I begin with one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite films (which was also my favorite play prior to reading anything by Harold Pinter - but I digress): In My Fair Lady, Colonel Pickering asks Alfred Doolittle, "Have you no morals, man?!" and Alfred replies, "Nah, gov'ner. Can't afford 'em."
The scene from Pygmallion is the first thing that entered my brain while reading "Scott, Hogg, and the Gift-Book Editors." And it is precisely that scene which encompasses, I think, the intersection of idealism and capital that so affected Scott, Hogg, and other authors.
Although I admit that I do not have much to say about Keepsake books, my ears and eyes are tuned to the conversation about the evolution of copyright and I am always excited to read accounts of the persona of popular/notable authors in history. Coincidentally, but appropriately enough, my students debated author ethos this morning. A few students noted that, when it comes to ethos, they are never concerned about "who" is writing a fictional text and that they only find it necessary to know ethos for someone who is making a clear (in this case written) argument. Whether or not we think this is a "correct" approach to authorship, it made me think (and still does) about how perspectives change when we do know something about a person's ideologies/character regardless of whether or not we went searching for that information.
This makes me think of Scott and Hogg and their resistance to the Keepsake and increasingly consumable/"generic literary production." Hill ultimately describes the "author in the face of industrial production" as having a compromised status - but as we know from the accounts of both Scott and Hogg, this is based on their perceptions of themselves (as in the case of Wordsworth, too) and not necessarily the perceptions of those enjoying the literature (be it an illustrated Keepsake or not). And so, in the spirit of raw undergraduate freshmen critique of ethos, should we as readers even care what opinion the authors have of themselves? Amidst the larger issue of copyright, intellectual property, and "divine inspiration," this may be a basic query glossed over. Yes, economics and consumption matters - as the audience dictated the demand for Keepsake novels, but I wonder to what degree the readership knew about such severe distaste from the authors themselves and what impact that might have had.*
*Disclaimer: If this was covered in either essay and I just missed it/forgot it, please feel free to point it out to me! :)
About Me
- Amy Danger
- Sterling Heights, Michigan, United States
- PhD in Rhetoric and Composition + Senior Lecturer in Composition at Wayne State University with a passion for education, health, and fitness (mental and physical). I teach writing, research composition, and blog about anything from teaching fitness, owning a small business, physical and mental health, to perspectives on body acceptance and body positivity.
I don't recall that the article mentions whether the reading public was aware of the authors' dislike of the idea of a literary medium heavily influenced by the masses, but if they were aware I would be interested to know how that would have affected the public's patronage of the gift book. For instance, would they have purchased the books to spite the author or would many have refrained from doing so precisely because a number of authors who held this dislike would have also been contributors to the genre? I think the gift book genre made up about five percent of the literary market. Maybe that percentage would have been larger or smaller depending on how cognizant the public was of anti-reading public sentiments?
ReplyDelete