In light of Rhett Smith’s interesting (and true!) thoughts on what novels do for us, I was intrigued to read Francis Watson’s rather critical comments of their form in western literature:
The assumption that ‘love’ (or ‘romantic love’) is the primary basis for marriage is often said to be an innovation of the modern West. It is certainly a central preoccupation of the novel, the literary genre most characteristic of the modern West. The novel holds up a mirror to what is held to be the reality of ‘love and marriage’; it is the image of a representation that arises from the reality and exercises an influence over it, although the reality is never reducible to the representation…
Even in the traditional novel, the link between love and marriage is in fact contingent. Marriage is often an end (the end of the novel), and not a transition to a new beginning. If marriage is the goal of love but not the context of its continuing development, is marriage tacitly presented as the end of love?
Where, at the beginning of the novel, marriage has already occurred, love may well be sought outside marriage; the rendering of a love that both issues in marriage and develops and matures within it is much less usual…The more recent convention that ‘love’ is the precondition not of marriage but of ’sex’ is a natural development of tradition rather than a reaction against it. ’Modern’ and ‘traditional’ novels tend to display an ambivalence towards marriage combined with an unshakable faith in ‘love’ itself…
These novels are familiar with the assumption that marriage is the proper context and home of love, but, in declining to make this assumption narratively plausible, their tendency is to induce scepticism toward it.
Watson’s point could easily be made against Shakespeare as well as the modern novel. But his association with the novel as the predominantly Western form of literature and the rise of romance in the West as the basis for marriage bears more reflection.
Certainly some literature stands out in contrast to Watson’s critique, but not a whole lot is coming to mind right now.
Are there novels that present marriage not only as the culmination of romantic love, but also as its context and home (that is, husbands and wives who are still ‘romantic’)?
Make your suggestions in the comments. I’m interested to hear them.
March 15th, 2010 | 11:08 am
Sigrid Undset
March 15th, 2010 | 3:55 pm
Yes, Undset, in spades. She knows how to present compelling narratives of the challenges to marital love, and she does not do this the easy way, by just introducing infidelity at every turn. (There is infidelity – e.g., Erlend in Kristin Lavransdatter, but that is not the only, or even principal way that the marriages in her great novels undergo compelling challenges.)
I notice, however, that you stack the deck a little bit. Watson says “the proper home and context of love,” while you say “the proper home and context of romantic love.” That might be justifiable, but it comes dangerously close to pre-judging the issue. It seems to me in this context we should be looking for novels that, in their portrayal of marriage, broaden the reader’s understanding of romantic love, rather than just import the Romeo and Juliet dynamic into a stable, long-term relationship!
An example from Undset: Lavrans and Ragnfrid, Kristin’s parents in Kristin Lavransdatter – there is a moving scene between them when he first realizes how far their marriage has fallen short of the romance she desired (not to give too much away, I’m putting this in fairly general terms). The point is not that now he will be able to satisfy that desire – she doesn’t want him to change now – but that they have grown, through their shared sacrifices and fidelity, into different people. It’s undeniably romantic, but it the new thing they are learning about each other is just how much they have transcended the requirements of immature and passion-centered love.
March 15th, 2010 | 4:18 pm
Wallace Stegner’s heartbreakingly good “Crossing to Safety.”
March 15th, 2010 | 6:44 pm
Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford comes to mind. Her short novel (published in Dicken’s Household Words 1851-53) traces the lives of the “Amazons” of a small Victorian town. The novel is highly episodic and, unlike most Victorian novels, does not end with a marriage. In fact the entire novel is an intriguing stylistic and thematic departure from traditional Victorian novels.
March 15th, 2010 | 11:41 pm
But Cranford doesn’t have “husbands and wives who are still ‘romantic’,” does it? It’s about widows and spinsters and various other characters, but it barely touches married couples.
To see a range of realities of love and marriage, see Middlemarch (Dorothea and Casaubon, Lydgate and Rosamond, Fred and Mary, Bulstrode and Harriet, Mr. and Mrs. Garth, etc). See for instance the conclusion of Chapter 74 when Bulstrode’s disgrace is revealed and his wife displays immense courage and love for the man “who had unvaryingly cherished her” for “nearly half a life,” and it seems clear that the other half will also be full of faithfulness and sacrifice (and a mature form of “romantic love”). The least admirable of men has a better marriage than most because his is the proper home of love, one that has grown throughout the years.
March 16th, 2010 | 12:38 am
Anthony Trollope’s Palliser novels come to mind. The marriage of Lady Glencora and Plantagenet Palliser develops through the novels, and I think we get a sense of how these two quite different people, who have married out of familial duty rather than romantic love, find something deep and rich in their mutual fidelity. In fact, the novels often contrast romantic “love” (often infatuation) with love-in-marriage, the latter being more enduring and meaningful.
March 17th, 2010 | 12:24 pm
I’d have to agree on Middlemarch. It’s an (often intense) exploration of marriage and romantic love and the ways in which those collide and separate. Cranford doesn’t explore the complexities of marriage as a social convention in the way that Middlemarch does, but I find it an interesting corollary in its exploration of non-romantic relationships and love outside the overbearing Victorian emphasis on marriage.
March 18th, 2010 | 12:49 pm
I adore the BBC production of Cranford, too.
Could we have an online book club at First Things? I’ve had Kristin Lavransdatter on my dresser for some time and would love to crack it (or other books) with good company.
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