Welcome Dr. Laura Dabundo to Darcyholic Diversions!
(and the Continuing Countdown to the Decatur Book Festival...
26 Days to Go!)
Hi,
Darcyholics! Today, I would like to introduce you to Dr. Laura Dabundo, a professor at Kennesaw State University. She is one of three non-fiction authors who will be participating in the Decatur Book Festival. Her book, The Marriage of Faith: Christianity in Jane Austen and William Woodsworth will be available for sale during the festival and she will be doing a book reading a book signings during the event. I look forward to geting to know her a bit better here, as well as at the book festival over Labor Day weekend.
The
information on Decatur Book Festival was updated last Wednesday evening
this week, so visit the link again and find out all the details as well
as where YOU can stay as we are so excited to have 27--yes TWENTY-SEVEN
Austen Inspired Authors participating with us! Here is the link! It
included information about a large hotel room block you can take
advantage of if you would like to be with us!
And I am Announcing initial plans for a Darcyholic Holiday eBook Festival.
More Information to come, but send me an email at
barbaratillercole@gmail.com if you are an author and would like to
participate!!
If
you have not read all of the posts for
the month of June, there are still seven authors with open drawings.
Check out the archives on the right and read posts from Amy Cecil, William
Deresiewicz and Maria Grace and leave a
comment. (On the other June posts, I will be choosing he winners later today and posting them later this week).
Upcoming Guest Posts Are As Follows:
August 7--Laura Hile
August 10--Abigail Reynolds
August 12--Cynthia Hensley
August 14--Colette Saucier
August 17--Regina Jeffers
August 19--KaraLynne Mackrory
August 21--Sally Smith O'Rourke
August 24--Pamela Aidan
August 26--Lory Lilian
August 28--Jack Caldwell
August 31--Decatur Book Festival Eve!
September 2--Live from the Decatur Book Festival
September 4--Fun Stories from the DBF
September 7--Jack Caldwell's Experiences at the DBF
September 11--Karen Cox's Experiences at the DBF
September 14--Mary Simonsen
September 18--Amber G.
September 18--Amber G.
September 21--Moira B.
November 2--Amy Patterson
November 13--Karen Doornebos
And Many more to come!
&*&*&*&*&*&
Your comments on Laura Dabundo's post will also be entries into the
monthly drawings here at
Darcyholic Diversions. Entries
will be based on
comments on blog posts; but additional chances
will be given for joining this site, tweeting this post, Joining this site as a member via Google Friend Connect (GFC) (See the left hand column on the blog to join!), sharing this on Facebook or your blog, Friend me on Facebook, clicking 'like’ on Barbara Tiller Cole, Author's Facebook page, Join Darcyholic Diversions Facebook Page or following BarbTCole on Twitter.
Faith in the Time of Jane Austen
Jane Austen wrote three prayers which have been published
posthumously. On the surface, they seem to invite us to hear a speaker
seemingly a world away from the beguilingly ironic and wise narrator of the
novels. Yet, I would like to
suggest, maybe the speaker is not
so different after all? 
Consider this prayer:
Give us grace almighty Father, so as to
pray as to deserve to be heard, to address thee with our hearts, as with our
lips. Thou art everywhere present, from thee no secret can be hid. May the knowledge of this, teach us to
fix our thoughts on thee, with reverence and devotion that we pray not in vain.
May we now, and on each return of
night, consider how the past day has been spent by us, what have been our
prevailing thoughts, words and actions during it, and how far we can acquit
ourselves of evil.
Have we thought irreverently of thee,
have we disobeyed thy commandments, have we so neglected any known duty, or
willingly given pain to any human being? Incline us to ask our hearts these
questions oh! God, to save us from deceiving ourselves by pride or vanity.
Give us a thankful sense of the
blessings in which we live, of the many comforts of our lot; that we may not
deserve to lose them by discontent or indifference.
Hear us almighty God, for his sake who
has redeemed us, and taught us, thus to pray.
Amen.
Using the concepts of the prayer, we
can see that the novels parade before us people who are prejudiced and proud
(say, Elizabeth Bennet, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Lady Catherine De Bourgh); who are selfish
and cause pain to others because of that (consider John Willoughby, George Wickham,
Lucy Steele, Mrs. Norris, General Tilney, et al.); who neglect their duties (as
parents, think of Mr. Bennet; as property owners, think of Sir Walter Elliot); who
are vain (Caroline Bingley, Fanny Dashwood, etc.)—my cup runneth over with
instances in Jane Austen’s novels of characters whose behavior would indicate
that they have transgressed God’s commandments! And I have not even mentioned
the explicit violators of the Decalogue, the seventh commandment betrayed by Maria Rushworth and Henry
Crawford. There may not be murder in the novels, but for virtually every other
sin and evil of the human condition Jane Austen’s novels are well represented,
leading up to what is the epitome and acme of them, as her prayer shows in the third and fourth paragraphs,
above, self-deception, discontent, and indifference. Characters delude
themselves; they are dissatisfied with their plights and seek the vanities of
the world to pass the time and entertain themselves and distract them from the
morality of their putative faith.
The form of this prayer—that is, of both
the directives of the devotion,
its instructions, and the act of the suppliant herself, the pray-er, in the act
of praying—calls for self-scrutiny, self-reflection, self-discovery. Austen’s
novels display the actions that culminate in these states of separation from
the divine denoted by the prayer, self-deception, restlessness, tedium, and
boredom, and her prayer here offers a path away from those states through gratitude
and submission to the all-knowing
deity. Being omniscient, God already knows everyone’s human frailties and
failings, so the task for the Christian becomes an imperative to acknowledge personal shortcomings to oneself before the Almighty who
offers salvation.
And in Austen’s novels, those characters
whom I listed above either are directly challenged and in some ways punished
for their waywardness at the ends of their novels or, like Elizabeth and Darcy,
are reformed and rewarded. In other words, the prayer offers a counterplot to
the novels, a subterranean way through faith and practice to a happy ending. It
is a parable of the Gospel experience.
All three prayers of Jane Austen’s
prayers seem to me to be similarly wonderfully rich and suggestive of a
profoundly Christian believer and practitioner, and I think we need barely to
scratch the surface of the novels in order to find that selfsame
pattern.
I shall be at the Decatur Book Festival
to meet you and everyone who loves Jane Austen. If what I have written here is
of interest to you, I bid you to look at my new book, THE MARRIAGE OF FAITH:
CHRISTIANITY IN JANE AUSTEN AND WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, just published by Mercer
University Press, for more on these themes, which will be available for sale at
the JASNA-Atlanta booth. See you then!
Wonderful post, Laura! and much appreciated insights into what I have seen so often overlooked in the sequels and variations of contemporary versions/spinoffs. JA was a woman of faith lived out and obvious to readers of faith. Her expressions of that faith are evident in her writing and viewpoints spoken as noticed even today in completing my reading of Persuasion. The many gratitudes expressed to God and heaven, the expressed need for time to meditate on the change in circumstances by both Anne and Captain Wentworth. These realities add richness and value and are a serious loss when overlooked or ignored by modern writers who have not taken time, interest or care in evaluating the influence of faith in JA's writing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing this truth forward...
I would anticipate reading your JA entry with pleasure!
I've wondered why Jane - a clergyman's daughter - let Willoughby flourish in a wealthy marriage after what he did to a 15-y-o girl, or why she wrote such silly clergymen as Collins and Elton. What is your take on that? Also, of all of JA's heroines, which is the most Christian in behavior and values?
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments. Ah, but do you really think that Willoughby flourishes? At the end, in his interview with Elinor, doesn't he sound remorseful, contrite, grieving for what he has lost, what he traded for? And I agree that Austen wanted clergy to be better than Collins and Elton. I think they stand as negative examples of what she often times observed around her. Human nature@
DeleteJA wrote that he did well enough: "He lived to exert, and frequently to enjoy himself. His wife was not always out of humour, nor his home always uncomfortable; and in his breed of horses and dogs, and in sporting of every kind, he found no inconsiderable degree of domestic felicity." He apparently didn't pay a farthing to support his illegitimate child; even PP's Wickham suffered with an unhappy marriage to Lydia.
ReplyDeleteWhich of all JA's heroines do you think is the most Christian in behavior and values? Persuasion's Anne Elliot seems most forgiving, although MP's Fanny Price is up there.
June, I see your point about Willoughby in the quotation, yet I read it differently. For example, the phrase "His wife was not always out of humour, nor his home always uncomfortable" is another way of saying his wife is occasionally in a good mood and his house is occasionally comfortable. Willoughby finds "domestic felicity" in horses, dogs, and "sporting of every kind" rather than love, companionship, and a happy marriage. When Austen writes that Willoughby "lived to exert" and she goes on to list his supposed blessings, it's as if he is TRYING to make his life seem better than the truth. A half-hearted attempt at finding the silver lining. It's not the justice I would seek for a man that seduces, impregnates, and abandons a 15 year old girl, but I have to wonder if Austen had a soft spot for Willoughby since he did genuinely love and want to marry Mariann Dashwood.
DeleteAhhhh..... I see your point now. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteWell I'm glad it helped :)
DeleteSuch an intriguing post, Laura. I think readers overlook Austen's Christianity because of her satire toward Men of the Cloth. As her father was a clergyman, Austen would've been exposed to a number of self-righteous, hypocritical preachers and expressed her frustrations and amusement through her writing. Having grown up around that atmosphere, I know it's unavoidable and quite aggravating.
ReplyDeleteI've never read her prayers, so thanks for sharing :)
I follow with GFC.
ReplyDeleteI follow on Twitter @asoftheday.
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ReplyDeleteI like your author page on FB.
ReplyDelete