithful to their original conception‘ ‖ (Pugh 40), it all but forces them to write fill-ins in Austen‘s

―idiom‖ (Pugh 39; Pemberley.com, Bits of Ivory guidelines). Naturally, the Republic of

Pemberley and the Derbyshire Writers‘ Guild cannot control everything that is written in the fandom. Smaller sites, whose communities are less diverse26, tend to tolerate alternative readings.

Hyacinth‘s Garden, for example, accepts ―AUs and other departures from canon‖ (Pugh 245,

194), while Firthness also offers ―adult fanfic‖ (Pugh 246). Even fics in smaller archives, however, tend to stay relatively close to canon. There are, for instance, remarkably few slash fics in the Austen universe (Pugh 104). Pugh argues this is because ―most Austen fanfic writers feel obliged to approximate her voice, which to a great extent is also that of her characters‖ (Pugh

104). As such, they have a hard time ―finding a credible way for Austen‘s people to speak of such a thing‖ as slash (Pugh 105, 104). Because fidelity to canon is so important to Austen fanfic writers27, I will discuss Aidan‘s canon before I examine her own additions. First, I will demonstrate that Aidan is particularly faithful to Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice. Then, I will explain why this is common in the Austen fandom, and show how ―Jane‘s‖ holding the fandom together ties in with its history. Next, I will speculate why Austen‘s work is popular as canon material, which will provide a frame to examine Austen‘s Darcy. This will allow me to show what Firth‘s performance added to Austen‘s creation, and why it managed to open Aidan‘s eyes. Finally, I will briefly summarize how Aidan combines the two components of her canon in her reading of

Darcy.

26 To some extent, the Republic of Pemberley and the Derbyshire Writers‘ Guild do not accept adult fiction because some of its members are still minors (see above p. 16) (Pemberley.com, FAQ; Austen.com, contributor guidelines). 27 This is particularly true for fan writers like Aidan, who want ―more of‖ Austen and who explore the world she created. Fans who want ―more from‖ Austen tend to set their stories ―in another time, which immediately precludes using the trademark Austen voice‖ (Pugh 194). Van Steenhuyse 26

2.1 Austen Fans‘ Fidelity to Canon

I have suggested that Pamela Aidan is faithful to canon, because she is an Austen fanfic writer who wants ―more of‖ Austen‘s world. To make concrete this statement, I will examine the

Meryton assembly episode (Aidan, Assembly 1-8; Austen 12-15; BBC/A&E I.2-3)28—though the conclusions I draw here apply just as well to the rest of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman. In Pride and

Prejudice, this episode begins with the entrance of the Bingley party. The narrator uses this entrance to describe the room‘s first impressions of the Bingleys, the Hursts, and Darcy (Austen

12). Aidan, on the other hand, presents this scene ―in real time, from Darcy‘s point of view,‖ with dialogue of her own invention but in Austen‘s idiom29, and references to the BBC/A&E adaptation—more specifically to the awkward silence (Assembly 2-3) and to Sir William‘s greeting

( Assembly 3). As Austen describes the assembly itself in greater detail, Aidan increases her references to the novel (Austen 12-4; Assembly 3-7); for one, she integrates most of Austen‘s dialogue into her own work (see for example Assembly 7; Austen 13-4). She still refers to the series, but only as a secondary source of information—as would most ―multimedia‖ fans

(Coppa, ―Writing Bodies‖ 229). This preference is particularly clear when the adaptation departs from the novel. In Aidan and Austen, for instance, Bingley first dances with Miss Lucas

(Assembly 3; Austen 14) rather than Jane (I.3). In both works, too, Darcy catches Elizabeth‘s eye before slighting her and then walks off (Assembly 6-7; Austen 13-4), while he slights her without a thought in the series, and then watches how she recounts his slight to Charlotte Lucas (I.2)30.

28 I have numbered the scenes according to the scene selection on the DVD (2001). The Roman numerals refer to episodes. When I refer to dialogue from the series, I have checked it against an online transcript which was composed by fans of the adaptation (see bibliography for details). 29 Even when Austen does not provide any dialogue, while the series does, Aidan opts to invent her own (Assembly 3; I.2). Nonetheless, her dialogue is sometimes influenced by the adaptation (as well as the novel). Darcy‘s first proposal (Austen 185-9; Aidan, Three 111-8; III.18), for example, is narrated in Austen, and told in ―real time‖ by Aidan. To construct his speech, she refers to Austen‘s account, by using ―degradation‖ and ―attachment‖ (Three 113; Austen 185), and to the series‘ dialogue, by using ―Almost from . . . ,‖ ―against my own better judgement,‖ and ―cannot be helped‖ (Three 113; III.18). As Aidan‘s dialogue sounds fairly ―authentic‖ (see above p. 21), these references do not usually stand out. 30 Although the BBC/A&E adaptation leaves relatively little material untreated (Birtwistle and Conklin 1), a number of scenes had to be ―compressed‖ to make the novel fit into six episodes. For one, the BBC/A&E Darcy writes a letter when the other occupants of Netherfield are either playing at loo or reading (I.5), while he does so in a separate scene in Austen (Austen 37-40, 46-7; see also Austen 35-7 vs. I.5; Austen 169 vs. III.17; Austen 253-8 vs. V.25). Other parts were left out entirely, such as Elizabeth‘s playing at Sir William‘s (Austen 25; see also Austen 42, Van Steenhuyse 27

When I claim, then, that Aidan relies heavily on canon, I mean that she uses less material of her own invention, or of the series, if Austen provides an alternative.

As I have pointed out, this reluctance to stray from Austen‘s example is quite common in

Austen fanfic. Although her idiom is, no doubt, partially responsible for this trend, it is also grounded in a more general respect for ―Jane,‖ which is present throughout the fandom‘s history. As I have noted, the Austen fandom is sometimes included in fanfic histories as ―one of the first to generate fan fiction‖ (Pugh 27). Although such overviews usually refer to the Austen

Societies of the 1920s, ―Janeitism‖—i.e. the ―self-consciously idolatrous enthusiasm for ‗Jane‘ and every detail relative to her‖ (Johnson 211)—first appeared much earlier, in ―the last two decades of the nineteenth century‖ (Johnson 211). This was due to J. E. Austen-Leigh‘s A

Memoir of Jane Austen (1870), in which her nephew gives a ―familial, insider‘s view of the novelist‖

(Lynch, ―Cult‖ 112; Johnson 211), but also to Richard Bentley‘s ―deluxe Steventon Edition of Jane

Austen’s Work‖ (1882) (Johnson 211), and the cheap editions of her novels (1883 and later)

(Johnson 211). The focus of fanfic historians is understandable, however, because early- twentieth-century Austen Societies bear a striking resemblance to current fandom. The most influential societies of the day were formed by male enthusiasts, such as ―publishers, professors, and literati‖ (Johnson 213)31. Typically, these reading communities transgressed ―the dogmas later instituted by professional academics presiding over the emergent field of novel studies,‖ for example by talking ―about characters as if they were real people‖ or by speculating ―upon their lives before, after, or outside the text itself‖ (Johnson 214). This fannish approach to Austen‘s works has been characteristic of Janeitism ever since (Johnson 222-3), even though Austen

44, 88, 91-2, 320-3, 359-61). Here, too, Aidan follows the novel: she separates the compressed scenes (resp. Assembly 84-5, 91-94; Assembly 81-3; Three 56-7, 58; Three 296-9) and works out those which the series does not treat (Assembly 66-8; Assembly 88-9; Assembly 89-90; Assembly 156; Assembly 164-5; Three 394-5; Three 430-1). 31 Next to ―Caroline Spurgeon,‖ a lone female Janeite, Claudia Johnson names ―Montague Summers, A. C. Bradley, Lord David Cecil, Walter Raleigh, R. W. Chapman, and E. M. Forster‖ (Johnson 213-4). During the 1920s, especially, the Royal Society of Literature‘s ―mainly male corps of literati shared papers that did much to give Janeite discourse its hothouse flavour‖ (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 115; Johnson 214). Van Steenhuyse 28 devotees are now predominantly female32. As Claudia L. Johnson notes, it is still a ―common

Janeite game‖ to imagine ―how a character in one novel might behave towards a character in another,‖ or to speculate ―how the novels might continue after the wedding‖ (223). What is more,

Janeites have an encyclopaedic impulse which makes them want to know as much as possible about ―Janean‖ artefacts, ranging from ―balls‖ and ―picnics‖ to ―Addison‘s disease‖ and ―petty- theft‖ (Johnson 223). These two features strengthen Deirdre Lynch‘s claim that Austen ―fosters in her readers, as most other literary giants do not, the devotion and fantasies of personal access that are the hallmarks of the fan‖ (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 111).

Because Janeites qualify as fans, it is not surprising that ―[t]he process by which academic critics deprecate Austenian admirers outside the academy is very similar to the way . . . trekkies, fans, and mass media enthusiasts are derided and marginalized by dominant cultural institutions bent on legitimizing their own objects and protocols of expertise‖ (Johnson 224). The most

―important difference,‖ however, is that ―unlike Star Trek, Austen‘s novels hold a secure place in the canon of high as well as popular culture‖ (Johnson 224) and, as such, have ―a popular audience and an academic one‖ (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 113). Of course, it is possible that these two groups overlap, considering that book-based fan sites tend to be even ―more literate‖ (Pugh 121) than those of media fandoms, the writers of which have always had a high standard of education

(Coppa, ―Brief History‖ 45; Pugh 130; Pugh 131). Nonetheless, ―academic‖ fans tend to behave differently according to the context they are in. When academic Gwyn Symonds posts online, for example, she does not ―bother with specialized jargon,‖ is ―less concerned with conventions related to the academic disciplines‖ she writes in, and does not ―hold back the emotion embodied in [her] response to the text‖ (qtd. in Parrish 51). In effect, ―scholar-fans‖ or aca(demic)-fans (or ―-fen,‖ see Pugh 117-8; Busse and Hellekson 24), i.e. people who ―take a

32 From the 1920s onwards, ―Austen‘s admirers‖ have founded or influenced such institutions as the Royal Society of Literature, the ―Jane Austen Societies of the United Kingdom (founded 1940), North America (1979), Australia (1988) and elsewhere,‖ and less formal groups, like ―Friends of the English Regency‖ (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 115). The ―mainly female Jane Austen Societies‖ in particular, ―whose combined memberships at the present day number far into the thousands‖ (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 115), have made male Janeites a minority. Van Steenhuyse 29 subject position that melds the fan and the academic without implying a lack of insight or intellectual rigor‖ (Busse and Hellekson 24), are still few and far between.

This divide in Austen‘s readership, between popular and academic, goes back to 1870, when the British Parliament passed ―the Education Act that mandated the state-wide establishment of elementary schools‖ (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 112). As well as prioritizing ―universal literacy,‖ ―this legislation set in motion new initiatives for the teaching of literature as a national heritage‖ (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 112-3). In theory, these would instil in readers of all classes ―the notion of a changeless, ‗classic‘ Englishness preserved in great books,‖ which would help to manage

―social upheaval‖ (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 113). This idea lasted well into the twentieth century, as is testified by the ―creation of the Austen Society, the proliferation of Shakespeare festivals, and the curricular rise of ‗English‘ ‖ (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 159-60). Such initiatives did not cancel ―class difference,‖ however, but rather ―refigured‖ it ―as the distinction between elite and popular tastes‖ (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 113). Because of their elitist nature, academic tastes would later deepen that dichotomy. Paradoxically, this ―egalitarian‖ strategy was also used to define an American

―national identity,‖ as ―English literature was being taken as America‘s own and read in a peculiarly American way in its own institution‖ (Brown 28, 41-2; Favret 167).

Although Austen‘s novels had been popular in America since 1870 (Kramp 151), her work only received academic attention ―in the mid-twentieth century‖ (Kramp 151), when ―the

New Criticism‖ established a ―reformed‖ field of ―English studies in the American university‖

(Brown 12). Mainly due to Ian Watt‘s The Rise of the Novel (1957), this new movement had a particularly great impact on novel studies, as it became accepted that to study the novel was to study a number of formal features which supposedly characterized the genre (Hunter 29-30)33.

More specifically, the novel was defined as ―subjective, individualistic, realistic—an account of contemporary life peopled with ordinary characters in everyday situations using the informal

33 Written mainly to solicit the attention of ―New Critics‖ (Brown 34), Watt‘s Rise emphasises the novel‘s ―formal realism‖ and lays its origins in the mid-eighteenth century (Hunter 7; Brown 31, 32). Although his thesis has been questioned ever since (Hunter 7), it held considerable sway at contemporary American universities (Brown 32). Van Steenhuyse 30 language of everyday life to describe, for ordinary readers, the directions and values that inform a series of particular, connected actions and events‖ (Hunter 30). Both Watt and the New Critics treated Austen as a ―pivotal figure‖ in the history of this form (Brown 34), as her work was said to merge ―Fieldingesque and Richardsonian novelistic modes‖ (Brown 15). Because novels, however, still ―lacked the cultural prestige of poetry and drama,‖ Austen scholars felt the need to distinguish themselves from popular, Janeite readers (Johnson 221; Hunter 29). After all, ―so long as novels were believed to be about characters, novel studies could seem to be species of gossip of precisely the sort in which Janeites delight‖ (Johnson 221). To ―consolidate‖ their authority, this ―new professerate‖ began to develop a different way of reading Austen, creating some of the assumptions still in use today (Johnson 213).

To further this consolidation, academics began to ―discredit the Janeites‖ (Johnson 219).

Using Austen‘s work in a more general ―modernist campaign against the over-decorated gushiness of Victorian fiction‖ (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 174), authors like Virginia Woolf had already praised her economy, and held up her novels as ―the compact ideal that women‘s novels of the future‖ should try to attain (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 173). In this context, Austen was portrayed as ―a prim and passionless authoress‖ (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 175), whose ―stiff upper lip‖ would become the trademark of every ―modern Englishwoman‖ (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 176)34. This portrait was adopted by Q. D. and F. R. Leavis, who adjusted it to include Austen‘s satirical eye, with which she was said to embark on a ―historical mission, which was to target those novels

(sentimental fiction in the juvenilia; Gothic romance in Northanger Abbey) which give the novel a bad name‖ (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 184). Soon, Janeites were attacked from this perspective. In

1940, D. W. Harding claimed that ―Austen‘s ‗books are . . . read and enjoyed by precisely the sort

34 This characterization was called into question in ―the interwar era,‖ when bestsellers offered a new ―form of communication between distinctive feminine writing and reading publics‖ (Melman, qtd. in Lynch, ―At Home‖ 181). Increasingly, feminine writing was dismissed as lowbrow (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 182), which inspired debates on how ―Austen, perceived as a lady writer through and through, could be represented as an exemplar within debates on the future of the novel‖ (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 181). As a result, scholars began to represent the ―Austens as an embattled minority (in a tight place, but preserving their stiff upper lips and their family values)‖ (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 182).

Van Steenhuyse 31

of people whom she disliked‘ ‖ (as quoted in Johnson 213; George 35). Since then, many

―professional scholars, whose claim to prestige is validated by their vocation‘s protocols of dispassion and objectivity,‖ have similarly been bothered by ―amateur cultures of Austenian appreciation—because they are associated with, variously, unbecoming levity, sentimentality, a determination to integrate fiction into life or a conservative nostalgia‖ (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 118). As

Lynch notes, ―[r]ecent analysis of fan cultures‖ has once again emphasised ―the challenge that such violations of the canons of aesthetic distance pose‖ to academics (―Cult‖ 118; Bowles 18).

Because Austen has a popular and an academic audience, then, Austen fans, more than media fans, have been accused of misunderstanding Austen‘s intentions and of abusing her work. As such, it is possible that they stay close to the spirit of her work, because they feel that it would be even more disrespectful to ―Jane‖ and the world she created to take their creativity further.

2.2 Fitzwilliam Darcy in Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice

Naturally, modernists‘ fascination with Austen‘s economy was not entirely unfounded.

Ironically, her work is ―implicit‖ enough to attract fan writers, who look for negative capability and ―feel compelled‖ to write what she did not (O‘Connell 1). For one, fans work out the ―love scenes‖ Austen left out (Pugh 60; Johnson 222) or rendered ―in reported speech or paraphrase‖ for ―artistic reasons‖ (Pugh 60, 59)—sometimes with some very ―treacly‖ results (Pugh 60).

Others simply ―spell out emotions where Austen herself did not choose to‖ (Pugh 60), while still others try to create ―a new perspective‖ or confirm ―an old one‖ on Austen‘s work by writing out missing scenes ―among the male characters and minor characters‖ (Pugh 61). Similarly,

Austen‘s ―non-endings‖ inspire fans to write sequels (O‘Connell 1; Pugh 47)35, just as the

―sketchy‖ and ―unlikable‖ nature of Austen‘s Darcy prompted Aidan to write a more elaborate character study. To fully grasp the latter‘s response to Austen‘s ―economy,‖ I will analyse how

35 Combined with communities‘ rigid criteria and fans‘ respect for ―Jane,‖ ―Austen‘s restrained style and tendency to leave out critical scenes‖ (O‘Connell 1) may explain why fics which offer ―more of‖ Austen are the rule in some fanfic archives (Pugh 39, 195-6). Van Steenhuyse 32

Darcy is presented in Pride and Prejudice. As I also want to stay true to fans‘ understanding of characters, I will start from a theory by Ralf Schneider, who argues that

understanding literary characters requires our forming some kind of mental

representation of them, attributing dispositions and motivations to them,

understanding and explaining their actions, forming expectations about what they

will do next and why, and, of course, reacting emotionally to them. All this

happens through a complex interaction of what the text says about the characters

and of what the reader knows about the world in general, specifically about

people and, yet more specifically, about ‗people‘ in literature. (608)

Readers form, in other words, ―character models‖ (610) which feel real and can exist outside their original textual context—as they do in fan fiction36.

To construct such a model, a reader first relies on the text itself (Schneider 611). After all, authors tend to provide ―descriptions and presentations of a character‘s traits, verbal and nonverbal behavior, outer appearance, physiognomy and body language‖ by means of ―the narrator,‖ ―the character him- or herself,‖ or ―other characters‖ (Schneider 611). Although the omniscient narrator of Pride and Prejudice is not exactly forthcoming with information37, she discloses that Darcy is ―clever,‖ ―haughty,‖ ―reserved,‖ ―fastidious,‖ and ill-mannered in a well- bred way (Austen 18). These traits make him give ―offence‖ wherever he goes (Austen 18), which convinces the people of Meryton that he is ―proud, . . . above his company, and above being pleased‖ (Austen 12). If Darcy is aware of this charge, he does not pay much attention to it. As appears from the account he gives of himself before he is ―humbled‖ by Elizabeth (Austen

349), he knows that he is intelligent, and tries to ―avoid those weaknesses which often expose a

36The difference between regular readers and fans is that fans act on that potential, and use character models as a starting point for their own creative efforts (see above p. 18-9). Although fan Sabotini, for instance, also talks about character traits as ―points on a grid,‖ she adds that fan writers ―draw circles and arrows and lines around‖ them, ―and extrapolate where the end point might be if things continued along in a similar fashion, or . . . try to break up the pattern by deflecting the line and making it go a different way‖ (Sabotini, ―Three Point‖). 37 William Nelles argues that this reserve is typical of all of Austen‘s narrators, the ―template‖ for whom ―is not at all a Godlike omniscience, but a very human skill: the ability of a perceptive and thoughtful person, given enough time and sufficient opportunity for observation, to make accurate judgments about people‘s character, thought processes, and feelings‖ (128). Van Steenhuyse 33 strong understanding to ridicule‖ (Austen 56). At the same time, he feels that pride cannot make a truly intelligent man look foolish, because such a man keeps his pride ―under good regulation‖

(Austen 56). While this statement proves to Elizabeth that his mind is not ―superior‖ at all

(Austen 56), it also implies that Darcy feels that he is not inordinately proud. In this debate, he does not state outright that he counts himself among ―the wisest and the best of men‖ (Austen

56). Nevertheless, his verbal behaviour strengthens that impression. To convey ―Darcy‘s intelligence and stiff reserve without making him appear ridiculous,‖ Austen imitates the style of

Samuel Johnson (Anderson 377). His speech, in other words, has a Johnsonian ―tone and weight,‖ especially when he ―turns a particular observation into a sententia‖ (Anderson 377).

Darcy‘s non-verbal behaviour, moreover, suggests that he bases his sense of self-worth on more than his intelligence alone. When he proposes to Elizabeth for the first time, his ―countenance‖ expresses ―real security‖ (Austen 185) because he is in no doubt of a favourable answer: he believes that, because of his privileged background, she must be ―wishing, expecting‖ his addresses (Austen 349). Implicitly, then, Austen makes clear Darcy‘s ―pride and conceit,‖ and indicates that he feels, like Charlotte Lucas, that ―he has a right to be proud‖ (Austen 21).

With regards to his temper, Darcy knows that he cannot easily forgive the ―follies and vices of others‖ (Austen 56). At the same time, however, he is ―cautious‖ to have such resentment created (Austen 92) and tries not to be ―blinded by prejudice‖ (Austen 92). Similarly, he realises he does not have ―the talent . . . of conversing easily‖ with ―strangers,‖ because he

―cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns‖ (Austen 171).

This is one skill he does not try to hone with practice (Austen 171), however, because he abhors performance and ―disguise‖ in general (Austen 171; Austen 188). In effect, he gives offence at the assembly because he does not adjust his non-verbal behaviour before the ―strangers‖ of

Meryton, and puts up a ―forbidding, disagreeable countenance‖ (Austen 12). After his first proposal to Elizabeth, Darcy is forced to re-evaluate himself (Austen 347, 349). Having been accused of ungentlemanlike behaviour, ―arrogance,‖ ―conceit,‖ and a ―selfish disdain of the Van Steenhuyse 34 feelings of others‖ (Austen 188), he revisits his convictions to gauge the truth of Elizabeth‘s reproofs (Austen 347). Ultimately, he realises that his upbringing has indeed made him ―selfish and overbearing‖ (Austen 349). Spoilt by his parents, he was ―given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit‖ (Austen 349). As a consequence, he could not care for anyone beyond his ―own family circle,‖ and thought ―meanly‖ of their ―sense and worth‖ compared to his own (Austen 349)38. He works hard, though, to remedy his faults, and is eager to show the result of his efforts to Elizabeth, when she visits Pemberley (Austen 349-50). He treats her aunt and uncle respectfully (Austen 244), and sets out to alleviate the suffering his ―mistaken pride‖ has caused (Austen 305). As a consequence, the reader must revise Darcy‘s character model, and determine where (s)he, like Elizabeth, has wrongfully dismissed or accepted information.

Because Darcy‘s character, behaviour and subsequent transformation only become clear when he explains it briefly to Elizabeth (Austen 346-351, Austen 359- 361), the reader is left to wonder exactly how he changes—a question Aidan tries to answer in her trilogy (Irene; Aidan, Q&A,

Assembly 253; Aidan, Q&A, Three 446).

A reader does not rely on textual information alone, but draws on ―practically everything he or she knows about the world‖ to make sense of a character (Schneider 611). For one, (s)he may classify characters as ―social stereotypes‖ (Schneider 612). While it is easy for readers to spot such stereotypes in contemporary novels, however, classifying characters becomes rather more difficult in a nineteenth-century novel like Pride and Prejudice. As Schneider notes, ―[r]eaders from a later period than the text‘s origin . . . have to rely heavily on text-specific information unless they have acquired socio-historical knowledge that turns them into well-informed readers who are able to activate quasi-social categorizations quickly‖ (620-1). Because Austen fans recommend the same sources of information to each other, to stay true to the ―spirit‖ of

38 Although Elizabeth, then, derives ―[h]er violent first impressions of Darcy . . . from prejudice and false reasoning‖ (Southam 60), and wrongfully concludes that Darcy‘s character must be ―dreadful‖ (Austen 79), her assessment is not entirely false. She is right, for example, to suspect that he does not have his pride ―under good regulation‖ (Austen 56) and that he has ―a propensity to hate every body‖ (Austen 57). This reading, however, goes against Austen critics‘ ― ‗Girl Being Taught a Lesson‘ model of narrative analysis, where that lesson is invariably accomplished through the ‗discipline‘ of the marriage plot‖ (Johnson 222). Van Steenhuyse 35

Austen‘s work39, it is not unlikely that they associate the same cues with clergymen or dandies— whether those cues are the ones Austen would have used or no (Margolis 34-5). This, too, makes fans read their canon in a distinct way. A reader may also complete his or her character model with voices, faces, or other details. In this respect, the reader‘s process of character construction resembles that of the author (Schneider 607), who never creates an entirely new character, but combines in an original way features that already exist, whether in literature or in real life. Pugh illustrates this with William Makepeace Thackeray, who, she notes, cannot give Becky Sharpe character traits ―that did not already exist in the world, any more than he can invent a totally new colour for her hair or dress‖ (17). As a consequence, his Becky ―will be partly himself perhaps, and people whom he has known; maybe she will even inherit something from fictional characters he himself has read about‖ (Pugh 17). Because Austen fans also rely on the same canon, they can use additional cues to evoke highly detailed character images (Pugh 182). Accepting the

BBC/A&E adaptation as canonical, then, can have an immense impact on an audience‘s reading of Darcy, or indeed, of the novel in general (Belton 177; Belton 195). This makes it necessary to examine how the series has influenced Darcy‘s character model.

2.3 Fitzwilliam Darcy in the BBC/A&E Adaptation of Pride and Prejudice

Austen‘s economy does not only inspire fan writers. As George Bluestone remarks, Pride and Prejudice ―possesses the essential ingredients of a movie script,‖ more specifically ―a lack of particularity, an absence of metaphorical language, an omniscient point of view, a dependency on dialogue to reveal character, an insistence on absolute clarity;‖ the ―understatements of the camera,‖ he insists, ―are exactly suited to those epigrammatic understatements we have come to associate with Jane Austen‘s style‖ (qtd. in Belton 187). Unsurprisingly, then, the BBC/A&E‘s

Pride and Prejudice was not the first adaptation of the novel (Belton 175), nor would it be the last

39 Pugh remarks that both the Republic of Pemberley and the Derbyshire Writers‘ Guild ―contain writers‘ guides . . . on the facts of the source material‖ (121). The Republic also has a ―Jane Austen‘s Life and Times‖ board (Pemberley.com, Life & Times) on which members can advise each other. Van Steenhuyse 36

(Kaplan, ―Pride‖; George 35). This particular adaptation, however, outstrips many others in terms of ―distribution and mass appeal‖ (Kaplan, ―Pride‖). An immediate hit, the series

―attracted at least 10 million viewers when it was first serialized on British television in 1995 (and before it was broadcast in more than 40 other countries)‖ (Kaplan, ―Pride‖). This had ―a significant impact‖ on the book market, with Penguin selling ―430,000 copies of Pride and

Prejudice in the year after the serial was first broadcast‖ (Kaplan, ―Pride‖). Evidently, this means that some viewers turned to the book ―for a deeper, richer, much more extended experience‖

(Macdonald and Macdonald 1), making ―Austen‘s readership‖ more diverse than it might have been otherwise (Macdonald and Macdonald 1). The series‘ influence works on a different level too, however. Pugh notes that ―[f]or many who have read the book, Davies‘ adaptation has added something to their understanding of the characters; perhaps Mr Bennett, in their minds, will forever have the face and voice of Benjamin Whitrow‖ (sic) (22; Pugh 70). Similarly, Kate

Bowles remarks that, for a ―growing horde of fans,‖ ―the dark and difficult nature of misunderstood Mr. Darcy seems inseparable from the mop-headed appeal of Colin Firth‖

(Bowles 16).

As Austen endowed Darcy with a ―fine, tall person,‖ ―handsome features,‖ and a ―noble mein‖ (Austen 12), producer Sue Birtwistle was adamant that he should be played by Colin Firth

(Birtwistle and Conklin 99). Firth hesitated at first, because he realised that ―Darcy is created to be an enigma through much of the story, until near the end, where you get his perspective,‖ and that it would be difficult to make such a role ―specific‖ to him ―as an actor‖ (Birtwistle and

Conklin 98). When he accepted the part, he knew he would ―have to get together a very lively, dynamic, varied performance and then not act it‖ (Birtwistle and Conklin 99). At the Meryton assembly, for example, he had to show that Darcy is ―hurt, angry, intimidated, annoyed, irritated, amused, horrified, appalled, and keep all these reactions within this very narrow framework of being inscrutable because nobody ever knows quite what Darcy‘s thinking‖ (Birtwistle and

Conklin 99-100). To get his message across, Firth used ―what Cherly Nixon calls ‗a new physical Van Steenhuyse 37 vocabulary‘ ‖ (Belton 187), many features of which appear in Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman. Both in the series and the trilogy, for example, Darcy twists his ring when he is uncomfortable (IV.24,

Assembly 34, 96; Three 32), or turns away to look out the window when he wants to keep his reactions and thoughts to himself (V.26, VI.33; Assembly 89; Three 34, 58, 112, 391). Furthermore,

Aidan seems to refer to some of the outfits Firth wears as Darcy, though not necessarily when they appear in the series—which makes them convey less about his state of mind (Birtwistle and

Conklin 52). For avid viewers, Aidan‘s referring to a green coat with a ―gold and gray waistcoat‖

(Assembly 122; Three 309) would immediately conjure up Firth‘s ―humbled‖ Darcy at Pemberley

(IV.24), just as the black coat and breeches he wears at the Netherfield ball fit him in a prouder, more ―saturnine‖ state (Assembly 147, II.10; Birtwistle and Conklin 52).

Similarly, Aidan relies on her readers‘ visual memory in the opening scene of An Assembly

Such As This. This is one of the few passages in Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman in which Aidan draws heavily on the series. Unlike the novel, the adaptation opens the Meryton assembly episode with a short scene outside the assembly rooms before the party‘s entrance, mainly to suggest Darcy‘s reservations about the night‘s entertainment (I.2). Because this passage has no equivalent in the novel, Aidan follows the structure of the series. That is, she first describes how Darcy gets out of the Bingley carriage (1) and puts on his hat (1), while he hears the ―poorly executed music‖ pouring from the windows and a dog howling nearby (1; Birtwistle and Conklin 63-4). Although she does not follow the series to the letter—where Darcy does not sigh when he puts on his hat, nor seem to notice the dogs in the background (Assembly 1; I.2)—her use of this scene invites her readers to keep in mind the adaptation as they read. Although Aidan contradicts certain details of the series—describing, for example, Georgiana‘s ―dark, glossy curls‖ (Duty 30)—her references to Firth‘s physical vocabulary renew that invitation throughout the trilogy, and keep his Darcy in her readers‘ mind‘s eye. According to Pugh, this technique is typical of fan fiction, because fanfic writers ―can assume a similar knowledge on the part of their readership‖ (32). She argues that canon, as a consequence, is both ―a restriction, since those without such knowledge will not be Van Steenhuyse 38 able to relate to canon-based stories in the same way, and an opportunity, since it facilitates a lot of shorthand, allusion and irony‖ (Pugh 32).

An adaptation may influence more, however, than a reader‘s mental picture of a character. As Ellen Belton notes, ―[e]ven the most seemingly faithful ‗transposition‘ also functions as a ‗commentary‘ on the original, since every choice made by the filmmakers . . . implies an interpretative reading of the prior text‖ (176). Even though the BBC/A&E series is hailed for its ―faithfulness‖ to the novel (Belton 186; George 35), it actually ―creates the illusion of fidelity to the original by presenting an interpretation of Austen‘s narrative that is also attuned to the sensibilities of a 1995 audience‖ (Belton 186; Margolis 34). Belton illustrates this idea with the ending shot of the series:

Austen‘s novel ends with a careful discrimination among relationships and a

weighing of personal inclinations against moral and social obligations. . . . The

BBC/A&E adaptation ends with the long-awaited kiss between Elizabeth and

Darcy. This ending confirms the primacy of the romantic relationship over other

claims and valorizes the drive toward individual self-fulfillment and gratification.

(186)

This ―late twentieth-century assumption that the needs and desires of the individual take precedence over other values‖ (Belton 194) also affects the way in which Darcy is portrayed. As

Belton notes, the ―1995 audience wants Elizabeth to have it all‖ (187), which includes a lover who sees her ―as an independent subject‖ (Belton 191). The ―cultural acceptance of the idea of the New Age Man,‖ in other words, ―requires a romanticizing and softening of Darcy‖ (Belton

187; Belton 193; Margolis 23). As a result, the series highlights how Darcy gradually takes into account Elizabeth‘s ―feelings and wishes,‖ after having disregarded them so blatantly before his first proposal (Belton 191).

To show this evolution, the filmmakers build on the ―looks, glances, and facial expressions‖ with which Austen tried to say what could not be spoken (Belton 187, see below p. Van Steenhuyse 39

52-3). The ―progress‖ of the series‘ main couple ―is charted through a movement from sidelong glances to direct contemplation to mutual admiration‖ (190). This gives their interactions ―a powerful erotic charge‖ (Hopkins, qtd. in Belton 188), which is emphasised by a number of

―anachronistic alterations pertaining to sexuality‖ (Margolis 34). While Austen‘s Darcy meets

Elizabeth at Pemberley, for example, looking like ―he was . . . that moment alighted from his horse or his carriage‖ (Austen 242), Firth‘s Darcy has just taken a swim in Pemberley‘s pond

(IV.23). Aidan does not include these alterations in her trilogy (see for example Three 272-3), but incorporates Darcy‘s side of the ―regard‖ in her story, by having him observe Elizabeth‘s behaviour to assess her state of mind (see below p. 53). Throughout Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman, the narrator records these observations, and the others Darcy makes. As Deborah Kaplan notes, such ―close character focalization‖ is not unusual for ―relationship-based‖ fics, especially if the pairing is not supported by canon, because it is particularly suited to defend an interpretation

(―Construction‖ 139). Typically, such stories then feature ―two explicit narrators,‖ ―one for each member of the romantic pairing,‖ to fully ―explore the explosive emotional potential of relationships between characters that are minimized or denied in the source text‖ (Kaplan,

―Construction‖ 139). As only Darcy is ―minimized‖ in Pride and Prejudice, Aidan‘s narrator is focussed exclusively on him—providing even less information about Elizabeth than Austen‘s narrator does about her love interest. To reach the same ―polyphonic‖ effect, be it implicitly

(Kaplan, ―Construction‖ 139, 148), Aidan‘s work has to be read with a thorough knowledge of

Elizabeth‘s point of view, as it is described in Pride and Prejudice.

2.4 Conclusion

In this chapter, I have first given a simplified overview of fannish consumption.

Although fan writers interpret canon from accepted fantextual readings, that canon also inspires them to be creative. Because the Internet has made it easier to discuss highly specific topics, it is possible to take that creativity further, and to find fans who agree with more extreme departures Van Steenhuyse 40 from canon. I have noted, however, that that sort of initiative seems to be rare in the Austen fandom. Austen fanfic writers stay close to canon, because they want to write in her idiom, and because they share a respect for ―Jane‖ and the spirit of her work. This attitude also underlies

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman. A comparative study of Aidan‘s trilogy, Pride and Prejudice, and the

BBC/A&E adaptation shows that Aidan first stays true to Austen, and only then draws on the adaptation and her own imagination. I have explained this respect for Austen and her work by tracing back the fandom‘s history to the earliest forms of Janeitism. Janeites qualify as fans because they approach Austen‘s novels as media fans would approach their favourite shows: they talk about the characters as if they were real people, and try to find out as much as possible about the universe in which they live. Because Austen has always had an academic as well as a popular readership, however, this means that Janeites go against the highly specific dogmas academics accept when they read Jane Austen. These assumptions were established when the first novel scholars studied Austen as a pivotal figure, and reacted against the Janeites—whose sentimentalism and enthusiasm, it was said, she would have disliked herself. I have pointed out, be it tentatively, that Austen fanfic writers may be reluctant to depart from canon, because they do not want to disrespect ―Jane‖ any more than they already do. Ironically, the ―economy‖ which academics praise in Austen‘s work is exactly what fascinates fans like Aidan, who feel compelled to fill the gaps.

Because the Austen fandom is so tight-knit, and tends to adhere closely to the canon of their choice, a fan‘s accepting or not accepting adaptations as canonical can have a great influence on her fic. As such, I have examined how Darcy is presented in Pride and Prejudice and in the BBC/A&E adaptation of the novel. Because Aidan felt that Darcy is ―sketchy‖ and

―unlikable‖ in Austen, I have first analysed what could be missing from his character model.

Initially, Darcy works hard to maintain a prime understanding—which , he believes, will keep his pride ―under good regulation‖—and to counteract an unforgiving temper. Because he values honesty, however, he does not try to develop his social skills, which makes him come across as Van Steenhuyse 41

―ungentlemanly‖. Forced to reassess his own character, Darcy realises that his mind is not superior enough to rein in the pride his upbringing instilled in him. Struck by this insight, he starts fighting his propensity to hate everybody, and decides to give strangers the benefit of the doubt. Because the reader is suddenly faced with this transformation, (s)he, like Elizabeth, has to revise Darcy‘s character model drastically. As Darcy‘s transformation takes place ―off-stage,‖ however, and the reader only gets an account of it at the very end of the novel, (s)he may feel that Darcy‘s changes are unsatisfactorily motivated.

This was in part remedied in the BBC/A&E adaptation of the novel. Using his body language, appearance, and ―regard,‖ Colin Firth managed to hint at Darcy‘s development, or rather at an interpretation of that development which was attuned to a 1995 audience. Because the series provided a tantalizing insight into Darcy‘s motives, it added something to fans‘ understanding of his character. In Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman, Aidan combines the information

Austen provides in Pride and Prejudice with the series‘ interpretation of that information—and assumes that her readers are familiar with both. This is indicated by the ―shorthand‖ she uses. By referring to well-known details of the serial—such as Darcy‘s habits and clothing—Aidan can evoke entire concepts and situations. This technique is commonly used in fan fiction, as it is a direct advantage of writing with a shared canon. Because Aidan can assume that her fan readers have a thorough knowledge of Elizabeth‘s side of the story, she can also use ―close character focalization‖. This means that she stays very close to Darcy‘s viewpoint throughout the trilogy.

This technique, too, is quite common in fan fiction, and is especially used to defend an interpretation that is not obviously supported by canon. In the next chapter, I will explore how this focalization, amongst others, enables Aidan to defend her own interpretation of Darcy‘s evolution.

Van Steenhuyse 42

3. Fantext

3.0 Introduction

For clarity‘s sake, I have given a simplified account of fans‘ interpretation of canon, suggesting a one-to-one relationship between the character readings in a fantext and the communities in a fandom. In actual fact, such an uncomplicated view has been difficult to uphold ever since online technologies became more advanced. The history of fandom is marked by an increased fragmentation, with LiveJournal splintering it ―into nearly innumerable factions‖ which discuss highly specific ―stories, styles, or pairings‖ (Busse and Hellekson 15). On the one hand, this makes it ―harder to get a comprehensive sense of a fandom,‖ as few fandoms today have ―a truly inclusive sense of community‖ (Busse and Hellekson 15; Driscoll 93). On the other, this makes it easier for fans to avoid fics which are not to their taste (Busse and Hellekson

15). This is even more the case because ―online fanfic libraries‖ have collected stories from all over fandom, and made it possible for readers to search them on such details as the presence or absence of particular characters or even of ―happy endings‖ (Pugh 229). As a result, lurkers especially are no longer ―enculturated‖ by a particular community (Karpovich 186; Parrish 24-5), but infer standards and expectations from stories in the style or pairing they are interested in

(Stein 248). As such, the fragmentation of a fandom‘s fantext does not necessarily correspond with the fragmentation of the fandom itself.

As I have noted, the Austen fandom seems to be less disparate than most. Although the adaptations have put Austen fans at odds, they still share a mutual love and respect for ―Jane,‖ which keeps them close to the ―spirit‖ of her work (see above p. 24-5, 31). What distinguishes

Janeites from other fans, then, is that, despite ―their swelling numbers,‖ they have always remained convinced that ―their Austen love takes them out of the wider world and into a smaller, more select and closer-knit circle (into a ‗loyal tribe‘, a ‗haven‘ or a ‗true lovers‘ knot‘ . . .

)‖ (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 112). Because most Austen fans share this feeling, the fandom‘s fantext is fairly homogeneous. It is equally true, of course, that no two Austen fans, or Austen communities for Van Steenhuyse 43 that matter, are exactly the same. The motto of the Republic of Pemberley, for one, is ―The

Republic of Pemberley: Your haven in a world programmed to misunderstand obsession with things Austen‖ (Pemberley.com, home page; Bowles 17). This motto implies that it is a refuge for Austen ―obsessives‖ only. Although the volunteers who run the site remain civil at all times, in ―emulation of Jane Austen‘s own honest, moral and forthright ways,‖ they consciously display

―a bit of an attitude, which could be characterized as polite with a bite,‖ to ―weed out‖ fans who are not dedicated enough (Pemberley.com, FAQ; Bowles 18). As a result, the Republic is often found to be exceptionally ―clubby‖ and ―cliquey‖ (Pemberley.com, FAQ).

As I have noted, the Republic of Pemberley also ensures that the Austen fics it archives measure up to ―Jane‘s‖ standards. By employing ―rigid criteria‖ which, according to Pugh, ―work against creativity and quality in its fan fiction‖ (Pugh 39), the Republic encourages fantextual uniformity. In essence, its criteria are meant to exclude what does not fit in ―the world created by

Jane Austen‖ (Pugh 38). As the Republic is a community for adaptation fans, however, it does not ban harlequinesque alterations from its archives (Margolis 34, 25). After all, to some of its members, ―Darcy‘s plunge into the Pemberley lake‖ may have become ―indispensable to their vision of the story‖ (Pugh 22). According to Harriet Margolis, such ―anachronistic alterations pertaining to sexuality‖ (34) seem to fit the world Austen created—and are even felt to ―heighten the realism‖ of it (Margolis 34)—because Austen‘s moral ways are grounded in ―use-value ethics,‖ as are ―women‘s romance novels‖ (24, 25). That is, as in romance novels, Austen‘s

―good characters value people‘s happiness and well-being and often base decisions on how other people will be affected, while the bad characters evaluate people and objects in materialistic terms, selfishly preferring potential personal gain over communal benefit or consideration for other individuals‖ (Margolis 24, 25, 36). Margolis even concludes that ―Jane Austen‖ has become a brand (26) which ―assures audiences of such a worldview‖ (26). In this chapter, I will show how the conventions of the fandom, at large, and of adaptation fans in particular have impacted

Aidan‘s fic. First, I will examine the influence of the fandom‘s Janeitism, by analysing the Van Steenhuyse 44 characters‘ comforting universe. Then, I will examine how Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman meets the expectations of adaptation fans, and offers an almost sensory reading experience. Finally, I will analyse how these two interact with Aidan‘s unique interpretation of Darcy‘s development.

3.1 Janeitism and Comfort

Although Austen‘s economy and the adaptation‘s attempts to remedy it attracted Pamela

Aidan as a fan writer, she first fell in love with Jane Austen‘s novels because they were her

―comfort books‖ (Irene). To explain Austen‘s appeal, scholars have likewise ascribed this quality to her world, and have tried to pinpoint what makes it so soothing40. Lianne George, for one, argues that Austen‘s universe relieves a modern ―yearning for predictability and a social template,‖ because her stories are set in an uncomplicated, slow-paced world, in which emotion

―always gives way to rationality, propriety and social norms‖ (35). This echoes Michael Kramp, who notes that her ―tales . . . show us men and women who engage in romantic relationships devoid of angst or crisis in a world free of conflict, controversy, and uncertainty‖ (Preface xi, xii;

Johnson 217). In effect, this simplicity proved to be therapeutic after the First World War, when

Austen novels were prescribed as ―literature of convalescence‖ (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 177) to

―British veterans suffering post-traumatic shock syndrome‖ (Johnson 217, 225; Margolis 38).

Measured by these standards alone, Aidan‘s universe is less comforting than Austen‘s. After all, she ―complicates‖ her canon‘s universe by adding characters of her own invention41, some of whom prefer irrationality over rationality (Lady Sylvanie, Duty 244; Lady Sayre, Duty 274), display a shocking want of propriety (Beverley Trenholme, Duty 180-1), and expose the shallowness of

40 As Michael Kramp notes, ―Austen‘s enduring appeal . . . has received considerable attention from Austen critics, fans, and devotees‖ (Kramp ix). More specifically, Lianne George discusses why Austen novels and adaptations appeal to a twenty-first-century audience (35), as does Margolis (23, 28). Claudia Johnson focuses on the novels‘ appeal to early-twentieth century Janeites (Johnson 217, 218), while Deirdre Lynch also discusses the more recent phenomenon of Austenian tourism (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 173; Lynch, ―Cult‖ 116). Michael Kramp, finally, examines her appeal to American audiences in the course of the twentieth century (Kramp, Preface xi; Kramp 151, 152). 41 Aidan enriches Austen‘s universe with such characters as Squire Justin (Assembly 45), Fletcher (Assembly 74), Witcher (Assembly 189), Hinchcliffe (Assembly 190), Lord Dyfed Brougham (Assembly 202), Viscount D‘Arcy (Duty 71), Lord Sayre (Duty 119), Lord Manning (Duty 120), Viscount Monmouth (Duty 121), Judith Farnsworth (Duty 121), and Arabella Avery (Duty 121).

Van Steenhuyse 45 social norms (Lady Felicia, Duty 125,135). What is more, Darcy and Elizabeth‘s relationship is not free of ―angst or crisis‖ because they follow codes of conduct. Although such codes give their behaviour an air of ―dignity and restraint‖ (George 35), they make it harder for Darcy to catch Elizabeth‘s meaning (Three 70, 80, 89), and allow him to misinterpret bare civility for

―restraint and . . . modesty‖ in the face of his admiration (Three 93). Thus, they are partially to blame for his personal crisis. On no level, then, do codes and regulations provide comfort and stability in Aidan‘s universe.

Austen‘s world also appeals in another way, however. In the early twentieth century,

―rural England‖ was celebrated as ―the site‖ of an ―all but lost traditional national essence‖

(Lynch, ―At Home‖ 160, 172), which had found a last vestige in the ―English home‖ (Lynch, ―At

Home‖ 165, 170). Austen‘s work expressed that new ideal particularly well, because she depicts

―common life‖ in the country (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 167) and ignores the wars and revolutions of her time (Lynch, ―At Home‖ 167). Ever since the English looked inward to find their identity, tourists have claimed that Austenian sites ―preserve an all but vanished Englishness or set of

‗traditional‘ values‖ (Lynch, ―Cult‖ 116; see above p. 29). Across the Atlantic, this picture of

Englishness was soon detached from its nationalistic meaning (Favret 167). Early-twentieth century American readers saw Austen as ―a ‗pioneer,‘ discovering a new world where individuals speak and act without moral and ideological constraint‖ (Favret 176)—a world in which, it can be argued, they saw a reflection of their own (Favret 167). The notion that everyone is equal in

America because the nation‘s ideology gives individuals the freedom to become ―Americans‖ also underlies contemporary (and current) Hollywood films, which tend to represent America ―as a homogeneous society lacking in cultural diversity or group pluralism‖ (King 163, 165, 167, 178,

171). How this affected the way in which Americans read Pride and Prejudice appears in a 1940

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer adaptation of the novel, which enhanced Austen‘s world with ―American and democratic‖ ―associations and values‖ (Belton 180) to ―reaffirm the ties between British and

US society‖ (Belton 180; Kramp 151). Although this film glorifies the countryside (Belton 181- Van Steenhuyse 46

2), presenting ―Britain as a garden perpetually in bloom‖ (Belton 182), it also represents traditional class differences as an obstacle to overcome (Belton 180-1) on the way to

―democratization and social equality‖ (Belton 183; King 165, 166), and emphasises ―middle-class family solidarity‖ (Belton 183).

Notably, this representation makes Austen‘s England, in its entirety, resemble a melodramatic ―space of innocence‖ (Williams 65; Belton 178). According to Linda Williams, the defining aim of any melodrama is to achieve a ―felt good‖ (55), which means that it aims to make its audience feel good about what is right according to the moral codes the melodrama defends.

To attain that goal, a melodrama typically sets its opening scene in a locus of innocence—such as a garden, a rural home (Williams 65), or ―middle-class American society‖ (Elsaesser 59)—where

―good‖ characters can co-exist harmoniously according to the aforementioned codes (Williams

65). As a result, the ―patterns‖ of this space ―take on a visceral sort of ethics,‖ and ―are felt as good‖ (Williams 74). When a ―villain‖ disrupts that state of innocence (Williams 65), moreover, his behaviour is felt to be wrong. Such a disruption then makes the audience long for a restoration of the original space (Williams 65) and, as such, for a restoration of its moral laws42.

What ultimately makes melodrama comforting is not the fact that it provides a clear set of codes, but that it creates the illusion that the heart can function as a moral compass—indicating when you are in the right and in the wrong. Williams argues that melodrama should be seen as ―the typical form of American popular narrative in literature, stage, film, and television,‖ because

―American culture‖ wants to represent itself as a ―locus of innocence and virtue‖ (50). As a result, the spaces of innocence in melodrama tend to promote American values, just like the

MGM adaptation (Williams 49, 82; Elsaesser 68; Postlewait 55).

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman combines the cyclical structure of melodrama—which

―begins, and wants to end, in a space of innocence‖ (Williams 65)—with an American version of

42 It should be noted that, in melodramatic films, this basic structure may be counteracted by ―lighting, composition, decor,‖ and so forth, as these are also ―functional and integral elements in the construction of‖ cinematic ―meaning‖ (Elsaesser 52). This may undermine the message of the plot, which then comes across as ironic (Elsaesser 68). Van Steenhuyse 47

Austen‘s world in which the interplay of equality and freedom, in particular, is stressed. Most importantly, this means that Aidan does not present her England as a refuge from history.

Beginning her story in 1811 (Assembly 91) and choosing a male viewpoint, she refers to various milestones in British history, including ―Wellesley‘s campaigns‖ (Assembly 99), the Luddite movement (Duty 19), the ―Irish Question‖ (Three 180-1), and the progress of Napoleon

Bonaparte (Three 101, 400). What is more, she confronts Darcy with historical characters such as

Beau Brummell (Assembly 197, 217), Lady Caroline Lamb (Assembly 200-1, 225; Three 317), and

John Bellingham (Three 180, 261)—using their names as cues so that her audience can anticipate their behaviour—to emphasise that her universe, too, has its decadence and its dangers43. Within this universe, Aidan sets up Pemberley as a locus of innocence. In essence, this has a basis in

Pride and Prejudice. As Charles J. McCann notes, Austen holds up Pemberley ―as a possible ideal‖

(67) from the first, and has it meet her readers‘ ―high expectations‖ (McCann 71) when she reveals that ―its glories have been understated‖ throughout the novel (McCann 71). Pemberley‘s main asset, it seems, is that it exudes harmony. When Elizabeth sees the House for the first time

(Austen 235-6), she claims never to have ―seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste‖ (Austen 235).

Pemberley‘s interior, she soon observes, is likewise marked by balance, with ―furniture . . . neither gaudy nor uselessly fine‖ (Austen 236). After Elizabeth and Darcy‘s marriage, moreover, this harmony characterizes everyday life at Pemberley, as it becomes ―the home of felicity, usually open only to those who are compatible with its true elegance and with the personalities of its master and mistress‖ (McCann 72-3; Austen 364-7). Unlike Pugh (47), Aidan also sees in this balance the essence of Elizabeth and Darcy‘s relationship. After all, what makes Pride and

Prejudice her favourite Austen novel is the fact that the ―characters‘ strengths and flaws are so

43 As Aidan was doing her research—―reading British history, biographies of Jane, taking ‗lots of notes‘ to ‗guide her in what Darcy‘s life in London and society might be like‘ ‖ (Irene)—she ―found that there was a great deal of ugliness which is not included in Jane‘s novels‖ (Irene). It was her choice, in other words, to depart from canon by referring to historical characters, such as the Duke of Wellington (Assembly 99), Lady Melbourne (Assembly 200, 215), L‘Catalani (Assembly 200), William Lamb (Assembly 200, 221), Thomas Lawrence (Assembly 201; Duty 15), the Prince Regent (Assembly 219), Lord Byron (Duty 19), Mrs. Siddons (Duty 100), and Thomas Moore (Three 182). Van Steenhuyse 48 well-matched,‖ and that the reader knows that their ―marriage will be one of equals not only in wit and intelligence, but in humility, grace, and love‖ (Q&A, Assembly 254). In effect, she emphasises that both Darcy and Elizabeth need, and will have, equality in their married life (Three

418, 429, 434, 437).

In her fic, this also characterizes the relationship of Darcy‘s parents, who had a ―union‖ in which both partners were ―sympathetic of mind and warm of heart‖ (Three 95; Assembly 244;

Duty 68). Interestingly, Aidan highlights this harmony indirectly, by naming Pemberley‘s

Conservatory ―Eden‖ (Assembly 119). Because Darcy‘s mother tends to flowers in Eden,

―coaxing‖ them ―to thrive and blossom‖ (Assembly 119), she necessarily resembles Eve in the

Garden of Eden. Considering the rest of the trilogy, this means that she resembles Eve as she is described in John Milton‘s Paradise Lost. This epic poem first appears in An Assembly Such as This, when Darcy discovers that Elizabeth has been reading it at Netherfield (Assembly 116). On several occasions, he quotes two verses that characterize his love for Elizabeth, namely ―Part of my soul, I seek thee and thee claim / My other half . . .‖ (Assembly 156; Three 28, 94; Milton,

Book IV, lines 487-8). To seventeenth-century readers, Milton‘s representation of Eve would have been striking, because it contrasts with its equivalent in the King James Bible. Milton departs from the story as it is interpreted in ―the New Testament‖ (Ferry 113), more specifically

―in the epistles of St. Peter and St. Paul‖ (Ferry 114), because he suggests that Adam and Eve are equal as ―free agents‖ (McColley 105, 108) and as spouses (Ferry 120). The verses which Darcy quotes clearly give expression to that idea (Ferry 120)44. The Pemberley of his parents, it is suggested metonymically, is a Paradisiacal space of innocence, in which husband and wife can live together harmoniously and in freedom, because they recognize that they are equal as human beings and as spouses.

44 According to Pugh, fanfic writers and readers are remarkably ―adept‖ at using and recognizing literary references (43). Even if Aidan‘s readers are not familiar with the details of Paradise Lost, however, the verses she quotes convey that Adam and Eve are spiritually equal. That they are equal as spouses and human beings follows logically from that. Van Steenhuyse 49

Early on, it becomes apparent that Darcy wants to restore that Garden of Eden: he begins to call Elizabeth his ―Eve‖ (Assembly 243; Three 208), imagines her in Eden (Duty 49; Three

30, 96), and identifies strongly with Adam (Three 28). This means that he also wants to re-instate the moral codes that governed his family when he was a boy—and upon whose acceptance

Pemberley‘s harmony depended. In Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman, these codes are exemplified by

Darcy‘s father, who, though deceased, remains a strong presence in the story. Darcy has learnt from his father everything fundamental—how to be a good ―man of property‖ (Assembly 13-4), or to spurn ―[p]revarication and pretty, insincere speeches‖ (Assembly 51)—and everything inconsequential—for example to sit still in church (Duty 77). At first, he believes that he has managed to uphold his father‘s codes after he died, because he has always felt that to be ―a

Darcy‖ (Duty 77; Three 26) means to be like him: ―the best man he could be in all his dealings, whether as landlord, master, brother, or friend,‖ holding ―himself to scrupulous honesty in his business concerns‖ and exercising ―unfailing caution in his social affairs‖ (Three 207). Ultimately, however, he realises that he differs from his father, because he has ―ordered his life according to his own unbridled prejudices and the conceits of his class, congratulating himself on his adherence to them and dismissing all that did not conform to them as unworthy of his consideration‖ (Three 207). Although he had ―the best of examples before him,‖ in other words, he has ―gone off course‖ (Three 250-1), treating his future wife as his inferior and Wickham as less than human. Darcy has to become more like his father again (see below p. 57) before he can truly restore his space of innocence. As such, his development is only complete when he has found the ―humanity‖ to deal with Wickham, and when his father‘s secretary assures him that his

―father would be very proud, . . . very proud‖ (Three 364).

3.2 Adaptation Fandom and Stylistic Transparency

Pamela Aidan, like most multimedia fans, treats Pride and Prejudice rather than its adaptation as her primary source material (Coppa, ―Writing Bodies‖ 229). Nonetheless, she Van Steenhuyse 50 admits that ―the credit for turning [her] into a writer belongs to‖ the BBC/A&E adaptation in general, and Colin Firth in particular (Q&A, Assembly 252). According to Francesca Coppa, many fans share such a divided allegiance, because it is ―only when stories get embodied that they seem to generate truly massive waves of fiction‖ (―Writing Bodies‖ 229). Because adaptations create, in the first place, an audience with ―extratextual knowledge, mostly of characters‘ bodies and voices‖ (―Writing Bodies‖ 235; see above p. 36), she concludes that fanfic writers do not mean to write texts at all but to make ―productions—relying on the audience‘s shared extratextual knowledge of sets and wardrobes, of the actors‘ bodies and their smiles and movements—to direct a living theatre in the mind‖ (―Writing Bodies‖ 243, 235-6). In effect, ―fan fiction‘s unusual emphasis on the body‖ and incessant ―repetition‖ of the same story (Coppa, ―Writing

Bodies‖ 236; Pugh 134, 224) resembles theatre‘s focus on bodies as ―the storytelling medium‖ and its various productions of the same play (Coppa, ―Writing Bodies‖ 236). The ―theatricality‖ of fan fiction also has more specific consequences, however. Fics are usually written in a

―relatively transparent style of prose conducive to an immersive reading experience‖ (Coppa,

―Writing Bodies‖ 240)45. This may explain why ―stylistic innovation is still uncommon‖ in fan fiction: few writers ―go beyond more traditional methods‖ (Pugh 181) because such departures may hinder the audience‘s immersion. In effect, Aidan writes her trilogy in the past tense (Pugh

181) and in the idiom her readers expect. She only occasionally draws attention to the text itself by the originality of her approach—for example when she presents her reader with the letter

Darcy writes at Netherfield (Assembly 91-4), instead of describing in ―real time‖ his reaction to

Miss Bingley‘s constant interruptions, and his discussion with Elizabeth (Austen 46-50).

A fan writer‘s style is typically ―transparent‖ on two levels. First, it aims at stimulating the reader‘s visual memory, for example by using familiar ―televisual‖ techniques (Coppa, ―Writing

45 Coppa claims that fan fiction‘s transparency places the genre in ―a more general literary trend,‖ and makes fics comparable to bestsellers like J. K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter books (―Writing Bodies‖ 240-1). Van Steenhuyse 51

Bodies‖ 240-1)46. This means that media fans, in particular, mimic the cinematographic features which characterize the ―discourse‖ of their canon (Hall 5, 3). Kaplan remarks, for instance, how an Angel fan tells her story ―through a multitude of narrator focalizers, paralleling the switching perspective of the television series‖ (Kaplan, ―Construction‖ 147). Similarly, Parrish mentions how a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer borrows ―the BtVS structure of zooming in on different character focal points in different scenes‖ (Parrish 73). As I have mentioned, the BBC/A&E adaptation uses Darcy‘s behaviour and clothes to show his development (see above p. 36-7), while it goes through the motions of the plot from Elizabeth‘s viewpoint. Although Elizabeth, then, is still the main focalizer of the story, Darcy is occasionally ―given the floor‖—for example when he is riding with Bingley (I.1), when he writes his letter (IV.19), or when he looks at

Elizabeth throughout the series. Ultimately, this alternating focalization makes it ―a story about

Elizabeth and Darcy, rather than a story about Elizabeth‖ (Davies, qtd. in Birtwistle and Conklin

4). As it is Aidan‘s aim to tell her version of Darcy‘s story, she uses ―close character focalization‖—a narrative technique that departs from Austen and from the series. What makes

Aidan‘s style transparent and visual is the amount of detail in her descriptions. Fan Karen 2L remarks that comparing Aidan to other writers, such as Janet Aylmer, is like comparing

―tapestry‖ to ―burlap,‖ because ―[t]he richness of the weaving is remarkable. While it‘s really

Pamela‘s own POV and invention, you get a real idea of Darcy‘s wealth. Not just numbers or servants, but what his London lifestyle is like.‖ Like the series (Birtwistle and Conklin 2), in other words, Aidan prefers to ―show rather than tell,‖ and to immerse her readers in Darcy‘s world through descriptive detail.

In part, this ―visual‖ transparency explains why fan readers are sometimes described as

―voyeurs,‖ especially if the fan fiction they read is in some way illicit—as when it contains explicit sex, especially in slash fics (Pugh 97), or when it sheds light on the private life of

46 This particular strategy makes fan fiction resemble romance novels, which first ―went downmarket‖ in the interwar era because the genre was seen as a prime example of fiction‘s infection ―with film technique,‖ and, as such, as ―the stuff of a debased, and also Americanized, popular culture‖ (Jameson, qtd. in Lynch, ―At Home‖ 180). Driscoll discusses fan fiction‘s ties to the romance novel in greater detail (95). Van Steenhuyse 52 celebrities (Lackner et. al. 193). The voyeurism of a fan reader extends beyond that of a cinema- goer, however (Macdonald and Macdonald 6), because fan fiction‘s transparency also works on a second level. Although a film can show the ―exterior‖ of a character‘s life, ―much depiction of inner life must be cast aside‖ in the filmmaking process (Macdonald and Macdonald 6). Fan fiction, by contrast, typically combines ―an extensive use of dialogue‖ with a ―use of interior monologue‖ (Pugh 135; Kaplan, ―Construction‖ 147). Pugh attributes this to fan writers‘ general

―interest in voice‖ and ―their fascination with motivation and what goes on inside people‘s heads, particularly where there is some discrepancy between the inner voice and the outer‖ (Pugh

135). Aidan‘s readers, in other words, do not only get direct access to Darcy‘s ―exterior‖ life, but, as fan Isabel notes, are also ―constantly in Darcy‘s head.‖ Pugh remarks, moreover, that ―for all their interest in voice, fanfic writers are also very interested in ‗nonverbals‘, exploring character and motivation through body language and actions‖ (Pugh 135); ―discrepancies between words and nonverbals‖ generally receive an equal share of attention (Pugh 136). In effect, Aidan is just as detailed when she describes Darcy‘s physical behaviour and sensations, his observations, and his feelings, as she is when she describes his thoughts and lifestyle.

To show how this makes Aidan‘s work different from Austen‘s, I will analyse her treatment of Austen‘s dialogue. In Pride and Prejudice, the amount of ―contextual cues, setting, and paralinguistic cues of character behavior‖ (Thomas 231) that Austen adds to her dialogue varies.

At one end of the continuum, there are conversations in which she does not motivate her characters‘ contributions at all, nor describes their (physical) reactions to one another‘s words, but prefers instead to let a quick succession of turns speak for themselves. When Elizabeth and

Darcy review the course of their relationship (Austen 359-61), for example, it is impossible to know where their conversation takes place until they decide to write letters, which suggests that they are inside. Similarly, Austen reveals nothing about her characters‘ tone of voice, countenance, thoughts, or feelings during the conversation. At the other extreme stand emotional scenes such as the first proposal (Austen 185-9) or Elizabeth‘s confiding in Darcy Van Steenhuyse 53 when she first hears about Lydia (Austen 263-5). In both scenes, Austen places her characters in a clear setting, letting Darcy lean ―against the mantle-piece‖ (186), or having Elizabeth sit down,

―unable to support herself‖ (263). She also indicates how they react physically to each other, noting how Darcy‘s ―complexion‖ pales at Elizabeth‘s refusal and colours at her accusations

(186), or how he starts at her ―pale face‖ (263). What is more, she adds information about their tone of voice—pointing out, for example, Darcy‘s ―voice of forced calmness‖ (186) or ―tone of gentleness and commiseration‖ (263), as well as Elizabeth‘s ―agitated voice‖ (264). She also describes facial expressions, such as Darcy‘s ―smile of affected incredulity‖ (187) or his contracted ―brow‖ (264). Similarly, Austen indicates how Elizabeth feels about the exchange, letting her readers know that Darcy‘s silence is ―dreadful‖ to her feelings (186), or that she is

―endeavouring to recover herself‖ (263). True to her reputation of economy, however, Austen typically uses such references sparingly.

Aidan‘s fannish interest in the interplay of thoughts, ―nonverbals,‖ and dialogue, on the other hand, shows in her representation of conversation: although she copies most of Austen‘s dialogue, she adds enough information to make explicit her interpretation of it. While Austen, for example, does not let Elizabeth and Darcy‘s dancing together affect her representation of their conversation (Austen 90-2), Aidan takes their setting into account, and describes how the

―pattern of the dance‖ interrupts their conversation at regular intervals, giving Darcy time to think (Assembly 160-7). This scene also illustrates how Aidan‘s dialogue is ―influenced‖ by

Darcy‘s awareness of Elizabeth. After all, he interprets her lack of eye contact (Assembly 160) and the tension in ―her gloved fingers‖ (Assembly 161) as a sign of her discomfort (Assembly 161), which initially makes him silent (Assembly 161) and cautious in his answers (Assembly 161).

Throughout the trilogy, Aidan compares Elizabeth and Darcy‘s conversations to fencing matches, with Darcy observing his opponent, and determining his next move according to her behaviour (see for example Three 59-62). In accordance with what she believes Darcy‘s motivation to be, or how she thinks Darcy interprets Elizabeth‘s responses, Aidan then gives Van Steenhuyse 54 information about their tone of voice and physiognomy (Assembly 65-6, 69-70; Three 273-5, 390,

Three 417-421). The amount of this information consistently surpasses Austen‘s, even in highly emotional scenes (Three 111-8, 309-14).

This does not mean that all of Darcy‘s turns are rationally motivated. Often, Aidan explains his answers with a description of his physical reaction to Elizabeth. When Elizabeth asks his opinion about her conversation with Colonel Forster (Assembly 65; Austen 25), for instance, the suddenness of her question throws Darcy completely, so that he momentarily despairs ―of retrieving the use of his faculties‖ (Assembly 65). As a consequence, he settles for a cool, condescending answer, which makes Elizabeth accuse him of being ―severe‖ on her sex

(Assembly 65; Austen 25). Such descriptions also serve to convey Darcy‘s infatuation. When

Elizabeth and Darcy discuss his social skills at the pianoforte in Rosings (Three 59-62; Austen

170-1), Darcy reacts physically to her words, which make his heart beat ―erratically and the blood to skip and surge through his veins‖ (Three 61; Assembly 97). He reacts in a similar way when he observes Elizabeth from a distance ( Assembly 48-9), when she stands close to him (Assembly 63), or when she sings (Assembly 67)47. On the whole, these passages add a layer of unresolved sexual tension to the text which resembles that of the series (Belton 188). Although Aidan, then, does not adopt harlequinized moments from the adaptation, such as Darcy‘s dive and subsequent meeting with Elizabeth, she modifies canonical moments to reach the same effect.

3.3 Pamela Aidan‘s Interpretation of Fitzwilliam Darcy

I have pointed out that Aidan reproduces the comfort of her canon with a melodramatic, cyclical structure. As characters are a fan writer‘s point of entry, it is possible that this structure resulted naturally from her account of Darcy‘s development. After all, Aidan argues that her

47 In Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman, Darcy‘s senses constantly register the sounds, smells, textures, and sights of his environment (Assembly 1, 8, 43, 45, 51, 79, 108, 150, 171-2, 224; Duty 27; Three 171). By comparison, he displays a heightened awareness of Elizabeth, for example when he sees her (Assembly 7, 155-6; Three 47, 273, 389), (nearly) touches her (Assembly 63, 161; Three 300), smells her (Assembly 56, 114; Three 27, 299), or even thinks of her (Duty 108; Three 51, 64, 281). Van Steenhuyse 55 protagonist becomes an Adamic figure. This evolution follows logically from her interpretation of his character, her defence of which I will summarize here. In her ―fictional essay,‖ Aidan sets out to solve one question: ―how did Fitzwilliam Darcy change so dramatically between the opening pages of the book and his reacquaintance with Elizabeth at Pemberley, a change not only in his inner man, but one that carries him to great personal acts of charity involving a man he has every reason to hate?‖ (Q&A, Three 446; see above p. 34). To answer this question, she first puts Darcy‘s behaviour in perspective, by contrasting it with the behaviour of his peers.

Aidan establishes two things, for example, when she recounts that Charles Bingley first came to

Darcy‘s notice because his lack of ―proper reserve‖ had made him ―the object of several cruel jokes among the more sophisticated young gentlemen in Town‖ (Assembly 2). One, she indicates that Bingley, unlike his friend, does not meet the expectations of the ―smart set,‖ and flies under

Darcy‘s wings for good reason. Two, she shows that Darcy, unlike his peers, has enough humanity to perform his ―Christian duty‖ (Assembly 3).

Aidan underscores this difference by comparing the world in which Darcy grew up and the first circles of society:

The exceeding amiability of his parents‘ marriage and the good sense and

excellent understanding of those whose company they had enjoyed had ill-

prepared Darcy for the nuances of the drawing room or assembly hall.

Prevarication and pretty, insincere speeches had not been part of his education.

Such behavior had been uniformly regarded as unmanly and insulting. Yet upon

his entrance into the wider world of his peers, he had discovered that their

habitual use was expected and even praised, especially when the two sexes met in

society. (Assembly 51)

Living by the example of his parents, Darcy abhors the ―disguise,‖ arrogance, and conceit commonly displayed at social gatherings (Three 126). This is even more the case, because

Wickham‘s ―smiles and flattery‖ turned out to mask ―a vile, corrupted nature‖ (Assembly 18). He Van Steenhuyse 56 is particularly distrustful of society women, who ―perform‖ to ―entrap‖ eligible bachelors ―into matrimony‖ (Assembly 56, 244; Duty 125-6). To discourage such attention, he has moulded his

―natural reserve‖ (Assembly 55) into a ―pose of indifference‖ (Assembly 31, 40, 41; Three 51) which, he feels, makes him come across as proud (Assembly 55). By immersing her readers in Darcy‘s social world—offering complete transparency where Austen only hints (Austen 359)—Aidan qualifies some of his behaviour in Hertfordshire. His back-story explains, for instance, why he does not ward off Elizabeth‘s verbal attacks at Netherfield as an experienced ―drawing room beau‖ (Assembly 104), but as a ―cool, practiced logician‖ (Assembly 104)—a pose with which he distances himself emotionally, as he does when he displays a studied air of reserve or indifference. Interestingly, Aidan also interprets Darcy‘s claim that an intelligent person can never be proud from his defensive attitude (Assembly 105; see above p. 32-3): his statement is meant to admonish Elizabeth, whose pride is still bruised from his slight at the Meryton assembly (Assembly 105; Three 218). Unlike Austen, Aidan presents his confident display of intelligence as part of his shield, rather than his ego. Most importantly, however, Darcy‘s background explains why he warns Bingley away from Jane Bennet. He has seen Mrs. Bennet‘s avaricious look ―too many times to be mistaken‖ (Assembly 5, 11) about her intentions. Because he suspects that Jane is pressured by her mother, he points out that she, like Wickham (Assembly

18, 183), ―smiles too much‖ to be sincere in her regard (Assembly 17; Three 8, 9, 392, 397-8).

While Austen uses this assessment to illustrate Darcy‘s fastidiousness (Austen 18), Aidan insists that it is grounded in an understandable concern for his friend.

Aidan does not excuse all of Darcy‘s faults, however. Although she motivates his reluctance to ―converse with perfect strangers,‖ she does not deny that he finds it even harder to do so ―across the boundaries of class or station and in such a setting‖ as the Meryton assembly

(Assembly 4). Indeed, the ―forbidding‖ countenance that first offends the people of Meryton is no shield, but an expression of ―[h]is indignation with the utter waste of an entire evening among undistinguished strangers‖ (Assembly 7; Three 374). Nor does she soften his disdain for the Bennet Van Steenhuyse 57 family. After all, it is Mrs. Bennet‘s ―monumental display of impropriety in polite society‖

(Assembly 174) that turns his act of reasonable protectiveness into an unpleasant mission to save

Bingley from such in-laws (Assembly 174, 177, 190; Three 8). His contempt for Elizabeth‘s connections similarly impedes his own happiness, as aligning himself with her family would go against his duty to ―the Darcy name‖ (Duty 67, 109; Three 10, 26, 97), as well as his duty to his friend (Assembly 178; Duty 53, 69; Three 98). For all his abhorrence of insincerity, then, Darcy still thinks that his own sphere is superior to Elizabeth‘s, which also shows in his treatment of her.

Although he knows that she dislikes him (Assembly 94, 95, 163; Duty 16), he also believes that

―the surprise of his partiality and condescension‖ (Assembly 145, 147) should be enough to turn the tide; although he proposes because he mistakenly believes that she welcomes his attentions

(Three 70, 80, 93), he also thinks so highly of ―the Darcy name‖ that he never even contemplates her refusing him (Three 22, 251). In short, Aidan acknowledges the faults of Austen‘s Darcy—his unwillingness to ―perform‖ for the populace of Meryton, his resentment about Wickham‘s vice and Mrs. Bennet‘s folly, and the pride to which he, himself, is blinded—but assures her readers that he is a good Christian at heart.

Next, she argues that Darcy overcomes his faults because he rediscovers his faith.

Initially, he is not so religious as to attend services with ―anything approaching real devotion‖

(Assembly 24)—even though his father, it is suggested, approved of such dedication48. Apparently,

Darcy lost some of his faith after Wickham almost ruined his family. Unable to see this

―adversity‖ in terms of Providence (Duty 44-5), he cannot ―pity‖ Wickham for his ―natural frailty,‖ let alone help him to overcome it (Duty 3-4). Georgiana, on the other hand, has learnt to see Wickham‘s deception as a lesson, with the help of Mrs. Annesley (Duty 45), who shares her faith with Aidan (Q&A, Duty 286). She now recognizes that her material wealth hid her poverty in ―more important things‖ (Three 221), for example the fact that she ―lacked . . . the character to

48 Darcy measures his devotion by the ―Reverend Whitefield‘s‖ standards (Assembly 24), an eighteenth-century preacher who defended Methodism in England and America (Wikipedia; Hunter 316; Three 49). His father once gave him a copy of ―Whitefield‘s sermons‖ (Assembly 199), which he rediscovers after he has heard Elizabeth sing (Assembly 25). This summarizes Darcy‘s development metaphorically. Van Steenhuyse 58 reject his appeals‖ (Three 221; Duty 61). This realisation has given her a better understanding of what it is to be poor, which compels her to help those beyond her family circle (Duty 60, 63) and to respect them as her equals. Darcy is embarrassed by this new-found fervour, not only because

―enthusiasm‖ is frowned upon by ―Polite Society‖ (Duty 114; Three 41), but also because he harbours ―disquieting suspicions that such devotion‖ is ―naïvely misplaced‖ (Duty 116). He is confronted with his ―dissatisfaction with the economy of Heaven‖ at Norwycke Castle, where

Lady Sylvanie tempts him to deny the workings of Providence (Duty 208-9). As in Hertfordshire

(Duty 53, 216; Three 22, 129), this puts at odds his individual desire and the ―verities he‘d assumed all his life‖ (Duty 215; Three 49). Lady Sylvanie‘s resentment, moreover, faces him with his own, unchristian hatred for Wickham, and his longing to avenge the deception of Georgiana and

Elizabeth (Duty 272, 280; Three 4, 9).

Although this confrontation momentarily strengthens Darcy‘s wavering faith in

Providence (Duty 245, 269; Three 38, 71, 129-30)49, Elizabeth‘s refusal makes him ―decidedly inured against‖ religion (Three 157). Still, his being aware of ―the dark depths in his heart‖ plays an important part in his development, because it makes him accept that he is not as gentlemanly as he once wanted become (Three 156), and that there might be some truth in ―Elizabeth‘s other epithets‖ (Three 156). He realises that pride lies at the heart of his faults, as it is ―attested by an arrogance of mind, a conceit of class, and a self-absorption that disdained to acknowledge the rightful feelings of others‖ (Three 217, 218-9). Although he had an excellent example in his father, and ―the most solemn of intentions,‖ he has become ―a most unlikable man and a stranger to his own heart‖ (Three 250-1). Georgiana encourages him to see Elizabeth‘s refusal as providential, remarking that they have both ―been given to see ourselves and have responded like children,

49 Darcy‘s stay at Norwycke also serves to put Mrs. Bennet‘s behaviour in perspective (Duty 239), and to show that Elizabeth does ―not just win Darcy‘s heart by default‖ (Q&A, Duty 285). The ladies he meets resemble Elizabeth, but are all exposed as ―examples of the misuse of power or . . . the objects of that misuse‖ (Q&A, Duty 287). Lady Felicia is kind (Duty 123), but misuses her power over men (Duty 135). Miss Farnsworth loves to be outside (Duty 145), but is irresponsible and headstrong (Duty 150, 159). Lady Sylvanie physically attracts and intrigues Darcy (Duty 174, 177, 182, 187), is compassionate (Duty 178), a worthy opponent in debates (Duty 184), and ―the daughter of a marquis‖ (Duty 200). However, she is also an atheist (Duty 207, 215) who is ruled by her passions (Duty 272, 198; Three 188). Darcy has to conclude that Elizabeth, despite her lack of social standing, has no equal in his own sphere (Duty 216; Three 147). However, he does not treat her as his equal until after her refusal. Van Steenhuyse 59 unwilling to be taught and resentful of our discipline‖ (Three 224). Although Darcy is still sceptical (Three 224), he tries to change, ―unseen and unremarked‖ by Elizabeth, with the help of

―a newborn compassion joined with determined practice‖ (Three 252, 250, 267). By measuring himself against her standards (Three 252), he finally gives her the respect she deserves. Ultimately, he learns to see Elizabeth‘s refusal as ―a rare and precious gift‖ (Three 266), and manages to put her happiness above his own hatred for Wickham (Three 344-5). As a consequence, he can deal

―calmly‖ with his nemesis (Three 357, 358, 360). Darcy‘s development may be shaped by

Elizabeth‘s reproofs (Three 252), just as his actions are inspired by her distress and his feeling responsible for it (Three 369, 374-5, 377), but he is ultimately able to perform ―great personal acts of charity involving a man he has every reason to hate‖ because he can finally feel ―compassion‖ and have ―mercy‖ for Wickham (Three 360). This makes him an Adam worthy of Paradise (Three

269).

3.4 Conclusion

In this chapter, I have first qualified my representation of fannish consumption.

Although fans are influenced by character readings which already exist in the fantext, they are not necessarily influenced by the standards and expectations of one community. Because the

Internet has made it possible to ―lurk‖ in the archives of different communities, and because online fanfic libraries supply stories from all over fandom, fan writers can inference guidelines from a whole range of stories. This makes it ever more difficult to get a complete picture of fan activity. Still, Austen fans‘ respect for ―Jane‖ makes their fandom and their fantext relatively homogeneous. I say ―relatively,‖ because Austen communities can still be very distinct. Although the Republic of Pemberley, for example, loves Jane Austen as much as the next community, and seeks to follow her example, it is more exclusive than most, and actively weeds out ―non- obsessives‖. At the same time, the Republic makes sure that its members produce fics of which

―Jane‖ would have approved, and enforces ―rigid criteria‖ to preserve the world its members Van Steenhuyse 60 enjoy. Like most adaptation-minded communities, however, it does not ban harlequinesque elements from its archive, because those are grounded in the use-value ethics Austen favours in her work.

Next, I have discussed two aspects that make Austen‘s world appealing to Janeites, and have looked whether Aidan reproduces them in her own text. First, I have noted that Austen‘s universe is comforting because it is governed by codes and regulations. On the one hand, characters‘ desire to be rational, proper, and to conform to social norms makes their behaviour comfortingly predictable. On the other, codes of conduct regulate courtship, so that angst or crises are rare in the romantic relationships Austen depicts. Interestingly, Aidan does not reproduce this aspect of Austen‘s world in Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman. She populates her universe with a great number of characters, some of whom challenge or undermine rationality, propriety, and social convention. Similarly, she shows how codes of conduct are partially responsible for Darcy‘s crisis. Second, I have indicated that Austen‘s world may attract readers, because they can see in it a confirmation of their own beliefs. In the early-twentieth century, the

English began to see their national identity in Austen‘s pictures of common life in a rural, class- regulated society. Simultaneously, Americans discovered their own ideals in her work. They admired the fact that her characters were not constrained by abstract ideological or moral codes, and lived together as free agents.

This ideal is also fundamental in melodrama, a genre which still dominates American popular culture. Because a melodrama typically returns to a space of innocence in which

American moral codes allow characters to live harmoniously, those codes ultimately feel good. As a result, American ideology stops being arbitrary, and becomes ―natural‖: viewers and readers alike find comfort in the idea that their ―heart‖ will guide them through moral choices. Aidan‘s trilogy offers comfort in a similar way. Although she constructs a universe that is ―uglier‖ than

Austen‘s, she sets up Pemberley as melodramatic space of innocence. As in Pride and Prejudice,

Pemberley‘s exterior, interior, and everyday life are marked by harmony and balance. Aidan also Van Steenhuyse 61 sees this harmony in Elizabeth and Darcy‘s marriage, and characterizes it first and foremost as a marriage of equals. In this respect, their relationship mirrors that of Darcy‘s parents. Aidan typifies their union with Milton‘s Paradise Lost, and suggests that Darcy‘s parents were not less free for being married. On the contrary, they both retained the power of choice, because they respected each other as human beings and as spouses. In the course of Fitzwilliam Darcy,

Gentleman, Darcy learns to accept those two forms of equality, and thus becomes more like his father again.

To convey her own interpretation of this development, without departing too much from canon, Aidan immerses her readers in Darcy‘s world. I have noted that this technique is often used in fan fiction, because most fics are ―theatrical‖. This is because fan writers are especially productive when their universe is in some way ―embodied‖—whether in television shows, films, or adaptations. To ―direct a living theatre in the mind‖ of their readers, fan writers tend to use a transparent style. First, their style is ―visually‖ transparent, because they mimic their canon‘s televisual idiosyncrasies, or, like Aidan, because they use a great amount of descriptive detail. Second, they use interior monologue and describe ―nonverbals,‖ such as body language, to clarify characters‘ motivations. This allows Aidan to express her interpretation in greater detail. I have illustrated this by comparing Austen‘s dialogue with Aidan‘s treatment of it. On the whole, the former gives relatively few details about the setting of her conversations, the verbal and nonverbal behaviour of her speakers, and their thoughts and emotions. Aidan, by contrast, shows how setting can influence dialogue, uses Darcy‘s thoughts to give her interpretation of particular turns or to motivate them, and translates his emotions and bodily sensations to verbal and nonverbal behaviour. She also uses this ―inner‖ transparency to get across Darcy‘s infatuation, which adds a layer of unresolved sexual tension to the text, just as Darcy and

Elizabeth‘s looks and glances do in the series.

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman satisfies Janeites‘ yearning for comfort and adaptation fans‘ desire for transparency. Yet it also expresses Aidan‘s unique reading of Pride and Prejudice. I have Van Steenhuyse 62 illustrated this by summarizing the ―fictional essay‖ that runs through her trilogy. To answer the question of how Darcy changes in Pride and Prejudice, to the extent that he is charitable to a man he hates, Aidan first qualifies his behaviour by comparing it to that of his peers. Unlike them,

Darcy has enough humanity to perform his Christian duty, and enough sincerity to disapprove of his sphere‘s social conventions—which contrast sharply with the codes his parents upheld. Over the years, he has cultivated a pose of indifference to deal with the insincere attentions of society women. This back-story makes it plausible that Darcy uses his intelligence to defend himself, which qualifies his pompous ―self-characterization,‖ and that he detaches Bingley and Jane out of genuine concern for his friend. Having established his good qualities, Aidan then acknowledges Darcy‘s faults, more specifically his refusal to flatter the people of Meryton, his resentment of Wickham‘s deception and his disdain for Mrs. Bennet‘s impropriety, and the pride that makes him treat Elizabeth according to her connections. Finally, she argues that he overcomes these faults because he rediscovers his faith, all the while recognizing that his changes are guided by Elizabeth‘s reproofs. Initially, Darcy cannot see Wickham‘s deception as an act of

Providence, while his sister can. His seduction has taught Georgiana that she is just as frail and helpless as other people, which makes her treat those who are destitute as her equals. At

Norwycke Castle, Darcy is confronted with his lack of faith and his unchristian hatred. After

Elizabeth‘s refusal, this makes him realise that he is not a perfect gentleman. Soon, he also acknowledges his other faults, and learns to be grateful for Elizabeth‘s corrections. That he ultimately measures himself by her standards indicates that he finally accepts her fundamental equality. His development is completed when he is able to feel compassion for Wickham, as this allows him to treat his nemesis as a human being. Only then can he truly re-establish his parents‘

Garden of Eden.

Van Steenhuyse 63

4. General Conclusion

Fan fiction is a flighty object of study, with innumerable fics appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye. And yet it also holds immense promise. Never before did such a large and diverse readership commit to paper its interpretation of media texts. For Austen scholars, who have traditionally relied on nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century reader responses, this supplementary material can show how Jane Austen‘s work is currently received outside of the academy. However, my analysis of one such a response has shown that Austen fics, and the fans who wrote them, are far from average. Pamela Aidan‘s Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman is an internet fic, because it is written by an amateur fan of the Austen fandom, because it explores a canon consisting of Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice and the 1995 BBC/A&E adaptation of the novel, and because it was published in the fanfic archives of the Derbyshire Writers‘ Guild, the

Republic of Pemberley, and Firthness—from which Aidan also inferred her fantextual reading.

As an electronic fan artefact, her trilogy was read by an extensive, diverse, and largely anonymous group of fellow-fans, with whom she shared a distinct approach to texts. After all, fans tend to see characters as individuals, and to construct arguments about their past, present, and future, building on negative capability and using everything their encyclopaedic impulse drives them to find.

Because Aidan, like most Austen fans, is remarkably faithful to canon, it is impossible to understand her fic if you are unfamiliar with her canonical universe. From necessity, then, I have first discussed Aidan‘s canon, emphasising that she read it from an accepted fantextual reading.

First and foremost, Aidan stays very close to Austen‘s novel, to the extent that she imitates her idiom and copies her dialogue. However, Austen‘s economy also creates enough negative capability for Aidan to be creative. Indeed, she started writing her fic because Darcy‘s transformation is not satisfactorily motivated in Pride and Prejudice. As the BBC/A&E adaptation hints at this development with Colin Firth‘s body language, appearance, and regard, Aidan uses the series as a secondary source of information. Next, I have discussed the Austen fandom‘s Van Steenhuyse 64 fantext. Because fans view canon as a jumping point for their own creative efforts, they may accept fantextual readings which are not obviously supported by canon. As they can now search their fandom on fics of interest, moreover, and base their expectations exclusively on those, most fantexts today comprise countless highly specific readings. In comparison, that of the

Austen fandom is fairly homogeneous. Most fics offer ―more of‖ Austen, because Austen fanfic writers want to write in her idiom, and because they, as Janeites, share a respect for ―Jane‖ and her work. As such, the fandom‘s fantextual homogeneity has its roots in the homogeneity of the fandom itself—a situation which may be sustained by Austen fans‘ continued exposure to academic disapproval. Some communities, such as the Republic of Pemberley and the

Derbyshire Writers‘ Guild, reinforce their members‘ fidelity by banning non-Austenesque fics from their archives, or by housing them in a separate section. Still, as adaptation-minded communities, they also accept and even expect filmic and harlequinized elements.

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman resulted from the interplay of Aidan‘s canon, her fantextual reading of it, and her own creativity. She did not, in other words, simply ―poach‖ from Austen‘s universe, but rewrote it. I have pointed out three features of Aidan‘s trilogy, which I can now explain from these dynamics—across the boundaries of canon and fantext. Firstly, I have argued that Aidan‘s trilogy is comforting. As such, she seems to have reproduced what first attracted her about Austen‘s novels. Scholars believe that the soothing nature of Austen‘s world also attracts other fans. When those fans, then, write fan fiction because they want ―more of‖ the world

Austen created, they necessarily reproduce that comfort. The feeling of relief that Austen‘s world offers, in other words, is protected by communities that ban from their archives extreme departures from canon, and reproduced by individual fan writers who want to stay true to the

―spirit‖ of her work. Ultimately, then, Aidan‘s universe is comforting, because she is a Janeite who writes for other Janeites and their archives. However, her universe also provides comfort in a distinctly American way. Since the early-twentieth century, American readers have seen

Austen‘s world as a space where free agents can live without moral and ideological constraint, an Van Steenhuyse 65 ideal which also permeates melodrama. Aidan combines these two traditions in her work, by setting up Pemberley as a space of innocence where Darcy‘s parents lived in equality and freedom. Because Darcy learns to respect the fundamental equality of Elizabeth and of

Wickham, he can restore his parents‘ space with his own marriage. As in melodrama, Fitzwilliam

Darcy, Gentleman is not comforting because it offers clear codes and regulations, but because it confirms that the nation‘s moral codes, which are felt as good, will not lead you astray. Although the comforting nature of Aidan‘s world, then, is inspired by her canon, and, more specifically, by

Janeites‘ preferred reading of it, it is also influenced by her own interpretation of Pride and

Prejudice.

Secondly, I have noted that Aidan writes in a transparent style, which immerses her readers in Darcy‘s world. On the one hand, her work is ―visually‖ transparent because she uses a lot of descriptive detail. On the other, it makes visible Darcy‘s inner life by means of interior monologue and references to nonverbals. This style allows Aidan to ―direct a living theatre in the mind‖ of her readers, provided that they are familiar with the adaptation‘s actors, sets, and wardrobes. Whenever she refers to the series, she actually cues that extra-textual knowledge, and invites her readers to read her work with the adaptation in mind—which is a form of shorthand fanfic writers use often. By means of close character focalization, moreover, Aidan can complete their viewing experience without departing too much from Austen. After all, this technique allows her to make clear Darcy‘s infatuation, which adds to Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman a layer of unresolved sexual tension not unlike the series‘. In part, then, Aidan‘s style is transparent, because she is an adaptation fan who writes for the pleasure of other adaptation fans. At the same time, Aidan uses Darcy‘s ―inner‖ transparency to convey her own understanding of Pride and Prejudice—a purpose for which close character focalization is ideally suited. In effect, although Aidan copies Austen‘s dialogue, she also provides enough information about Darcy‘s thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, verbal and nonverbal behaviour to fix its meaning. Aidan‘s Van Steenhuyse 66 style, then, may be attuned to an adaptation-minded audience, but it also fits her own creative agenda.

Thirdly, I have characterized Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman as a ―fictional essay,‖ in which

Aidan defends her own interpretation of Darcy‘s character and his transformation. In essence, she argues that he becomes an Adamic figure. To make her point, she first proves that Darcy has always been a Christian, well-principled man. By integrating his back-story into her work, Aidan puts into perspective his seemingly cool and pompous behaviour at Netherfield, and his separating Jane and Bingley. Next, she acknowledges the faults of Austen‘s Darcy, describing his treatment of the people of Meryton, Wickham, Mrs. Bennet, and Elizabeth. Finally, she argues that Darcy overcomes his faults because he rediscovers his faith. Because of Norwycke, he can accept, act on, and learn to be grateful for Elizabeth‘s criticisms—thus acknowledging her as his equal. Because he is able to feel compassion, moreover, he can be charitable to Wickham—and thus treat him as a human being. Because Aidan is a fan writer, she uses Austen‘s characters and the world they live in to make clear her interpretation of both. Although her ―essay‖ is also influenced by her fantextual reading—Darcy‘s development makes possible the trilogy‘s comforting structure, and is conveyed in a transparent style—it still constitutes Aidan‘s unique response to the negative capability of her canon. Ultimately, then, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman shows that Austen fans create and negotiate personal readings, but that their creative efforts are inseparable from the ―preserve‖ they re-create. As such, fan fiction can only shed light on

Austen‘s current reception, if the dynamics of canon, fantext, and individual creativity are taken into account. After all, it is this interplay that causes an incessant movement in the fandom‘s fantext. Unique interpretations such as Aidan‘s influence the fantextual readings of other fans who, as a consequence, can see in their canonical universe new creative possibilities. As long as these fans defend their views, as thousands have done before them, Austen‘s characters will lead a life of their own in cyberspace.

Van Steenhuyse 67

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