On the Virtues of a Country Dance

You’ve probably heard of Civil War reenactments, Renaissance fairs and even Viking festivals. But here’s one that might prove new to you—it certainly surprised me. English Country Dancing, commonly referred to as ECD.

From the Queen’s Jig to the Minuet, all of that dancing in period dramas is not such a lost art as might be supposed. Aside from the choreographers hired for regency films, a whole population of enthusiastic English Country Dancers thrives in various ECD clubs throughout the country. My mom uncovered one such organization called the San Diego English Country Dancers which meets once a week and welcomes visitors for lessons in these formal historical dances.

These balls often involve regency gowns, britches with coattails, a fiddle and a pianist and a large ballroom where lines of intrepid dancers learn the patterns and gracefully relive the romantic social customs of 18^th and 19^th century Britain.

A recovering klutz, dancing has never been an incredible skill of mine. When I galloped on stage like a pony during my first ballet recital, my parents decided that some other extracurricular pastimes might be worth exploring. I returned to the dancfloor in high school when a combination etiquette and manners with ballroom dancing class called cotillion was mandated for my personal growth and development. My parents hoped that I might learn how make conversation in a social situation and eventually be able to talk to people—i.e. boys.

Needless to say, the awkward sophomore me loathed the idea and dreaded these dances. But at the end of the school year, it didn’t seem quite so awful any more, and I even admitted that I had learned a few things. Come senior year of high school, I actually requested to join cotillion again. I still fumbled my way through the waltz, but I kind of liked the tango and the swing dances. And, as I quickly learned, being a girl makes it a little easier to stumble your way through. After all, girls can just follow their partners, and a good dancer who actually leads can make even a klutz like myself feel pretty accomplished. (Of course, the reverse is equally true, and the more I learned the more difficult it was to dance with a confused lead.)

I’m still uncomfortable with modern “wiggle” dances, but I sincerely like organized ballroom steps and line dances. East-coast swing has the greatest number of cool twists and turns, so it is consequently, grammatically and mathematically the best. Dancing turned out to be not so heinous as originally feared. As I grew up a little bit, dancing came in handy. It proved a capital excuse for holding the hand of a certain someone.

In Pride and Prejudice, all this dancing serves several functions. First, it was an excuse to get all the young people together at a party. Next, it allowed said folks a few moments of alone togetherness (granted in a noisy room full of eyes watching them, but it was still some time to talk—if the waltz didn’t leave you gasping for breathe). Several important conversations in the novel take place over the form of a dance. It provides Darcy an initial opportunity to neglect Lizzy but later offers a chance for him to single her out.

                                 www.sdecd.org

Even in the 21^st century, where all these social graces seem abandoned, dancing provides the possibility of spending time with a partner who you like or simply enjoying the fun art of movement. So a hearty thank you to history lovers like the English Country Dancers of the world who work to preserve the virtues of dancing.

Are Men Allergic to Pride and Prejudice?

With a number of notable exceptions, Pride and Prejudice seems heralded as a universally feminine phenomenon. My roommate’s father experiences reactive symptoms at the mention of Austen’s masterpiece. He reports, “My throat closes up and my eyes get puffy and swollen” when talking about the novel.

My family and three families of close friends used to drive into the mountains each winter to ski, snowboard and sled by day and then talk, eat and watch movies near a fire in the crisp evenings. During one of these annual symposiums, the four moms reserved the living room for an afternoon-long viewing of the BBC P&P. Quickly, the dads and children vacated the premises. When my father ventured back in the room four hours later, he exclaimed, “They’re still sitting in the same room! They haven’t moved.”

“No, I’m pretty sure she changed her dress,” another husband chuckled.

“Shhh!” The peanut gallery was shooed out for interrupting.

This brought me to the theory that Pride and Prejudice must prove a primarily feminine pleasure. Aren’t all men predisposed towards an Austen allergy?

When I was first getting to know my Mr. Darcy, the subject of Pride and Prejudice naturally surfaced. Assuming that all men cringed at period dramas in general, I felt fully prepared to make allowances for his dislike of the story—after all, this is a failing of the masculine race which merits some sympathy since they can’t really help it. Imagine my shock when he said that not only had he seen the movie, but it wasn’t really that repulsive.  

Though initially cynical of such an unbelievable communication, I was excessively glad that he could tolerate the concept with decent equanimity. (Sorry for sounding a bit pedantic and Mr. Collins-ish. What I meant to say was, THE MAN HAD SEEN MY MOVIE!).

Now that I’ve finished jumping up and down and have sat back at the desk, I can explain why this is so fantastic. This is because my first few encounters with this man sort of resembled Elizabeth and Darcy’s interactions. Granted, our story happened on a much smaller, less dramatic and more grounded manner, without balls, elopements and long dresses, but it was/is still great.

Jane Austen originally called her “own darling child” First Impressions and later changed the novel’s name to Pride and Prejudice. This first title aptly sums up Elizabeth and Darcy’s situation as well as my own. Elizabeth watches Darcy at the country dance and decides he is stuck-up, unsocial, rude and “in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men” (such a brilliant sentence).

Well, things weren’t that bad at first. But for a while, I didn’t really think that he talked. At all. And after an awkward attempt at simply squeaking “Hi,” I vowed never again to try being nice to guys and resolved that my true calling was that of becoming an old maid.

            God is a terrific comedy writer, and it wasn’t far into the very next semester that I toured his grounds at “Pemberley,” was more than a little interested and had intelligence sources reporting back that the “like” might be mutual.

There has never been any intense loathing, harsh judgment, rejected proposals or historical letters of explanation in our relationship as in Lizzy and Darcy’s. Yet, like Elizabeth Bennet, my first impressions adjusted. Just as she learns not to jump to a judgment and her confidence in the validity of her inklings suffers, I am consistently learning. Learning how to learn about differences and approaching his opinions with more humility about the certainty of my own. Lizzy and Darcy challenge each other to grow.

Perhaps that challenge sits at the essence of most relationships: the dare to test one another's opinions and learn from differences. One obvious difference proves the stereotypically masculine reaction to any Austen novel and the relatively predictable feminine appreciation of these books (I deal in generalizations of course, knowing many women who do not enjoy the genre and some men who do). Whether you adore Austen or require an EpiPen to help you recover from allergic shock, the point remains that differences of opinion present a choice between growing apart or learning something new.

Recently, my Dad—yes the same man with the insulting remarks about our beloved P&P—watched Sense and Sensibility to spend a morning with his wife. He also read a few of my blog posts about my excessively romantic and idealistic relation to Jane Austen. The learning should grow both ways, so I probably owe him a few baseball games.

A dear friend found this for me.

Janeite – noun, [jeyn-ahyt]. A devotee of Jane Austen and her works.

Maybe it’s sacrilegious, but many Jane Austen fans have commandeered the acronym WWJD? Others drive around with “I’d rather be at Pemberly” pasted on their car bumpers or carriages. Still more fantasize about their husbands dressing in breeches and coattails. These Austen obsessed folks spend their time taking personality tests online to find out which novel character they are most like. (In case you’re wondering, I actually did test as Elizabeth).

These diagnosed individuals are referred to as Janeites. Yes, it is a word—you can look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary. The term connotes any members of Jane Austen book clubs, costume balls or regency period movie marathons. In the way that a Star Trek fan calls him or herself a trekky, Janeites prove infatuated with Jane Austen, her novels and any minutiae which pertain to her and her work.

The name of this diagnosis first appeared in 1896 when a literary critic coined the phrase. It resurfaced in 1924 when the author Rudyard Kipling penned a short story entitled, “The Janeites.” The story shared an interaction of several soldiers discussing Jane's novels. Kipling wrote that “the more I read the more I admire and respect and do reverence” her work. Reportedly Kipling even read the stories aloud to his wife and daughter as the family mourned the loss of its son Jack in World War I.

After the first time I watch P&P and it finally ended with a double wedding and a carriage ride kiss, I trotted downstairs and spent the rest of the night pouring through an illustrated abridged version of the novel that had been tucked away on a shelf in our school room. Before, I had liked the pretty dresses of the sisters on the book’s cover, but now! It was the first girlish thing I surrendered to in my awkward transition from want-to-be tomboy/junior higher to young lady, trepidly becoming acquainted with girl stuff.

            Not much later, I purchased a paperback copy from Barnes&Noble and tore through all 61 chapters. Lost in Austen’s masterpiece, I could be that graceful woman with an up-do and an accent who danced the quadrille and played the piano forte. Mom bought me sheet music from the movie that Christmas.

            My enculturation into Janeite-ism had begun. While my friends romped around on the playground, I squealed with all the moms about Austen films and empire waists.

The beautiful thing was that it didn’t end with Pride and Prejudice. Then came Marianne and Eleanor in Sense and Sensibility, dear silly Emma and good little Anne Elliot from Persuasion, not to mention Knightly and Wentworth. And along with the other literature, there was the whole world and lingo of the time period. “Dear Mama, I will bring you some tea,” my best friends and I acted out our favorite scenes and quoted the beautiful passages.

It was, or rather is, an entire world to absorb you—a secret club whose members know the delight of the keywords and feel equal disdain towards common enemies like awful George Wickham and slimy Mr. Collins.

Aside from the frightening implications that there exists an entire subculture of primarily women who wish they were born in 1811 hidden blatantly in our homes, super markets and offices, you always know when you’ve met another Janeite. Instantly, a polite question such as, “What kind of movies do you like to watch?” snowballs into a giggling ecstatic exchange of “Oh my gosh, I love Austen.”

“Have you seen the new version of Persuasion?”

 “The one where he’s blonde?”

“Yes!” Instant connection and compatibility. Like a traveler in a foreign land who learns that a new acquaintance also speaks her native tongue, a stranger transforms into a kindred spirit.

A final identifier of a confirmed Janeite is perhaps a subscription to Jane Austen’s Regency World. The magazine is currently preparing to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice’s publication which occurs next year in 2013—perfect timing for my senior project!

Check out the bicentennial celebration at http://janeaustenmagazine.co.uk/2012/08/new-book-to-mark-pp-bicentenary/

3 Steps to the Perfect Proposal: What I learned from Pride and Prejudice about Properly Proposing

Higher powers in the blogging community inform me that blog posts should contain short, sweet paragraphs and boast catchy titles like "9 Ways to Do This" or "226 Steps to the Perfect That." 
             Hmmm—Pride and Prejudice as an instruction manual. I thought to myself, if Elizabeth Bennet is an expert on anything, it has got to be receiving marriage proposals. She's one of the most regularly proposed to literary characters I know. She politely receives three such questions over the course of the novel.
              So if 71 and 1/2 lessons can be found in Pride and Prejudice, then they would definitely include how to unsuccessfully propose. Guys take note.
The proposals under the microscope today include

A) Attempt #1 An unfortunate dining room conversation with Mr. Collins

B) Attempt #2 An upsetting encounter with Mr. Darcy and

C) Attempt #3 An unexpectedly happy ending with Mr. Darcy again. (Third times the charm.)

Lesson 1. Location, Location, Location.

The most important part of any proposal is finding the right setting. Usually, cornering the girl in a dinging room with her family listening outside works best. But if you can’t swing that, try a surprise attack while she’s on vacation at her friend's house. Wait until her friends go out for dinner and she’s home alone. Then, burst into the sitting room and stare at her awkwardly.

If neither of these approaches works, I suppose you might try a walk into Meryton. It eventually worked for Darcy.

Lesson 2. Don’t Let Your Feelings Run Away With You.

When planning a proposal to your beloved, it is important to make certain that she has absolutely no idea what’s coming. While it may prove permissible to gaze longingly at her from across the room, refrain from too much conversation and dance only a couple of times so that she will have no notion whatsoever that you admire her. In fact, it's best if she thinks you abhor her and she can't stand you.

The next important part to remember involves rationalizing the idea of marriage. For Darcy, it is because, as he says,“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed.” Or you might take a page from the Collins Instructional Manual and briefly state your reasons for marrying which must include that your boss first suggested the merit of the institution. Whatever you do, try to maintain a sense of rationality.

Lesson 3. Properly Insult the Girl and Her Family.

Make sure to toss in a mention of how inferior her family is and what a favor you are doing by marrying her. Mr. Collins carries this out expertly remarking, “No reproach on the subject of your fortune will cross my lips after we are married.”

Darcy sets the ultimate example of a proper insult. He shares that “In declaring myself thus I am fully aware that I am going against the wishes of family, my friends and, I need hardly add, my own better judgment. The relative situation of our families is such that any alliance between us must be regarded as a highly reprehensible connection.”

Girls everywhere will swoon at such heartfelt condescension. After all, there’s nothing more romantic than hearing about how rotten your family and situation in life appear.

            Surely I must be joking—right? Following these proposal instructions will probably only lead to a polite “No thank you” of rejection. When girls moan about chivalry being dead nowadays, perhaps it has actually come a long way.            

            I don't envy Elizabeth and her perpetually having to extricate herself from preposterous proposals, but eventually, she hears the right one. And one good one is all you really need. I'm not really sure where this whole silly discussion is ending up other than, thank goodness Mr. Darcy finally got it right.

How Elizabeth drinks her tea.