4 ms·

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a robot suit to ride around and fight things with."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a robot suit to ride around and fight things with." I was visiting Jane Austen's House Museum last year and it always gives me pleasure to see how wildly popular her work remains. There always seem to be tourists there visiting from all over the world. That is really heartening. She was very innovative. Maybe even underrated as a craftsperson at the sentence level. My favourite trick that I believe she invented is slipping from prose into a soft Iambic pentameter, essentially unnoticed. Lots of people have copied that from her. And class-pressure narratives will never not be relevant to people's lives. She's a very very humane storyteller in that respect. I am slightly biased - she's my great aunt (x 6). Used to find that embarrassing but now I feel quite proud.

mrsvanwinkle 10mo ago
laughed and was warmed by the end reveal. i support gushing over literature in HN
pfdietz 10mo ago
Go ahead, be proud! Be Austen-tatious!
vintagedave 10mo ago
Do you have an example of her writing moving into iambic pentameter in prose, please? I googled for examples from her books but — search results are terrible.
- gabriel666smith 10mo ago
  Of course! This is my favourite example, from Sense and Sensibility, because it announces itself with "burst", and that's the novel where she deploys it most: "Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease." She 'tends towards Iambic' in literary criticism terminology. So it's not a strict Iambic, more like a 'soft Iambic' which is a term I can't remember if it's actually used in lit crit, or if I made it up. You need to drop the "at" syllable, in that example (which you would do in vocal rhythms of English, then and now), for it to be a true Iambic. There's lots of good writing on the King James Bible "tending towards" Iambic, which should be more Google-able, and her father was a preacher, so that's a likely influence there, I would speculate. Some others I like that I remember: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." - Persuasion (I think?). "Till this moment I never knew myself." - Sense and Sensibility again? I can't remember off the dome. That's a gorgeous strict Iambic. There are much longer examples - whole paragraphs that close chapters of Sense and Sensibility specifically. I'll try and find the version I have notations on when I'm next around my books. She regularly slips into it to close moments of emotional crescendo - "Cursus" being the Latin term for an analogous technique, when it was more frequently used in a more stylised manner.
  - constantius 10mo ago
    One of those comments that let you glimpse the depth behind things and the joys that lie in exploring those depths. Thanks for taking the time. I will spend tomorrow evening reading.
    - gabriel666smith 10mo ago
      What a nice thing to say, thank you. A pleasure to be even a vague signpost toward work that's so rewarding. Enjoy your evening(s)!
  - FreakLegion 10mo ago
    > "Till this moment I never knew myself." - Sense and Sensibility again? I can't remember off the dome. That's a gorgeous strict Iambic. "Till this moment I" and "I never knew myself" would be trochaic and iambic, respectively, but they don't strictly scan when you overlay the 'I's. You can of course get them to by e.g. eliding 'moment', or adding a line break and taking '-ment' as a feminine ending, or just scanning according to the writer's idiosyncrasies. And individual writers can be very idiosyncratic here. Shakespeare, for example, if I remember right, lets monosyllabic words occur in almost any position. Disyllabic words on the other hand can have any combination of stresses (iamb, trochee, spondee, or pyrrhic), but only if they're foot-aligned. And so on. The field has probably evolved since I was last part of it, but I'll still recommend Kristin Hanson's work in this area: https://linguistica.sns.it/RdL/9.1/Hanson.pdf https://linguistica.sns.it/RdL/9.1/Hanson.pdf. (Actually the second time I've recommended Hanson on HN. The last time was, let's see, 6 years ago!)
    - gabriel666smith 10mo ago
      +1! Hanson is one of the gold-standards on this. It is idiosyncratic, you're right - to the speaker / reader as much as the writer (is my contention with their work). Personally, I do take 'ment' as a feminine ending there, or - more specifically - the T sound runs into the I sound when I read it, the way it would in the predominantly Italian stuff she's likely referencing. I'm very much with Gordon Lish on Shakespeare's monosyllabic drift words - that he was educated in Latin, and integrating Germanic vocabulary into that structure relatively freely, and further analysis is almost impossibly complex. That said, there's a lot of moments in those where I'd kill to hear where the stress landed when first performed. This specific area is really one of those "What if?" moments in literary criticism, I think - I believe it would be incredibly beneficial for the form if this was the dominant focus of critique, rather than thematic stuff. On the rare occasions I teach at universities, this is all completely new to students, which sucks - it's entirely possible to approach prose theory with the same rigour as music theory, and it seems (in the UK, at least) to be very quickly becoming a lost art!
ifh-hn 10mo ago
I'm not well read, and don't think I'd be able to finish any of the classics. As such I have no clue what "slipping from prose into a soft Iambic pentameter" means. I came here for the robots.
- baruz 10mo ago
  Not with that attitude you won’t! But dip your toe in, _Pride and prejudice_ is pretty light and breezy while having some depth to it.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - ifh-hn 10mo ago
    I don't know. All I remember from school is absolutely hating being forced to read, and understand/interpret, thing like shakespeare and Jane Austin. But then again I now like a lot of the vegetables I used to hate as a kid... My daughter loves the classics, me, science fiction and fantasy.
    - Tarsul 10mo ago
      Just read Treasure Island. It's a classic but one that is easy to comprehend and also timeless.
    - baruz 10mo ago
      _Pride and prejudice_ hits for me similar notes as those for fantasy and historical fiction, though of course it is commenting on contemporary issues with no magic (except the magic of love), alas. It’s like entering a foreign society where you may have to infer why people are acting the way they do. Now that you’re not in school, no one is forcing you to write essays on what you read, or even to understand or interpret what is going on in the narrative! Cool, huh?
- altairprime 10mo ago
  You know how in Disney movies they shift smoothly from talking to singing? It’s just like that, only instead of the bass beat to the character’s song starting to play, her ‘prose’ (think ‘non-poetry words’, aka what most people consider books to be full of) shifts smoothly into Shakespeare-like syllable emphasis patterns. Listen for the percussion notes starting about ten seconds into https://youtu.be/79DijItQXMM https://youtu.be/79DijItQXMM and imagine that instead of him bursting into musical song, he burst into chanting a limerick: There once was a demi-god, Maui / Amazing and awesome: I’m Maui // Who stole you your fire / and made your days lighter // Yes, thank you, you’re welcome! Love: Maui It’s a bit odd of an analogy, but limericks and “Iambic pentameter” are specific instances of an underlying language architectural thing, so it should be just enough to convey the basics of that “prose to Iambic” sentence. And: if you’ve ever watched “Much Ado About Nothing” from the mid-90s, that’s 100% Iambic. (If you’re an English major, yes, I know, this is all wrong; it’s just a one-off popsicle-sticks context-unique mindset-conveyance analogy-bridge, not step-by-step directions to lit/ling coordinates in your field.)
neilv 10mo ago
I upvoted for the perfect first line for this HN post. That you're related, makes sense.
viraptor 10mo ago
> to see how wildly popular her work remains There's an annual Jane Austen festival there too - it really brings people from all over the world. Very fun event even if you're just +1 to someone who's into it.
WalterBright 10mo ago
I recall this from one of Donald Westlake's books: "He stopped on a dime and collected 5 cents change."
- hodgesrm 10mo ago
  That sounds like a line Raymond Chandler would have used. His turn of phrase is also delightful.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
scandox 10mo ago
She made free indirect speech [1] the cornerstone of the English language novel. She is recognized as a titanic figure. I don't know who would underrate her! What I find strange is that people enjoy her books as romantic comedies because the world she represents is incredibly claustrophobic. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_indirect_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_indirect_speech Edited for clarification
hodgesrm 10mo ago
> I was visiting Jane Austen's House Museum last year and it always gives me pleasure to see how wildly popular her work remains. I have believed for a long time that Austen is broadly popular because her works deal with issues of human relations and economic prosperity at the heart of modern, bourgeois existence. The draw is summed up in this excellent quote from the article: > They also both, mostly, focus on characters who have enough privilege to have choices, but not enough power to escape circumstances. That's a perceptive description of middle class life. The movie "Clueless" is an illustration of how easily Austen's insights translate to a society that is superficially very different from hers. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clueless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clueless
- PapstJL4U 10mo ago
  She is although simply a joy to read. Witty remarks and well written. "Elinor agreed with it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition". - from S&S Who wasn't in a situtation where they felt arguing would do nothing? John Green asked: "Who doesn't want a friend as witty as Jane Austin to comment on life?
  - hodgesrm 10mo ago
    Austen's command of language and empathy for her characters is second to none. I love the hook at the end of this passage from Pride and Prejudice. ``And of this place,'' thought she, ``I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt. -- But no,'' -- recollecting herself, -- ``that could never be: my uncle and aunt would have been lost to me: I should not have been allowed to invite them.'' This was a lucky recollection -- it saved her from something like regret. https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/ppv3n43.html https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/ppv3n43.html

mrsvanwinkle 10mo ago

laughed and was warmed by the end reveal. i support gushing over literature in HN

pfdietz 10mo ago

Go ahead, be proud! Be Austen-tatious!

vintagedave 10mo ago

Do you have an example of her writing moving into iambic pentameter in prose, please? I googled for examples from her books but — search results are terrible.

gabriel666smith 10mo ago
Of course! This is my favourite example, from Sense and Sensibility, because it announces itself with "burst", and that's the novel where she deploys it most: "Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease." She 'tends towards Iambic' in literary criticism terminology. So it's not a strict Iambic, more like a 'soft Iambic' which is a term I can't remember if it's actually used in lit crit, or if I made it up. You need to drop the "at" syllable, in that example (which you would do in vocal rhythms of English, then and now), for it to be a true Iambic. There's lots of good writing on the King James Bible "tending towards" Iambic, which should be more Google-able, and her father was a preacher, so that's a likely influence there, I would speculate. Some others I like that I remember: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." - Persuasion (I think?). "Till this moment I never knew myself." - Sense and Sensibility again? I can't remember off the dome. That's a gorgeous strict Iambic. There are much longer examples - whole paragraphs that close chapters of Sense and Sensibility specifically. I'll try and find the version I have notations on when I'm next around my books. She regularly slips into it to close moments of emotional crescendo - "Cursus" being the Latin term for an analogous technique, when it was more frequently used in a more stylised manner.
- constantius 10mo ago
  One of those comments that let you glimpse the depth behind things and the joys that lie in exploring those depths. Thanks for taking the time. I will spend tomorrow evening reading.
  - gabriel666smith 10mo ago
    What a nice thing to say, thank you. A pleasure to be even a vague signpost toward work that's so rewarding. Enjoy your evening(s)!
- FreakLegion 10mo ago
  > "Till this moment I never knew myself." - Sense and Sensibility again? I can't remember off the dome. That's a gorgeous strict Iambic. "Till this moment I" and "I never knew myself" would be trochaic and iambic, respectively, but they don't strictly scan when you overlay the 'I's. You can of course get them to by e.g. eliding 'moment', or adding a line break and taking '-ment' as a feminine ending, or just scanning according to the writer's idiosyncrasies. And individual writers can be very idiosyncratic here. Shakespeare, for example, if I remember right, lets monosyllabic words occur in almost any position. Disyllabic words on the other hand can have any combination of stresses (iamb, trochee, spondee, or pyrrhic), but only if they're foot-aligned. And so on. The field has probably evolved since I was last part of it, but I'll still recommend Kristin Hanson's work in this area: https://linguistica.sns.it/RdL/9.1/Hanson.pdf https://linguistica.sns.it/RdL/9.1/Hanson.pdf. (Actually the second time I've recommended Hanson on HN. The last time was, let's see, 6 years ago!)
  - gabriel666smith 10mo ago
    +1! Hanson is one of the gold-standards on this. It is idiosyncratic, you're right - to the speaker / reader as much as the writer (is my contention with their work). Personally, I do take 'ment' as a feminine ending there, or - more specifically - the T sound runs into the I sound when I read it, the way it would in the predominantly Italian stuff she's likely referencing. I'm very much with Gordon Lish on Shakespeare's monosyllabic drift words - that he was educated in Latin, and integrating Germanic vocabulary into that structure relatively freely, and further analysis is almost impossibly complex. That said, there's a lot of moments in those where I'd kill to hear where the stress landed when first performed. This specific area is really one of those "What if?" moments in literary criticism, I think - I believe it would be incredibly beneficial for the form if this was the dominant focus of critique, rather than thematic stuff. On the rare occasions I teach at universities, this is all completely new to students, which sucks - it's entirely possible to approach prose theory with the same rigour as music theory, and it seems (in the UK, at least) to be very quickly becoming a lost art!

ifh-hn 10mo ago

I'm not well read, and don't think I'd be able to finish any of the classics. As such I have no clue what "slipping from prose into a soft Iambic pentameter" means. I came here for the robots.

baruz 10mo ago
Not with that attitude you won’t! But dip your toe in, _Pride and prejudice_ is pretty light and breezy while having some depth to it.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- ifh-hn 10mo ago
  I don't know. All I remember from school is absolutely hating being forced to read, and understand/interpret, thing like shakespeare and Jane Austin. But then again I now like a lot of the vegetables I used to hate as a kid... My daughter loves the classics, me, science fiction and fantasy.
  - Tarsul 10mo ago
    Just read Treasure Island. It's a classic but one that is easy to comprehend and also timeless.
  - baruz 10mo ago
    _Pride and prejudice_ hits for me similar notes as those for fantasy and historical fiction, though of course it is commenting on contemporary issues with no magic (except the magic of love), alas. It’s like entering a foreign society where you may have to infer why people are acting the way they do. Now that you’re not in school, no one is forcing you to write essays on what you read, or even to understand or interpret what is going on in the narrative! Cool, huh?
altairprime 10mo ago
You know how in Disney movies they shift smoothly from talking to singing? It’s just like that, only instead of the bass beat to the character’s song starting to play, her ‘prose’ (think ‘non-poetry words’, aka what most people consider books to be full of) shifts smoothly into Shakespeare-like syllable emphasis patterns. Listen for the percussion notes starting about ten seconds into https://youtu.be/79DijItQXMM https://youtu.be/79DijItQXMM and imagine that instead of him bursting into musical song, he burst into chanting a limerick: There once was a demi-god, Maui / Amazing and awesome: I’m Maui // Who stole you your fire / and made your days lighter // Yes, thank you, you’re welcome! Love: Maui It’s a bit odd of an analogy, but limericks and “Iambic pentameter” are specific instances of an underlying language architectural thing, so it should be just enough to convey the basics of that “prose to Iambic” sentence. And: if you’ve ever watched “Much Ado About Nothing” from the mid-90s, that’s 100% Iambic. (If you’re an English major, yes, I know, this is all wrong; it’s just a one-off popsicle-sticks context-unique mindset-conveyance analogy-bridge, not step-by-step directions to lit/ling coordinates in your field.)

neilv 10mo ago

I upvoted for the perfect first line for this HN post. That you're related, makes sense.

viraptor 10mo ago

> to see how wildly popular her work remains There's an annual Jane Austen festival there too - it really brings people from all over the world. Very fun event even if you're just +1 to someone who's into it.

WalterBright 10mo ago

I recall this from one of Donald Westlake's books: "He stopped on a dime and collected 5 cents change."

hodgesrm 10mo ago
That sounds like a line Raymond Chandler would have used. His turn of phrase is also delightful.

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

scandox 10mo ago

She made free indirect speech [1] the cornerstone of the English language novel. She is recognized as a titanic figure. I don't know who would underrate her! What I find strange is that people enjoy her books as romantic comedies because the world she represents is incredibly claustrophobic. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_indirect_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_indirect_speech Edited for clarification

hodgesrm 10mo ago

> I was visiting Jane Austen's House Museum last year and it always gives me pleasure to see how wildly popular her work remains. I have believed for a long time that Austen is broadly popular because her works deal with issues of human relations and economic prosperity at the heart of modern, bourgeois existence. The draw is summed up in this excellent quote from the article: > They also both, mostly, focus on characters who have enough privilege to have choices, but not enough power to escape circumstances. That's a perceptive description of middle class life. The movie "Clueless" is an illustration of how easily Austen's insights translate to a society that is superficially very different from hers. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clueless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clueless

PapstJL4U 10mo ago
She is although simply a joy to read. Witty remarks and well written. "Elinor agreed with it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition". - from S&S Who wasn't in a situtation where they felt arguing would do nothing? John Green asked: "Who doesn't want a friend as witty as Jane Austin to comment on life?
- hodgesrm 10mo ago
  Austen's command of language and empathy for her characters is second to none. I love the hook at the end of this passage from Pride and Prejudice. ``And of this place,'' thought she, ``I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt. -- But no,'' -- recollecting herself, -- ``that could never be: my uncle and aunt would have been lost to me: I should not have been allowed to invite them.'' This was a lucky recollection -- it saved her from something like regret. https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/ppv3n43.html https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/ppv3n43.html