Hello Victorianists,
For Thursday we are returning to the works of Amy Levy,
whose “Magdalen” we briefly looked at when discussing dramatic monologues
written from the perspective of the powerless.
We are now delving into some of her journal articles, one of
her short stories, and some selections from her last poetry collection, A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse. One of the dominant theme of Levy’s works
across all these genres is the nature outsider identity or rather, what it is
like to be both within and outside of a dominant culture. On the one hand, Levy grew up in a well-off,
middle-class family of acculturated Jews.
She was well educated; in fact she was the first Jewish student at both
her preparatory school and at her college at Cambridge, and the first female
Jewish student to attend Cambridge as a whole. As a young adult she lived in London and
enjoyed the independence that the urban world provided to “New Women.”
On the other hand, these privileges were precarious and
partial. The law that made it possible
for Jews and Catholics to attend universities, for example, was passed in 1871,
and though women were permitted to take classes it would be several more years
before they were allowed to take degrees.
As is visible throughout her writing, the academic, religious, social,
and political worlds she inhabited were still deeply biased toward Christian
men. As a Jewish woman who was attracted
to other women, Levy found herself an outsider to hegemonic British culture in
profound and complex ways.
Choose a passage from one of the texts and examine how Levy
depicts minority identity. You might
consider, for example, how Levy depicts the eponymous Cohen, considering her
frustrations with traditional representations of Jewish characters outlined in
“The Jew in Fiction.” Or you might
consider the less clearly defined identity of the speaker in her poems,
considering how life in London enables or constrains this figure.
Enjoy a photo of Levy as well as one of the many cartoons mocking the New Woman, a figure of female independence at the turn of the century.
Happy reading,
Prof. M.
 |
| George Du Maurier cartoon for Punch, 1894. |
Jewish! Woman! Jewish Woman! Jewish Woman Poet!
ReplyDeleteWhat sort of worm hole did we fall through?
One of the best lines in her letters: "Because it is a grand and beautiful thing that a woman should spend her life in self-sacrifice, we have no right to compel all women to do so." With a witty blend of intelligent snark, sarcasm, and unapologetic honesty, Levy strikes back at "ש," who, by using just his one initial makes himself into an amorphous, catch-all for an ideology. While representing a Social Norm cloaked in anonymity may at first seem like a strong position, Levy's presentation of herself as "Amy Levy, Brighton" - prefaced with the salutation, again cheeky of, "Yours obediently" - is actually far more powerful. She refuses to display fear, she does not back down. It's the difference between the cartoon character who needs a cape, mask, the works, and the badass boxer who goes into ring swinging, as she is, with quite the impressive mental package to back her up. He throws the supposed paucity of female artists in her face, and Levy responds by quoting the one poetess he conceded to being a success, EBB who herself attacks the very position he proposed. Levy is angry and brilliant; not a bad combination. (Also, what is that man thinking, insulting George Eliot, the Brontes, and Christina Rossetti in one stupidly conceived sentence on page 173. Sheesh.)
However, Levy's proposal seems to be that "the Jewish character" she desires to see portrayed in literature, must necessarily be of a decidedly Enlightenment Jewish quality. She is rightfully identifying a crisis of subpar, antisemitic, trope-filled Jews filling novels, but her solution is simply replacing one stock character with another. What is the "Jewish character," exactly? I know lots of Jews and, shocker, the Characters of all vary. What What Levy is looking for specifically, in literature and in Jewish society, is a departure from everything related to the Eastern Jew. In the third letter, she speaks of an "almost Eastern jealousy" that she claims is pervasive in Jewish culture. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Well, I know what it's supposed to mean, I'm just being petulant. "Eastern" is a euphemism for orthodoxy, for shtetls, for Rabbis in beards, for learning Torah, for a traditional mode of life. Levy openly attacks tradition in her derogatory use of the word "Conservative" for its regular denotative meaning. However, one cannot forget that the same word was beginning then to refer to that particular sect of Jews who argued exactly Levy's point: that many of "our ancient fortifications [have] long grown obsolete." And here, I cannot get on board the Levy train. It is a true that the general population of Jewish women, like all women, have had to come through a process of gaining more accessibility to learning, etc; and at a time when there was still quite a bit to do in the way of establishing proper education for girls, promoting female interests in the Jewish mainstream and all that, it seemed that religious observance was the thing to kill. But, I believe that the lives of the people in this course attest to the fact that Levy was wrong. We are not by any means of a single "Jewish character;" we also each live with our traditional Judaism, in all its creative iterations, in personal, constant ways. And, not in contradiction with these facts, we are sitting in class studying literature, talking about whatever it is we talk about... Levy takes issue with the way Jews socialize -- that men and women didn't and don't in orthodox circles -- but, why, exactly? I'm not going to descend here into that whole conversation of separate education and socialization, but, suffice it to say, Levy's describing only the formulation of it in which there are negative results. It is incredibly presumptive to claim that a social system must be the way Levy sees it to be healthily constructed.
Just as an aside, I have to say that, much like Levy herself, I have yet to find a Jewish character in fiction who feels true to life and is untainted by stereotypes. Sadly, her Cohen is included in that opinion. The physical description, of the protruding lips and eyes and the beaked nose, clearly follows stereotype. The unpleasant description of his family life and his vulgar personality seemed to conform to anti-Semitic tropes as well. I was surprised and rather upset to get this kind of character sketch from a Jewish author, especially one who argued for a correct and nuanced view of Jewish life.
ReplyDeleteThat said, Levy is excellent at expressing the nuanced dilemma of the Jewish outsider (though perhaps it’s universal to all outsiders) in Cohen. The outsider has a lot to give, and is repressed by the society around him, forcing all that energy to express itself in weird ways. Cohen is described as having an overabundance of energy and no proper outlet. He is also simultaneously contemptuous of and incapable of achieving his host society’s expectations. And he is desperate to express himself. When he does manage to write a book and finally gain fame, its notable how his book is described. It is “wholly unclassifiable, with a force, a fire, a vision, a vigour and felicity of phrase that carries you through its most glaring inequalities, its most appalling lapses of taste.” In essence, the book is much like himself – neither here nor there in society, and yet full of energy and vision – resulting in an odd mix of beauty and “lack of taste.” And ironically, despite the fact that he yearns so much to be understood and listened too, once society does listen, he’s unsure where to go from there. “I suppose now, ‘they’ do know, more or less, and what of that?” With this, Cohen points out the pathetic nature of the outsider’s need for recognition, and its dead end (literally, for him).
Also, in response to Rachel: Awesome response
ReplyDeleteAAANNNDDD my computer froze and now I will rewrite the post: lovely.
ReplyDeleteAnyway...
It is refreshing to hear from a Jewish Female voice in Victorian literature, It is not something that is come across often at all. In response to Jewish women of today: it is wonderful to see how far we have come as Jewish women, sitting in college, where we can study what we want, etc. It is also a bit disheartening to see how far we have not come in many aspects... problems of marriage stigmas in communities, problems with womens education, or right for leadership roles in certain communities. These pieces are intriguing, because for a different class these articles would be historical, interesting, but not as deeply personal as they are for us. I am obviously not surprised that our responses are a bit "loaded" and we can't approach this from a distant perspective. I think what really intriguies me is that these articles, is published today, would also be quite controversial, and not, "oh yeah, that's old news."
I don’t know if it’s just my rushed/tired mind talking, or if I genuinely am confused and somewhat dislike Levy’s work-- not so much what she has to say, but her style in prose?
ReplyDelete*unpopular opinion stated, moving on*
I read “A London Plane-Tree” as a poem about assimilation.
METAPHORS TIME! :
The London plane-tree is an actual species and not just “a plane growing in London.” It’s a hybrid of a lane-tree which grows in countries where Jews were more apt to live (I’m not sure if it actually grows in Israel, but certainly in the Near East and lower Eurasia), and it symbolized knowledge to the Greek academics; and an American sycamore, which is incidentally /not/ a plant native to England, rather to her former colonies. Two exotic plants are mashed up together and placed in a foreign, even hostile environment, and is expected to thrive in foggy London. The hybrid also reproduces by releasing seeds into the wind, and they’re a really great allergy aggravant. Also! the method of pruning this tree causes it to be stunted.
(Bless friends with weird and cool majors, because you can pump them for random information about decorative street-trees in Anglo-centric countries.)
This London plane-tree is unnatural in that it is thriving here: it’s a surprise to the poet’s speaker that it remains alive.
(Incidentally, “green” reminds me of “greenhorn,” a derogatory term for immigrant, so there’s that.)
Whether or not the “other trees” are also London planes or some other species, they do not survive for their pining (hehe, another tree word) for their native climates. It’s wind resistant (in both reality and the poem), capable of weathering forces yet still domesticated or urbanized. This tree in particular gives of its shade--a benefit to its planters--while also shedding its seed, which is viewed as annoying; although it’s a “good tree” and it does what it’s meant to do (i.e. be decorative and give cool protection from the elements), it’s not a perfect specimen and is demeaned for the grievances it can’t help but cause by acting according to its nature (which is actually imposed on it somewhat, being a forced flora). The “recuperative bark” in particular feels like a nod to Jews, as many Jews went into medicine and other sciences (as Levy addresses in her nonfiction).
Yet, although the tree is thriving, it’s likely fighting a losing battle, as it’s being attacked/suffocated from above and below by the fog and the smoke, the very urbanism to which it’s attempting to adapt.
I can also read “Others the country take for choice” as not only the country-as-rural, but Country-as-England, in that some people are accepted into cultural society, while others are frowned upon by the native culture.
It’s also unclear to /which/ voice the tree is listening to. Does she hear that of her siblings planted in more comfortable areas? Or did she hear the winds of London long ago and accept her transplantation because of that?
(the femininity of the tree is also something to consider, but I… can’t think of anything to say about that, other than Levy is a woman and London is also generally described as a “she.”)
Levy has this beautiful ambiguity in her attitude towards the modern age’s view of women. In “Ballade of an Omnibus” the bus becomes a sign of modernity and as well as a tool for evading class divisions. In this omnibus, even a woman can become one with the city. She in no longer encumbered by the garret-pane of “A London Plane Tree”. The city can finally become her inspiration. Not only can she see the city, finally the city can see her, she sees Croesus and Croesus looks up in response. Croesus is significant because, as we know, the name of Croesus has become a synonym for a wealthy man. Interestingly, the omnibus is a celebration of the freedom that is attained by being of a lower class. Rich women are confined to their carriages, gilded prisons and cannot see the city as the lower class experiences it. The omnibus allows the lower class to be above the middle class if only for the amount of time it takes them to get to point B.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the repetition of the line “An omnibus suffices me” seems more muted than the sentiments above it. It made me think about how difficult progress is for the people who are sidelined by it. The women who may be able to feel as if they are drinking in the city from their perches, but who can not yet be a part of the city. And so Sisters, we can’t be fooled into contentment with claims that we have come far enough. AN OMNIBUS WILL NOT BE SUFFICIENT.