DECADENCE AND RESILIENCE: A STUDY OF THE ARISTOCRATIC NOVEL IN ENGLISH IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by JOHAN ANDRIES WESSELS submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY in the subject ENGLISH at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA PROMOTER: PROF. L.H. HUGO NOVEMBER 1992 SUMMARY The aristocratic novel in the twentieth century depicts the successes and failures of the aristocracy's efforts to come to terms with the social realities brought about by contemporary egalitarianism. Although several of the novels discussed are written by aristocrats, the aristocratic novel as such refers to novels about the aristocracy as a social grouping. Seven authors are selected to represent fictional treatment of a class in crisis, struggling between decadence and resilience: V. Sackville-West, Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford, Elizabeth Bowen, Molly Keane, L.P. Hartley and Emma Tennant. Sackville-West faces and chronicles the inevitable decay of her class, yet cannot refrain from mourning its gracious past. To her, the manor house symbolizes an ancient idyllic symbiosis between aristocrat and worker. To Evelyn Waugh, the aristocracy embodies the finest achievements of inherited English culture. He regards its decline as the crumbling of Christian civilization itself. Resilience against the rising proletariate lies in faith and a chivalrous other-worldliness associated with the old Catholic aristocracy. Mitford uses comedy to defend the ideals of service and honour which she sees undermined by vulgarity and mercantilism. She resists her opponents with lethal swipes of raillery. Bowen and Keane deal with the decline of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy. The heirs of the ascendancy have to cope with the paralysing bequest of a more vital past. Ironically, resilience lies in breaking with their heritage. Hartley appears to criticize the class structure, but his work reveals a fascination for the captivating myth of patrician life. Tennant, representing an aristocracy which has profited from the resurgence of wealth in Thatcherite Britain, is unsparingly caustic on the condition of her class. Her satiric writing presents an ethical resurgence that goes beyond the mere financial recovery of her society. The genre examined suggests a primal need among urbanized citizens for the myth of an heroic order. In the finest aristocratic novels, admiration for an imitable superior order is used to rally a consciousness of a venerable ethical establishment. What is threatened or lost is not merely wealth and privilege, but aristokratos - government by the best. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: The Aristocracy and Literature . 1 I. Golden Edwardian Sunset 11 CHAPTER 1: V. Sackville-West: A Gilded Cage 16 II. The Years of l'entre deux guerres 66 CHAPTER 2: Evelyn Waugh: Against the Common Man 73 III. Their Finest Hour 125 CHAPTER 3: Nancy Mitford: A Defence of Class 132 IV. Ireland 191 CHAPTER 4: Elizabeth Bowen and Molly Keane: A World of Decay . 198 v. The Welfare State 247 CHAPTER 5: L.P. Hartley: Intention and Performance 252 VI. Resurgence . 277 CHAPTER 6: Emma Tennant: Retrospective 284 CONCLUSION: The Aristocratic Myth 317 BIBLIOGRAPHY: 338 l ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Professor Leon Hugo for his invaluable guidance and assistance, and particularly for his willingness to continue as my promoter after his recent retirement. I am honoured to be the last doctoral student in his distinguished academic career. To my wife, Eloise, I render thanks for her support during the time of research and writing, and especially for her technical assistance in the actual production of the document. Mr Mat thew Curr, a friend of many years' standing, has once again proved his goodwill by his willingness to proofread and advise. Finally, I would like to thank my father, who has had to put five sons through university, for his generous proffering of financial assistance, even this late in my career as a student. The financial assistance of the Centre for Science Development towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the Centre for Science Development. ' . ' . ·-\Y \ \993 - B- 0 1 \A e:· s. s. 9~~·Jsgd.;$. ~~\ ~9 3 5"~ .. - , t\.ic.S ........... ~ Access Aanwin ...... ll THE COUNTESS OF COTELEY The Countess of Coteley! Wife of the Eleventh Earl, Mother of four fine children, Three boys and a girl. Coteley Park in Sussex, Strathrar on the Dee, Palace Gardens, Kensington, Aged thirty-three. Look at the Countess of Coteley! Here you see her when She was at her zenith and the year was nineteen-ten. Is she happy, would you guess? The answer to the question is, more or less. For she's never heard of Hitler, and she's never thought of war, She's got twenty-seven servants, and she could get twenty more. She never sees a paper, and she seldom reads a book, She is worshipped by her butler, tolerated by her cook. And her husband treats her nicely, and he's mostly on a horse, While the children are entirely in the nursery of course. So no wonder she is happy, for she hasn't got a clue, To the future that is waiting, and the funny things she'll do About ... thirty-seven years from now. When you see her in this flashback it is rather hard to guess That she'll be a sort of typist in the W.V.S. She will learn to woo her grocer: she won't have a cook to woo, But a Czechoslovak cleaner may pop in from twelve to two. Speaking worldlily she'll dwindle. She will change her book at Boots, And lecture on Make-do-and-Mend to Women's Institutes. She will lose the Earl quite quietly, and her young will leave 111 the nest, She never knew them very well, so that is for the best. And Coteley, Strathrar, Kensington will vanish with the rest About ... thirty-seven years from now. Now the National Trust has Coteley, which is quite a handy dodge, And she'll make a flat of part )f what was once the keeper's lodge. She will seldom dress for dinner, she will dote on Vera Lynn, She will take in the New Statesman, but she won't be taken in. Here you see her in this flashback looking decorative but dumb, For she hasn't got an inkling of the jolly days to come! Though the distances she'll travel are incredible to tell, I And the quandaries she'll cope with will be absolutely hell, She'll emerge in Forty-seven having done it rather well! Will she be happy, would you guess? The answer to the question is ... Y-e-s. Joyce Grenfell iv INTRODUCTION THE ARISTOCRACY AND LITERATURE The twentieth century has been a century of crisis for the aristocratic community of Great Britain, and indeed of Europe. A community which has taken privilege for granted, whose very existence has been based on the concept of privilege, has found that it has had to re-evaluate its position in society. It has suddenly been challenged to justify itself. This makes the aristocratic novel in the twentieth century an interesting topic for investigation. One is faced on the one hand with a pervasive awareness of the obsolescence of this ancient institution, a consciousness among the aristocrats of decadence, decline, possible extinction, and on the other hand with an irrepressible vitality, an indomitable resilience, an admirable adaptability. As the twentieth century, the age of democracy, of human rights, the century during which the egalitarian ideals of the eighteenth-century philosophers have finally become the norm rather than a revolutionary threat, draws to a close, a moderate hereditary power is still enshrined in the British political system in the form of the House of Lords, a considerable part of the British aristocracy are still enormously rich and continue to live lives of great privilege (albeit sometimes with an increasing sense of being under siege) in palatial establishments such as Chatsworth, Blenheim Palace, Woburn Abbey and the like, and a member of the British aristocracy, Lady Diana Spencer, has emerged as the most photographed and probably the most famous woman in the world. In spite of the concerted efforts by a succession of Labour Governments since 1945 to abolish or at least drastically reduce the wealth of the aristocracy, Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, is still the richest man i~ 1 Britain next to the Queen , with assets estimated in the early 1The wealth of the Queen has been increased so successfully in the last decade by means of sound management that on the eve of the twenty-first century, the monarchy is estimated to be richer than ever before, with the Queen ranking among the ten richest people in the world in terms of her personal wealth. 2 1980s to be in the region of 400 million pounds . 2 Nancy Mitford, novelist, historian and sometime self-appointed spokeswoman for the aristocratic establishment remarked in 1956: The English aristocracy may seem to be on the verge of decadence, but it is the only r~al aristocracy left in the world today. It has real political power through the House of Lords and a real social position through the Queen. An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off: it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead. 3 The position is practically unchanged thirty-five years later. The uneasy ambivalence between anachronistic irrelevance and an energetic resilience forms a consistent thread through most of the novels dealing with the aristocracy published in this century.