Estudio de la tecnología
3.2.2. Condensadores en la tecnología S35D4 de AMS
Chapter One
Jane Austen, Yang Jiang and the Feminist Comedy of Manners
Amy D. Dooling discusses Yang Jiang’s comedies in her treatise, Women’s Literary
Feminism in Twentieth-Century China, and regards them as examples of a feminist comedy
of manners, which is a parody of the comedy of manners and was invented by Yang Jiang (Women's 146). The present research agrees with the assertion that Yang’s comedies are feminist comedies of manners, but suggests a more accurate view, namely that the feminist comedy of manners is not a parodied genre of the comedy of manners, but rather that, while the comedy of manners is subversive per se, the former is a more subversive form than the latter. Further, Yang Jiang is not the first one who writes in such a genre, but she learns from another writer, Jane Austen, whose novels are also written in the style of the comedy of manners.
To establish such a connection in this generic context, several issues will be discussed in this chapter. First, the generic qualities of the comedy of manners and the feminist comedy of manners will be discussed, so as to see whether they are subversive genres. Dooling’s discussion signalizes the significance of female laughter and the subversion of gender-based discourse in the feminist comedy of manners. This provides the present discussion with an insight needed to discuss further the generic qualities of the feminist comedy of manners in this context. Second, Austen’s works will then be discussed in the generic context of the feminist comedy of manners, in order to see whether her works belong to this genre. Yang Jiang’s article “You shenme hao? – du xiaoshuo manlun zhi san” 甚麼好？ 說漫論之
[What is there in her? - the comments on reading novels (part three)], in which Yang discusses Pride and Prejudice (1813) and other works by Austen, provides us with a critical
approach with which to understand Yang’s perception of Austen, including her observations on the generic features of Austen’s works in the context of the comedy of manners. This article will therefore be closely examined. The problem that Austen’s works, being novels, do not belong to a literary genre but to a dramatic one will also be dealt with here.
I. The Comedy of Manners
The genre of the comedy of manners originated in the New Comedy of Ancient Greece, the main playwrights being Menander (c.342/41BC-c.290BC), Philemon (c.362BC-c.262BC) and Diphilus (c.360-350BC-?). Their plots deal with the romances of young lovers, accompanied by other stock characters such as the clever servant, aged, uninteresting parents and rich rivals. These plots and their characters were then inherited by the Roman playwrights, Plautus (c.254BC-184BC) and Terence (c.195/185BC-c.159?BC), and used in their comedies, such as Plautus’s Miles Gloriosus and Bacchides,1 and Terence’s Andria.2 Later the genre was developed by various European playwrights, such as Shakespeare (1564- 1615), whose comedy, Much Ado About Nothing (1623), was adapted and performed several times during the Restoration period several times owing its style being very similar to that of
1 Both plays are generally regarded as having been adapted from Menander’s New Comedies. In Miles
Gloriosus Plautus keeps all the names and places in their Greek form, and Bacchides is believed to have been
adapted from Menander’s Dis Exapaton. For the relationship between Plautus and Menander see Stace and Castellani. In addition, Webster and Abrams agree that Plautus followed the style of Menander and made his own contribution to the development of the tradition of the comedy of manners; see Webster 3 and Abrams and Harpham "The Comedy of Manners" 57.
2 It is believed that Terence adapted the style of the New Comedy of Ancient Greece, and his works contributed
to establishing the tradition of the comedy of manners. In the Encyclopedia Britannica Online it is stated that “recent critical opinion seems to accept that, in the main, Terence was faithful to the plots, ethos, and characterization of his Greek originals: thus, his humanity, his individualized characters, and his sensitive approach to relationships and personal problems all may be traced to Menander, and his obsessive attention to detail in the plots of Hecyra and Phormio derives from the Greek models of those plays by Apollodorus of Carystus of the 3rd century BC.” See Arnott. The connection between Terence and Menander is also made by
the comedy of manners. In the Restoration period (1660-1700) the genre attained a more polished and concrete form as Restoration comedy.
As M. H. Abrams maintains, Restoration comedy is much indebted to the French playwright Molière,
[Molière’s comedy] deals with the relations and intrigues of men and women living in a sophisticated upper-class society, and relies for comic effect in large part on the wit and sparkle of the dialogue - often in the form of repartee, a witty conversational give-and-take which constitutes a kind of verbal fencing match - and to a lesser degree, on the violations of social standards and decorum by would-be wits, jealous husbands, conniving rivals, and foppish dandies ("Comedy" 39).
Representative works of Restoration comedy are William Congreve’s (1670-1729) The Way
of the World (1700) and William Wycherley’s (c.1641-1716) The Country Wife (1675). In
response to the middle-class’s criticism that the genre was indecent, Oliver Goldsmith (1728- 1774) and Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) revised the Restoration comedy, excluding sensitive subject matter, the situations and the dialogues which were regarded by the public as immoral and indecent, which frequently appear in the Restoration comedies. After a period of inactivity during the early 19th century another peak occurred with the emergence of dramatists such as Oscar Wilde. Wilde’s works were the most translated and performed of all Western playwrights in China during the May Fourth era4 and were well-received and highly influential during the critical time of the development of modern Chinese drama.
Summarizing the points observed by M. H. Abrams, the genre is characterized by the
3 The play was adapted several times in the Restoration period: The Law Against Lovers staged in 1662 was an
adaptation of two Shakespeare plays, Measure for Measure and Much Ado About Nothing; The Universal
Passion, staged in 1737, was an adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing and a play of Molière’s. Although not
all Shakespearean comedies are regarded as comedies of manners (most of them are tragi-comic romances (see Edwards)) , the view that his plays helped to establish the convention of the comedy of manners is generally accepted: see Webster 3 and Abrams and Harpham "The Comedy of Manners" 57. In addition, in Hirst’s opinion Congreve in a sense adopted the comic style of Shakespeare in his own comedies of manners ; see Hirst 28, 35.
4 The popularity of Wilde is discussed in Weinstein Directing 35. In addition, Weinstein further states that Wilde
and Ibsen were the most influential Western playwrights in the May Fourth period. The salient point concerning Wilde’s works in the context of the present discussion is that they had an influence on the style of certain Chinese playwrights, including Ding Xilin, whose plays are regarded by Li Jianwu as the first milestone in the history of the Chinese comedies of manners prior to the plays of Yang Jiang. A discussion of Wilde’s
relationship with Ding and its connection with Yang’s works will be found in the later part of this chapter as well as in Chapter Three.
following features: 1) its plot concerns the daily life and intrigues of the middle classes; 2) it contains a lot of witty dialogue; and 3) it violates the norms of social decorum. In addition to Abrams’ view, David L. Hirst emphasizes the fact that people’s social manners and their responses to the issues of sex and money are its main concerns (1); T. B. L. Webster
highlights the ordinariness of the lives of the people depicted in these works, in which the characters neither make “very adventurous or fantastic or villainous” attempts nor do they have “very wild or political or anti-social dreams” (4); therefore a subtle expression of emotion is required in this genre: romantic love and conjugal felicity, which are depicted with passion, are the only exceptions to this rule (4).
According to the aforementioned generic qualities of the comedy of manners, a significant literary feature, discussed by Abrams, is the subversive nature of the genre. The comedy of manners has long been recognized as a subversive form of art, since in is earliest manifestation it was associated with the Greek god Dionysus. The qualities of the genre relate to "the principles of festivity, inversion, relative sexual freedom and travesty" (Stott 4). In fact some critics, such as Andrew Stott, regard subversion as the primary feature of comedy. In discussing the characteristics of the genre Stott argues that:
Even though comedy often seems to be suspending, inverting, or abandoning dominant norms, these inversions are produced in relation to the cultural orthodoxies from which they must always begin…. In this way, the comic can be thought of as a means of opening up the possibility of multiple perspectives, as each concept culturally established as orthodox simultaneously presents itself for the possibility of comic subversion (8).
For Meredith, the comedy of manners is extraordinarily subversive among other forms of comedy, which "began similarly as a combative performance, under a licence to deride and outrage the Puritan" (5). Hirst agrees with this, and as he comments in his treatise: “Because social satire is basic to all the plays of this type, the comedy of manners is a particularly subversive dramatic form. The men of fashion in the plays of the late seventeenth century defy the taboos of marriage: their life-style is aggressively promiscuous, hedonistic, yet
ruthlessly cool” (4). The subversion of social decorum exhibited by this genre in this way created a solid base for the rise of the sentimental comedy5 in the eighteenth century, which, with its emphasis on the virtues of mankind, emerged in opposition to the practice of the comedy of manners of depicting indecency and immorality.
Whilst the subversive nature of the comedy of manners is evident, its plot, however, consists of a merry comedy describing the quiet and commonplace life of ordinary people in a very subtle way. This contrast between a lighthearted comedy in the foreground and a subversive current in the background is crucial to any discussion of Austen’s connection with the genre.
II. The Feminist Comedy of Manners
Dooling is the first critic who regards Yang Jiang’s comedies as belonging to the genre of the feminist comedy of manners. She does not provide any clear definition of the genre; however, one will find that the female laughter present in Yang’s comedies is highlighted and thoroughly explored in her discussion. This feature of Yang’s works is interpreted by Dooling as an expression intended to convey Yang’s subversion of the prevailing gender discourse. Dooling’s discussion undoubtedly illustrates the fact that female laughter is a prominent element of the feminist comedy of manners, which is extremely subversive in nature and which renders the feminist comedy of manners a much more subversive form of the genre than the general comedy of manners. Female laughter, in fact, has long been recognized as a subversive action.
5 According to Abrams, sentimental comedy is a dramatic work which prefers to expose the virtues of mankind
rather than its vices. Oliver Goldsmith observes that the characters of sentimental comedy “though they want humour, have abundance of sentiment and feeling.” As a result high moral sentiments abound in these plays, evoking the audience’s tears before the happy ending is presented. For more details please see Abrams and Harpham "Sentimental Comedy".
A. Female Laughter in the Historical Context
The potential of laughter to invert the position of superior and inferior has long been noticed.6 Audrey Bilger observed that the laughter of women, whose position in society had long been subordinate, was seen as a threat to the upper class.7 To maintain the domestic, or, in a larger context, the social order, women were discouraged both from developing their comic sense and from giving vent to their laughter. If we survey the guidebooks on proper conduct in eighteenth-century Britain, it is clear that contemporary writers took the view that wit was not one of the qualities thought to constitute the ideal of femininity; women, in order to be good companions of men, were taught to sigh with compassion more than to laugh (Bilger 21-23). As Bilger argues, such teachings were given to protect masculine interests: "Their depictions of the domestic unhappiness brought about by witty women suggest that all men, not just husbands, are improper targets for humour" (23).
Female laughter was similarly not encouraged in China. Zhu Ziqing’s 朱自清 (1898- 1948) fiction “Xiao de lishi” 笑的歷史 [A History of Laughter] can be read as a realistic account of how in the Chinese cultural context a woman is deprived of the right to laugh. The protagonist of the fiction, who loves to laugh, has been taught to restrain her laughter since she was small, and, after she is married, she is cautioned by her mother-in-law as well as by her husband against laughing, as they feel threatened when she laughs (Zhu). Apparently, it is the subversive spirit embedded within female laughter which alerts people. For this reason laughter is not a prominent element in the traditional Chinese comic aesthetic. In the eyes of the literati, historians and people in power, female laughter possessed a destructive potential which might bring disastrous consequences upon the country. In the historical record of the
6 The subversiveness of laughter has been discussed by a number of critics, for instance, Thomas Hobbes, who
identifies laughter as a “sudden glory”, a superior sentiment, see Hobbes 34; Susanne K. Langer, see Langer 339; Francis Hutcheson, see Tave 61-63; Shaftesbury, see Shaftesbury 36 and Rand 225; Joseph Addison, see Tave 49.
7 A thorough discussion of the teachings in guidebooks on proper conduct discouraging women's humour and
Western Zhou dynasty, King You 周幽王 tried many methods to amuse his queen, Baosi 褒 姒before finally achieving success by lighting warning beacons to deceive his nobles, who, believing that the capital was under attack, hastened to come to save the king. Baosi is described as being impressed and amused by this mischief. King You’s continual lighting of the warning beacons eventually resulted in his losing the trust of the nobles, who did not respond to the warning beacons, even when the capital was under real attack, with the result that it was conquered by the enemy. In this way the subjugation of the Western Zhou was widely attributed to the laughter of Baosi.8 This story reveals the connection between female laughter and its destructive power. In Chinese history this idea recurs again and again in relation to various femmes fatales such as Yang Guifei 楊貴 , the consort of the Tang emperor, Xuanzong 唐玄宗. The poem Changhen ge 長恨歌 [The Song of Everlasting Regret], composed by Bai Juyi 居易 (772-847), gives an account of the love story of Yang and the emperor. There is a famous line which depicts Yang’s beauty and her smile: “Turning her head, she smiled so sweet and full of grace / That she outshone in six palaces the fairest face”.9 Like Baosi, Yang Guifei was blamed for destroying the country: her coquetry is said to have caused the king to neglect his duties, leading disastrously to the national crisis of the An-Shi Rebellion 安史之亂.
In Chinese literature the connection between female laughter and its power to destroy a country or city is a deep-rooted cultural concept, as can be seen in the saying Yixiao
qingcheng 笑傾城, meaning: “A city is destroyed by a smile.” The saying originates as a
line in a poem describing the beauty of a woman written by an Imperial musician, Li Yan’nian 李延 (2nd century BC-87BC) of Han: “A single glance, and she upsets a city; / A
8 For the complete account of the story, see “Zhou dynasty”, Records of the Grand Historian. 9 The verse is translated by Xu Yuanchong. See Y. Xu 8.
second glance, and she upsets the state!” The smile or laughter of the beauty is not described in these lines; however, there is a literary convention of connecting a woman’s smile or laughter with her glance.11 In this light, on the basis of the smile or laughter of the beauty in the poem as implied by her glance, the saying “A city is destroyed by a smile”
Yixiao qicheng arose, stressing the destructive power of female laughter. Another example in
classical Chinese literature, which emphasizes the beauty of a woman by connecting her laughter with a power to move people, can be seen in Song Yu’s 宋玉 (c.298BC-c.222BC) poem Dengtuzi haose fu 徒子好色賦 [A Poem of a Lecher] in which Song dramatises the beauty of a girl in a similar manner: “When she smiles, all the men of Yangcheng and Xiacai12 are bewitched.”
Given the recognition that female laughter is so destructive as to ruin a country, women in ancient China, just as in eighteenth-century Britain, were no doubt discouraged from laughing. That is to say, in both the Chinese and British historical contexts laughter, especially that of women, was inhibited or even prohibited.
B. The Subversiveness of Female Laughter
Regina Barreca asserts: “Any time that a woman breaks through a barrier set by society, she's making a feminist gesture of a sort, and every time a woman laughs, she's breaking through a barrier (182).” Barreca's analysis of women's inclination to laugh at the
10 The verse is translated by Burton Watson. See Ban 247.
11 The famous example is the line from Shuoren, Odes of Wei of Classic of Poetry: “Complement her dimpled
cheeks and make her black eyes glow.” This serves as a relatively complimentary example of female laughter in Chinese literature. In this line the beauty’s smile is in a sense approved. However, there is an interpretation of this approval which means that the bride is being praised for her chastity, i.e. the bride as well as her beauty, including her smile, is being approved in a moral context, and therefore this is not pertinent to be examined in the same context as the female laughter discussed here. This verse was translated by Wang Rongpei. See Chen, Jiang and Wang 101.
12 Yangcheng and Xiacai were cities of Chu State of the Warring States period of ancient China. Song Yu was a
conventions which they are taught to revere supports the idea of women's laughter being dangerous to authority: it reflects an attitude of refusing to take seriously matters that are meant to be serious. In this light female comedy is no doubt a highly subversive genre. Barreca discusses the subversive nature of female comedy:
Such comedy is risky. It is confrontational and boundary-breaking, since you walk away feeling angry