Emma, Love, Desire, Ambivalence

*Emma* Reading Challenge, week four

The longë love that in my thought doth harbour 
And in mine hert doth keep his residence, 
Into my face presseth with bold pretence 
And therein campeth, spreading his banner. 
She that me learneth to love and suffer 
And will that my trust and lustës negligence 
Be rayned by reason, shame, and reverence, 
With his hardiness taketh displeasure. 
Wherewithall unto the hert's forest he fleeth, 
Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry, 
And there him hideth and not appeareth. 
What may I do when my master feareth 
But in the field with him to live and die? 
For good is the life ending faithfully.

This is Sir Thomas Wyatt's translation and reworking of a Petrarchan sonnet. Wyatt was England's first sonneteer and an important supporting actor in Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies, for all of you who are following

Simon Haisell

’s Wolf Crawl. What does this have to do with Emma? Stay with me for a moment.

A portrait of Wyatt by Hans Holbein

Read the first four lines, and you will see that the metaphor for the lover's blush is a banner spread upon his face by a little soldier who lives in his heart. When the beloved responds unfavorably, the tiny man runs away and hides in "the hert's forest." But note that in the closing lines the little soldier is referred to as the lover's "master," to whom he is subject—even though he remains hidden.

There is something odd about this extended metaphor: the "longë love" is not only personified, but is also apparently independent of the lover's will—a being completely other, residing in the self. In other words, erotic love, while a part of the self, is beyond the control of the self—is, in this case anyway, actually in command of the self. The more one contemplates this metaphor, the more apt it seems for erotic love—and especially young love.

But does love always work that way? Is it always an uncontrollable passion? Is it real if it is not? Jane Austen is interested in these questions.

Now, let's turn to Emma. Our heroine has already told us (or at least has told Harriet Smith) that it is improbable that she will ever marry unless she happens to fall in love, which she sees as unlikely. The town of Highbury, to which she is essentially confined, does not, after all, offer a deep courtship pool. The arrival of Frank Churchill, however, she has privately anticipated because "if she were to marry, he was the very person to suit her in age, character and condition" (85).

Now that he has come to town, he has proven to be charming and handsome—agreeable company—and her intimate friends the Westons are more or less openly hoping for the match, which is a powerful bit of persuasion. So, when Frank must leave Highbury suddenly at the command of his offstage monster-aunt, it brings about something of a self-reckoning for Emma.

Frank comes to say his goodbyes, and they have an awkward conversation that seems loaded with hidden significance to both of them:

He hesitated, got up, walked to a window.

"In short," said he, "perhaps, Miss Woodhouse—I think you can hardly be quite without suspicion"—

He looked at her, as if wanting to read her thoughts. (180)

Frank stumbles over a few more words—he who never seems at a loss otherwise. "He was more in love with her than Emma had supposed" (180). Here we have yet another interesting use of free-indirect style. We are not granted access to Frank's consciousness here, only to Emma's, but with Emma's thoughts related by the third-person narrator rather than by Emma herself, they seem to hold more narrative authority in this case—while also possibly conveying irony, depending on how we read the line.

Emma reads this moment, in any case, as the beloved reads the blush in Wyatt's poem—as the awkward unveiling of a hidden love—the little soldier has spread his banner on Frank's face. We are experiencing the sonnet from the other side of the mirror. But once again, this novel has shown us already that Emma's interpretations may not be in accord with the intentions of the man whom she is interpreting.

What is even more striking about this moment, however, is the ambivalence with which Emma interprets her own feelings on the matter:

[. . .] but at present she could not doubt his having a decidedly warm admiration, a conscious preference for herself; and this persuasion, joined to all the rest, made her think that she must be a little in love with him, in spite of every previous determination against it.

"I certainly must," said she. "This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of every thing's being dull and insipid about the house!—I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were not—for a few weeks at least." (181)

Note that her self-diagnosis derives not from her perception of her feelings about Frank, but rather from an analysis of her own behavior: this is how people behave when they are in love in these circumstances; ergo, I must be in love. By the beginning of the next chapter, however, she has decided that she must not be very much in love, because her behavior does not suggest it. Frank, on the other hand, is very far gone indeed:

He is undoubtedly very much in love—everything denotes it—very much in love indeed!—and when he comes again, if his affection continue, I must be on my guard not to encourage it.—It would be most inexcusable to do otherwise, as my own mind is quite made up. (182)

This self-reflection on Emma's part demonstrates that Austen is much more interested in love as a social construction than she is in replicating its literary conventions—no undying, overpowering romance here, but rather a realistic ambivalence. On the other hand, Emma projects these more literary qualities of romance onto Frank.

Austen is asking us to consider some essential questions: what does it even mean to fall love? how do we know how to do it (birds and bees notwithstanding)? is romantic love as much a cultural construction as it is a human emotion?

Roland Barthes would consider these questions more than a century later. If his fragmentary book A Lover's Discourse could be said to make a claim, it might be something like this: we can fall in love because we have a language that allows us to do so; we have social and cultural conventions that create a framework for “love”; otherwise, it would simply be desire. I think that Austen anticipates Barthes in that she is profoundly interested in how we negotiate with the social conventions of "love" in order to satisfy various desires—for money, for status, for sex, for companionship. Mr. Elton's disastrous proposal at the end of volume one has revealed his desire, for example, rather nakedly, as have his hasty retreat to Bath and subsequent engagement.

What does Emma desire? She doesn't seem to know quite yet—hence her ambivalence. She has about a hundred and fifty pages to figure it out.

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This week, as we wrap up Volume Two, I will make the next chapter-by-chapter analysis available to all subscribers, and we will have a lot to discuss—in particular, Highbury's newest arrival, Mrs. Elton. Here is a link to our reading schedule.

Thanks for reading, from my fancy internet typewriter to yours.

Photo by Michael Marais on Unsplash