The Portmanteau Papers
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2016 The Portmanteau Papers Bryan, Dawn Margaret Bryan, D. M. (2016). The Portmanteau Papers (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28277 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/2859 doctoral thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY The Portmanteau Papers by Dawn Margaret Bryan A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH CALGARY, ALBERTA FEBRUARY, 2016 © Dawn Margaret Bryan 2016 Abstract The Portmanteau Papers is a creative exploration, in novel form, of the social environments, narrative structures, and language that attend the so-called rise of the novel of the eighteenth century. This long-form fiction begins with the prints of William Hogarth, which it investigates as a visual analogue to the narrative patterns employed by period authors. By rereading and recreating selected elements of narrative implicit in Hogarth’s prints, the text of The Portmanteau Papers animates the tensions between modern and period prose forms. In doing so, the novel considers scholarship’s understanding of the on-going relationship between the contemporary novel and its eighteenth-century antecedents. Ultimately, the work argues for a theory of genre that includes the implications of artistic practice in addition to more usual formal or historical-cultural definitions. The story of The Portmanteau Papers explores the varied social and material contexts of eighteenth-century print culture, animating the range of contributions made by printers, booksellers, visual artists, authors, and readers. The Portmanteau Papers also creatively represents the contributions of women authors, especially novelist Sarah Scott, to the development of the novel, extending significant research done in this area over the last thirty years. ii Acknowledgements The greater the debt of gratitude, the more incommensurate grows the language of thanks. In my case, I hardly know how to begin, but begin I must. Thanks to my supervisor Professor Aritha van Herk for her tireless encouragement and for her equally tireless red pen. Professor van Herk has managed me so delicately I hardly know I’ve been managed. Thanks also my committee, Professors David Oakleaf and Suzette Mayr. Without Dr. Oakleaf’s generous encouragement and assistance throughout my degree, I would never have come to love the eighteenth century as I do. Professor Mayr has likewise provided wonderful support whenever it was needed. Thanks to all. I am also grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), to the University of Calgary Faculty of Graduate Studies, and to the Department of English for their generous financial and moral support, without which I could not have undertaken this research. My family has put up with me in every kind of internal weather. They are kind to me when the writing goes well and are even kinder when it does not. My parents, Lawrence and Eleanor Bryan, know when to take me to lunch and show the perfect amount of interest. Greg and Anne, Christine, John and Jane, Tim and Corey, Jim and Julia likewise never flag in their encouragement. My amazing children, Aphra and Joel, inspire me with their own scholarship and hard work—I am very proud of them. The equally amazing Richard is my best friend and companion in everything, including our shared life of the mind. He is the best part of me. Thank you again, Richard—again and again and again. iii Dedication To Richard, Joel, and Aphra Sutherland for their patience and love. ❧❦☙❦❧❦☙ To Timothy Brian Sutherland for all I’ve been honoured to share with you. iv Table of Contents Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………........ ii Acknowledgements …………………………….…………………………...……….... iii Dedication …………………………………………………………………………....... iv Table of Contents ……………………………………………………….………....... v-vi List of Plates ……………………………………………………………………...…... vii Epigraph …………………………………………………………..…………………... viii Chapter One: Pugg’s Preface …………………………………………………………... 1 Chapter Two: A Printed Transcript Containing the Testimony of Two Laundresses ... 19 Chapter Three: Letters between Mrs. Betty and Her Sister …………………….…….. 45 Chapter Four: The Continued Correspondence of Mrs. Betty ………….……….…….. 74 Chapter Five: Two Tales Bundled Together Like Aprons Ready for the Wash-pot ….. 98 Chapter Six: Mrs. Betty’s Final Letter …………………………..….………………... 119 Chapter Seven: The History of Folia: Or, Virtue in Leaf – Part I ………………..…... 150 Chapter Eight: The History of Folia: Or, Virtue in Leaf – Part II ………..…….….… 176 Chapter Nine: Sarah Scott – The House at Batheaston ……………….……….…,.…. 206 Chapter Ten: Sarah Scott – Conditions Worsen ………..………………..……….….... 242 Chapter Eleven: Cass Quire, Orphan and Sometime Printer’s Boy ……………..….... 283 Chapter Twelve: The Nature of the Scheme Cass Enters into with Mr. Gotobed, .….... 297 Chapter Thirteen: The Sequel to Cass’s Projection with Mr. Gotobed …………......... 334 Chapter Fourteen: Gotobed Spends his Earnings …………………………...……....... 366 Chapter Fifteen: Sarah Scott – The Sun Rises on London’s Western Suburbs ……..... 387 v Table of Contents (continued) Chapter Sixteen: The History of Folia: Or, Virtue in Leaf – Part III …………..…... 414 Chapter Seventeen: The History of Folia: Or, Virtue in Leaf – Part IV ………….... 434 Chapter Eighteen: The History of Folia: Or, Virtue in Leaf – Part V …….………..... 460 Chapter Nineteen: Sarah Scott – Sarah Dines with Elizabeth Alone ……………..….. 475 Chapter Twenty: In Which We Do Not Finis …..…………………………...………... 490 Exegesis: Or, An Afterword in the Shape of a Dead Pug ……………….……………. 501 Bibliography ………………………………………….………………...…………..….. 507 vi List of Plates Plate 1 – William Hogarth, detail from The Bruiser ………………………...…..….... viii Plate 2 – William Hogarth, The Harlot’s Progress, plate I ………………………….... 18 Plate 3 – William Hogarth, Marriage A-la Mode, plate II ………………..….…..….. 147 Plate 4 – William Hogarth, The Rake’s Progress, plate III ………………...….…...... 234 Plate 5 – William Hogarth, The Idle ‘Prentice, Betrayed ………………...….…......... 301 Plate 6 – William Hogarth, The Bathos (also called The Tail Piece or Finis) …...….... 479 vii Epigraph I now offer to the public a short essay, accompanied by two explanatory [paw] prints, in which I shall endeavour to shew what the principles are in nature, by which we are directed to call the forms of some bodies beautiful, others ugly; some graceful, and other the reverse; by considering more minutely than has hitherto been done, the nature of those lines, and their different combinations, which serve to raise in the mind the ideas of all the variety of forms imaginable. William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty 17 Plate 1 – William Hogarth, detail from The Bruiser Photograph © Dawn Bryan viii Chapter One: Pugg’s Preface1 1 Pugg’s note: As every dog knows, the prefaces of eighteenth century long-form fiction comprise a satisfactory terrain for duelling over the definition of the genre of the novel. Skirmishes over “novels” and “histories” cut deep, building up, in time, a tough cicatrix of scar tissue—the waxy body of English literary criticism. Years pass, and knuckles and stones give way to pistols and swords. Tales of past injury inculcate a wild and warlike disposition in each new generation of critic. Recent scholars of the of the English novel (e.g. Ballaster “Contexts;” Hammond and Regan) trace the movement from formalist explanations of the novel as an ahistorical, ideal set of generic conventions (e.g. Frye) to historicist explanations that view the novel as a historical progression toward an ideal set of generic conventions (e.g. Watt; McKeon’s Origins of the English Novel). Even more recently, historicist teleologies of the novel give way to the description of situated and provisional conventions that variously construct “the novel.” These cultural practices and objects comprise, not a singular “rise” of the novel, but rather the continuing invention of the very notion of “the novel” (e.g. Ballaster “Contexts;” Hammond and Regan; McKeon’s Domesticity). In this view, the “novel” is less a generic category than a discursive one. This dog breaks no new ground when noticing how each of these accounts assumes a safe terrain of values from which scholars can best consider the ostensive problem of the rise of novel. These values—normative “realism” for Frye and Watt; Marxism for McKeon; Feminism for Ballaster—determine the larger grounds of critical exploration in each case—scholarly authority and canon formation for Watt and Frye, economic critique for McKeon, gender bias for Ballaster. These values do not constitute anything as one-dimensional as the “real agendas” of these representative scholarly positions. However, each answer to the question of generic form provides a key to the larger social discourse in which both question and answer embed themselves. To one such as I, a pugnacious reader, the specifics of this scholarly history matter precisely because they indicate