Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 10 Number 3, December 2009
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Dadlez, E. M., Mirrors to One Another: Emotion and Value in Jane Austen and David Hume, Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. 234 pp., ISBN: 978-1-4051-9348-1. $75.35US.
Reviewed by
Wilkes University
Attempting “to uncover common concerns and perspectives” through the works of David Hume and Jane Austen, E. M. Dadlez offers a unique examination of thought experiments and philosophical positions that does not result in “a Humean reading of Austen” (207). Rather, Dadlez unpacks the major philosophical trends evident in both Austen and Hume to show that Austen’s works were influenced by the intellectual climate resulting from Hume’s studies. In other words, Dadlez does not suggest that Austen read or was knowingly influenced by Hume, but that her work maintains a close affinity for some of the same philosophical positions that Hume advocated.
Thorough in her unpacking, debunking, interpreting, and analyzing, Dadlez sets out to justify Austen’s place as an Enlightenment writer by arguing that Austen complements Hume’s work “because of its intimate focus on character traits and their hypothetical and actual effects and because of the significance of utility in the assessment of those traits” (xi). Dadlez is careful to point out that Austen can be tied to other philosophers, as well, but that she most closely aligns with Hume’s perspectives on human nature. Furthermore, Dadlez sees the tie between Austen and Hume as allowing “us to understand and to expand upon Hume” and vice versa (xi). She is able, then, to construct a plausible and convincing link between the two writers throughout her study.
The fourteen-chapter analysis walks readers through an interesting array of analyses arranged by predominant idea, not chronological text. Dadlez presents a convincing argument by staggering her textual readings and providing evidence for each philosophical position from the bodies of work by both Hume and Austen. For example, in Chapter 12, when she examines jealousy, envy, and malice, Dadlez analyzes Mansfield Park, Treatise of Human Nature, Persuasion, various essays by Hume, Sense and Sensibility, and even Northanger Abbey. This unconventional presentation of information is a refreshing change from conventional literary criticism that spends a single chapter or section unpacking a single text.
Dadlez begins by establishing the validity of her approach by claiming that literature can be constructed as a thought experiment. Using Martha Nussbaum’s essay “Exactly and Responsibility: A Defense of Ethical Criticism” as a starting point, Dadlez soon distances herself from Nussbaum’s claim that emotions are value judgments. Rather, Dadlez is concerned with the “hypothetical cases” of literature that “elicit moral responses” rather than judgments (2). Dadlez contends that fiction and empathy possess similar functions in that they “lead us to inhabit the worlds of others in imagination, just as they both encourage the adoption of alien perspectives” (7). From there, she argues that because Austen’s novels delve deeply into the behaviors and rationalizing of different characters, they are thought experiments that allow the reader to experience a type of imaginative empathy. That is, the reader could imagine him or herself in the position of a character and thereby has a moral and emotional response to the situation.
From this point, Dadlez first sets up her argument that the literary form itself is significant in producing a particular reading and/or response. She takes two adaptations of Persuasion as an example, showing how the difference in placement and use of Anne’s argument about whether men or women love longest colors our reading and response to Wentworth’s renewed hope for a union with Anne. In an adaptation that follows the book, Wentworth overhears Anne’s argument and is then encouraged to pursue her. In the other, the conversation is placed earlier in the piece and is not overheard by Wentworth, and Wentworth’s letter to Anne is prompted by her availability, not the proof of her unending love for him (25). The way in which Dadlez scrutinizes this scene is enjoyable as she examines the minute details of the films and the original novel that she is ultimately persuasive. She maintains this type of close textual scrutiny throughout her book as she moves from one idea to the next.
Chapter 3 “Kantian and Aristotelian Accounts of Austen” continues Dadlez’s introductory argument as she allows space for the consideration of other possible candidates for Austen’s philosophical positioning. Starting with Kant, Dadlez uses Mansfield Park—which she concedes is the closest possible Kantian experiment—to demonstrate that Kant’s categorical imperative simply cannot work as an explanation for Fanny Price’s behavior. Looking at Fanny’s objection to the play, Dadlez shows how Fanny’s jealousy of Mary Crawford along with other considerations, such as the affront to Sir Thomas Bertram, move Mansfield Park out of the realm of a purely Kantian analysis. Similarly, Dadlez examines Austen’s link to Aristotle, but ultimately rejects this connection, not because Aristotelian philosophy cannot explain some of Austen, but because more of Austen can be explained by Hume.
By Chapter 4: “Hume and Austen on Pleasure, Sentiment, and Virtue,” Dadlez’s primary argument takes center stage as she is able to move beyond positioning of her work. Focusing on issues such pleasure, sentiment, virtue, the expression of proper feeling, sympathy, the dangers of unregulated sympathy, usefulness, taste, beauty, pride, prejudice, moral reasoning, intelligence, the marriage of equals, sloth, and industry, she offers innovative and interesting readings of both Austen and Hume that allow readers to understand Hume by way of Austen’s examples and understand Austen by way of Hume’s theories. The result is a well-crafted, well-argued and articulate study that is thoroughly engaging.
Mirrors To One Another serves a wide audience, as it carefully describes the theories and rationales of Hume’s canon and then provides a detailed analysis of Austen’s novels. Such thoughtful research is a solid model for students of Austen and Hume, whereas the interplay of different texts in each chapter offers a compelling model for scholars wishing to make their own work as easy and interesting to read. While a reader unfamiliar with Austen would not be able to find chapter-long overviews of each Austen novel, Dadlez’s thesis does provide such readers with a point of consideration if and when they choose to read Austen’s work. However, those who know and love the works of Jane Austen and are agreeable to Hume’s perspective will find a welcome treat in Dadlez’s study.