Debates I'd like to happen, and other things

[selenak]

Right. It’s summer, it’s too hot, the politicians are drearier (or more infuriating) than ever everywhere in the world, and TV tends to be a bore. Here are two of the debates I’d really love to see and listen to.

Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte: despite the Victorian hagiography which made them into long-suffering saints, both ladies, if one reads their letters, give the impression of not suffering fools gladly. Against the clichés, Charlotte could be witty, and Jane could be passionate. Making it through life as a female writer and a single female should provide conversational topics, plus Charlotte couldn’t stand Jane’s novels, which adds spice.

Aphra Behn and Dr. Samuel Johnson: Aphra is widely acknowledged to have been the first woman to earn her living with her pen. A novelist, playwright and poet, with a fondness for witty erotic verse (scandalous for a woman, which caused her postumous reputation to decline till Virginia Woolf rediscovered her), and an exciting life which included a short (and not too successful) career as a spy, trips overseas and a time in prison for her debts. Dr. Johnson being famous today more for his conversation than his own writings, and with firm (sexist) opinions on the role of women in life, but able to be charmed nonetheless, the debate should be lively indeed. They could find common ground on the theme “needing patronage early in your career is a bitch”, though.

Any other ideas? One dream meeting might actually happen. We just have to convince rozk that it is her mission in life to bring Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman in the same room together.

Speaking of Neil Gaiman, there is a great new interview with him here.


Also, a delightful Sandman fanfic in which Desire meets Hermes, here.

In matters of debate: honorh has just written a great treatise on the cardinal sin one can commit when writing fanfic.

And lastly, by now all `Scapers probably already know this, courtesy of kernezelda, but there finally is a John/Scorpius vid out there! And a fantastic one it is. After you downloaded it here, hop over to hmpf slj and pay homage to the creative consultant of this beauty.

Comments

[kernezelda]

Bronte vs Austen? I don't know anything about them biographically, but if they were as clever in speech as in the written word, that would have been a memorable event.

I didn't notice Hmpf attached to vid -went right over and commented.

They were.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Charlotte was a bit shy with strangers at first, but if someone infuriated her, she could rise to glorious heights of clever verbal onslaught. Case in point: Thackeray, who was her idol until she actually met him and he mortally embarrassed her at a party by introducing her as Jane Eyre. What came next served him right.

Re: They were.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

What came next?

Bronte vs Thackeray

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind that my English-language Bronte biography by Juliet Barker is lent to someone else at the moment, and I have to (re-)translate from a German one, by Elsemarie Maletzke. So Charlotte's original phrasing probably was better than my translation of a translation.
CB: Sir, if you had come to Yorkshire and I had presented you as Mr. Warrington to my father in front of strangers, how would you have felt?
WMT: You mean Arthur Pendennis-
CB: No, I don't mean Arthur Pendennis, I mean Mr. Warrington, and Mr. Warrington would never have behaved as you did, Sir!

Explanatory footnote: Arthur Pendennis was a snob whom Thackeray had indeed somewhat modelled on himself, Warrington was his noble friend.