Trollope Conference 3

 The final session of the Tuesday morning was again in panels. I attended the one called Gender and Narrative Construction (1). The first paper was Ellen's - this can be found in full at....

http://www.jimandellen.org/trollope/comfortromance.html

and it would be both redundant and absurd to attempt a summary.

Michelle Mouton : Trollope's Gazing Narrator

This was another paper which I found very interesting. Michelle noted that physiognomic descriptions are extremely detailed, repetitive and ever-present in Trollope; she then asked the question how gender influences the narrator's attitude to these descriptions? The intrusive narrator tells us where to look, he introduces the physical description and in some cases he does not want us to look to closely at his heroine. Handsome bad men are often seen as handsome by women and therefore removed from narrator (Sir Lionel in The Bertrams certainly reflects this). But at other times the narrator's expression of physical admiration for men is almost homo-erotic, the best example being Burgo Fitzgerald; here the narrator can seem to identify with women's desires (a fascinating point in light of The Pallisers TV adaptation - should Burgo have been more attractive? or was he attractive?). Michelle concluding by asking whether the narrator is also a desiring subject? . This paper concentrated on male characters and physiognomies but the entire subject of Trollope's physiognomic descriptions is fascinating.

David Skilton : Depth of Portraiture

Trollope in his day was criticised as entirely mimetic and therefore incapable of portraying women. David Skilton argued that in fact Trollope's women make life choices, not in the same way as men but nonetheless they do - which may have semi-autobiographical elements given Trollope's mother's life choices. The choices are largely internal and ethical and subjective in Trollope's women. Ellen has written of this...

>>I'm not sure I was persuaded that the literal limited choices can be overlooked just in favor of ethics and psychology as such, for the latter are dependent on experience hoped for as well as had.<<

We then broke for lunch which was very pleasant - I chatted with Ellen and Clare.

There was intended to be another plenary session after lunch but the speaker had not turned up so we proceeded to the final panel sessions of the day. This time I attended the same panel as Ellen - Gender and Narrative Construction (2).

Ellen has written extensively about Michael Brooks paper on Trollope and American feminism, which was fascinating and completely new to me, but I have nothing to add so will move on. (just to remind anyone who is missed it Ellen's far more comprehensive account is at...

http://www.jimandellen.org/trollope/ExeterConference.html )

Sophie Gilmartin: Trollope's Flesh and Blood

This was another very good paper. Sophie was considering the way in which Trollope is meticulous about the way in which he places bodies in space - she started with the the example of the balcony scene in CYFH where Alice is held prisoner (now need to check how this was managed in the TV adaptation!), also the Pallisers at breakfast - carefully choreographed but also something electric about it. Sophie argued that there was a further specific subset of men, women and horses in space and exemplified this from the scene in Last Chronicle where Lily meets Crosbie in London after three years. Lily has her back to Achilles - a controversial nude sculpture in honour of Wellington (fear/rejection  of eroticism/Crosby?) - then Crosby (Apollo) approaches and there is a whip reference - she is in control, on horseback - she could whip him. In Framley Parsonage there is the moment where Lord Lufton and Lucy are surprised by Fanny - there is a conversation about riding which Lucy turns from horses to men and so a sexual element is introduced (I was also thinking of that extraordinary specificity about the 'spot on the carpet'). In CYFH we have the comparison of Burgo as a a horseman with him as a dancer - and therefore by extension the treatment of Glenocra as horse. Sophie's central argument was that we always need to pay careful attention to the placement of bodies in Trollope.

Maia McAleavey : Loving Lily Dale

 A brave subject to tackle! Maia argued that the introduction to Lily is in a tradition the locus classicus of which is Sophia Weston in Tom Jones - Fielding talks of Sophia much as Trollope does of Lily. There is a triangular love plot/relationship - narrator/character/reader - this is an invitation to a specifically male audience, which argues against understandings of Trollope's intended audience as female. Lily both thwarts and palpitates the erotically involved reader - she claims to be married and single at the same time. Lily is a very sexual being who also corresponds to conservative values - she is soft. 18thC commentators worried about effect of courtship novel on young women - but what about effect on men? What happens to male reader in Small House? No happy endings for men. This is another talk I may have misrepresented - I found some of the arguments hard to follow and was indeed in disagreement, so that I got caught up in my own thoughts rather than paying proper attention. The debate at the end inevitably tended to focus on Lily which may have been unfair to the other two papers.

I think people were also a little de-mob happy at this point - rather than stimulating greater attention the effect of the announcement that there would be a long stretch of free time induced a holiday atmosphere - group psychology at Conferences as much as anywhere else is a remarkable thing. After a long chat with Ellen I am afraid I completely failed to make good use of my freedom by visiting Exeter Cathedral or some other cultural attraction - instead I went and had a sleep! This did at least mean that I thoroughly enjoyed the Conference dinner that night.

The final (Wednesday) morning began with another panel session. Again I attended the same panel as Ellen on Regenderings.

Margaret Markwick : Out of The Closet

Ellen has written extensively about this paper in relation to Trollope. I must admit that I was not wholly convinced by the general historical analysis - I am not sure homosexuality was really as accepted before the mid-19thC as was stated, but it is a long time since I have read anything on this subject. It is of course true that only in 1885 was homosexuality criminalised - but it is worth noting that that was as a part of The Criminal Law Amendment Act which was partly the work of feminist campaigners (such as Josephine Butler) and was mainly concerned with legislation on prostitution, also raising the age of consent from 13 to 16.

Somewhere there was a fascinating quotation from Thackeray 'since Fielding died no-one has been permitted to portray a man' - I am not sure how this came in as I was too busy writing it down! Woolf cites this quotation.

Christopher Noble : Widows

A very enjoyable paper considering the anomalous position of widows - most masculine in terms of power but put against these are extensive mourning customs - Victoria herself is of of course a central figure. Within Trollope comedy is used to attack mourning customs. Christopher noted how Trollope's attitude changed over the Palliser series from the independent and comic Arabella Greenow in CYFH, who marries Belfield, to Emily Lopez who becomes a 'gothic shade'. Between the two is Madam Max who's androgyny is strongly stressed - she is both merry and sad and combines the tropes. Ellen countered with the example of Lady Lufton in the discussion and as she notes I mentioned to her the more extreme example of Aunt Staubach in Linda Tressel.

Kathy Psomiades: He Knew He Was Right

Looking back at my notes on this paper I can make no sense of them at all. Ellen seems nearly as unsure as me for once (so it may not just have been my obtuseness!). I did note at the end that the paper (once again) made no reference at all to class. Ellen points out that it also ignores power. In fairness it might be best to read the extract at.....

http://www.sall.ex.ac.uk/english/content/view/357/3/1/2/

Final Plenary Session

The final session, with seven speakers, was entitled Why should we read Trollope?, but was obviously a chance for general discussion of the Conference. I did not really keep very specific notes. One argument was that 19thC has a particular resonance now - I have written down in my notes that this is possibly a very American viewpoint - neo-liberalism, Imperial power (for the UK I am not sure that the 17thC is not more relevant given the ever-growing elimination of Parliament and the near monarchical powers Blair has appropriated to the the Prime Ministership - but this is mere jollity inspired by the fact that several of the addresses were witty). I did also note that the 'we' often seemed to be interpreted as meaning an academic community, rather than a wider public in whatever form. There was a debate about why Trollope is in low regard in the UK academic community in which it seemed to be concluded that one should therefore argue that he is not realist but post-modern. The deeply conservative nature of the Trollope Society was discussed and it was felt that it should be pointed out that he is liberal and radical.

It was really at this point that I started to get uneasy. The point I made - very badly - was that despite all that can said to the contrary there are limits to Trollope's radicalism. Nothing and no-one is going to turn him into a socialist. But the point which occurs to me subsequently is that I am not sure I even approve of this sort of approach. Whenever I am discussing Trollope I would use all that I have learnt (mainly from Ellen) and all I perceive of his radicalism to stress this side of his achievement. But if Tories like him and read him in another way I cannot see that it is right to suggest that they should be prescribed from being so. Just as authors cannot determine how books should be read (a point Ellen was making yesterday on ECW and is forcefully conveyed by Lessing in her introduction to the Golden Notebook), no more can critics. If someone likes to read Trollope because he is a great storyteller (which he is) then fine. If they want to read him for escapism then fine. If they want to read him because they are enchanted by Lily Dale then fine. If they like hunting scenes fine. I come back to the over-constrictive use of 'we' - 'we' is always such a treacherous word. This final session was enjoyable and provided some real humour but I am less positive about it than Ellen.

After this the Conference ended and after saying goodbye to Ellen and Clare, I reluctantly got back in the car for a sticky and sweaty drive home up the M5.

Conclusion and Qualification

I certainly do not want to end on a downbeat note! I really enjoyed the whole experience and was very pleased with myself for attending. It was wonderful to meet Ellen and Clare and at the dinners I mainly had the excellent company of Lynn, Susan and Yvonne. And I really enjoyed and benefited from the Conference itself. The qualification I would make, of all my summaries, is that they are wholly subjective - in the highly improbable event that a speaker reads my summary and finds it bears no relation at all to what they had been trying to say, then the fault is entirely mine.

As a consequence of going through my notes and writing them up I have come to realise - somewhat to my surprise - that the papers I enjoyed most were those which seemed to me to pay close attention to the text. Of course this should be qualified by the fact that it had to be a text I knew - which is wholly unfair as it makes my judgement dependent on my ignorance. But nonetheless this is not a conclusion I expected. There were exceptions to this - the two that stand out being Robert Polhemus's opening address and Lauren Goodlad on heirlooms (I am not saying these ignored the text but they were wide-ranging in scope). The detailed textual analyses which stood out for me were Ellen's (well that was wide-ranging too!), Lynn Parker, Stephen Amarnick, Michelle Mouton and Sophie Gilmartin.  Of course I, like everyone else, only managed to attend half the panels!

A final mention should be made of the weather and setting. Both were glorious. OK so it was too hot inside. But the view from the terrace by the bar was fantastic. Those are some lucky students!

tags: trollope  books  exeter