Thackeray’s Cultural Frame of Reference: Allusion in The Newcomes

203 Pages·1991·19.82 MB·English

by  R. D. McMaster (auth.)

THACKERAY'S CULTURAL FRAME OF REFERENCE
Also by R.D. McMaster
THE NOVEL FROM STERNE TO JAMES (with Juliet McMaster)
TROLLOPE AND THE LAW
GREAT EXPECTATIONS (editor)
LITTLE DORRIT (editor)
Thackeray's Cultural
Fratne of Reference
Allusion in The Newcomes
R.D. McMaster
Professor, University of Alberta
M
MACMILLAN
© R.D. McMaster 1991
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1991
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First published 1991
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
McMaster, R. D. (Rowland D.) 1928-
Thackeray's cultural frame of reference: allusion in The
Newcomes
1. Fiction in English. Thackeray, W. M. (William
Makepeace) 1811-1863
I. Title
823.8
ISBN 978-1-349-12027-7 ISBN 978-1-349-12025-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-12025-3
To Lindsey, Loren, Geoffrey and Rawdon
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Texts ofThackeray Used X
1 The Richest of Victorian Fictions 1
2 Literary Allusion in The Newcomes 8
English Poetry-Keats, Tennyson, Shakespeare 13
Horace and the Classics 25
The Bible 43
Novels 52
Theatre, Ballet, Songs 64
Childhood Reading and Lore 78
3 The Art World 87
4 History and India 106
5 France of the Citizen King 120
6 London and the Significance of Topography 134
7 Newspapers 159
8 Names 165
Notes 172
Index 185
vii
Acknowledgements
The following study was written with the assistance of study-leave
from the University of Alberta and a travel grant from the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The work in
part grows out of annotations for The Newcomes I made for the
Garland edition of Thackeray in Annotations for the Selected Works of
William Makepeace Thackeray, edited by Edgar F. Harden, 2 vols
(New York and London: Garland, 1990). I would like to acknow-
ledge Professor Harden's constant helpfulness over a long period.
Some comments on Fra Diavolo and The Newcomes appeared first in
'A Newcomes Query and an Answer', Thackeray Newsletter, 18
(November 1983) 1-2. My thanks to Peter Shillingsburg for
permission to quote them.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Juliet, a seasoned
Thackerayan, for her encouragement and advice in many a con-
sultation.
R. D. McMASTER
ix
Texts of Thackeray Used
For Thackeray's works I have used the Oxford Thackeray, edited
by George Saintsbury (London: Oxford University Press, 1908) 17
vols. Parenthetical page references in my text are to this edition. In
my notes, the abbreviation, Letters, refers to The Letters and Private
Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, edited by Gordon N. Ray
(London: Oxford University Press, 1945--6) 4 vols.
1
The Richest of Victorian
Fictions
Gordon N. Ray describes Thackeray's The Newcomes as 'in some
respects the richest, not only of Thackeray's books but of all
Victorian fictions'. And he suggests that, in comparison with that
of The Newcomes, the 'saturation' Henry James saw as a characteris-
tic note of the Edwardian novel seems slight. 1 An essential feature
of the richness, the 'saturation', of The Newcomes is its range and
density of allusion. Few other novelists in English - one thinks,
perhaps, of Sterne and Joyce - are as allusive as Thackeray.
Allusions crowd his text: allusions to literature and history -
ancient and modern, major and minor- to mythology, fairy-tale,
music and opera, popular songs, nursery rhymes, painting, sculp-
ture, architecture, cities and places at home and abroad, spas,
museums, restaurants, politics, imperial affairs, politicians, dan-
cers, singers, pugilists-the list goes on. It is difficult to believe that
the casual reader picks up much of this range of allusion now.
Thackeray's contemporaries would have recognised much more of
the topical and popular cultural reference than we do, but even then it
would have been aratherwell-educated, broadly-interested and alert
reader who responded to anything like the whole skein of allusion.
To sort out and consider some of its strands is to lay bare the peculiar
conditioning and status of Thackeray's text, to speculate on the
cultural and affective relationship the text bore to its readership, and
to discern something like a map of Thackeray's consciousness.
The full enjoyment of Thackeray's work places considerable
demands on his readers. First, for comprehension, we must pick
up a very wide range of cultural reference, arcane and familiar,
high and low brow. He gives us not only a very elaborate society
with complex codes and functions but its connections with large
stretches of western culture, its literary and artistic traditions, its
history and artifacts. This frame of reference enters the text in a
thoroughly easy manner, neither donnish nor portentous. Secondly,
moving from sentence to sentence, we must be prepared not for
1