Jane Austen discussion

We meet John Yates, who comes to Mansfield and suggests they put on the play 'Lovers Vows'. Henry and Mary Crawford return and wish to join in the play, as does Mr Rushworth. Difficulties arise as they try and decide who is to play each part. Fanny and Edmund do not approve of the play nor do they wish to be involved.

This whole thing of the play is the peak of madness. Period.

I can't believe that nobody sees Maria and Henry acting together as wrong.I unmarried women engaged to another acting with a man she has no connect with and only has know a few months.I don't know what is involved in the part of Agatha.But I would put money it involves embracing or hand holding or hand kissing or else Maria wouldn't have fought for it so hard.In this day and age I wouldn't want my fiance hanging all over some other girl even it was acting a play in my house and I was in it.

Julia has finally figured out that Henry wants Maria.Heck in today's world Maria and Henry would have already hooked up and soon Henry would have moved on.Heck Henry would most likely have slept with both Julia and Maria by the end if this was a modern day novel.

I want to read the play Lover's Vows now.I wonder if it is still in print somewhere.

I love how Fanny is standing firm and for the first time in the novel speaking for herself.I love how she is always true to herself as a character.

Mary is trying very hard to get Edmund to act with her.Saying how she would hate acting with a stranger and wishes they would have chosen a different play but she must act or everyone would be disappointed(or impelling that).I did like that she was so kind to Fanny after what Mrs.Norris said to her.Mary does something or says something nice then she does something or says something wrong.Like when she keeps insulting the clergy to Edmund.She is very hard character to make out.I still don't like her but still when she does something nice it makes me think I am judgeing her to harshly.

Nicole D. said, "I want to read the play Lover's Vows now. I wonder if it is still in print somewhere."

I don't know if a freestanding edition of Lover's Vows is available (maybe an electronic version on the Web?), but the Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen edition of Mansfield Park, edited by R. W. Chapman, prints Lover's Vows in its entirety at the back of the book. You might be able to find that in a good library.

Abigail wrote: "Nicole D. said, "I want to read the play Lover's Vows now. I wonder if it is still in print somewhere."

I don't know if a freestanding edition of Lover's Vows is available (maybe an electronic ver..."

Thanks I just did some searching on amazon after I wrote this and found it for free to download on kindle.Just a heads up for anyone who also wants to read it.

I have read Lovers on the Internet I cannot remember if it was on JAsna or therepublic of Pemberly However it is available and does explain the whole interaction surrounding the play and the rest of the novel.

Just to give you an idea about the plot of the play, this is what I found in the notes to my edition:

The poverty-stricken Agatha Friburg (to be played by Maria) encounters her long lost, illegitimate son, Frederick (Henry Crawford), a soldier seeking his discharge,while she is begging in the streets; they join forces and are housed by kindly cottagers (Tom Bertram and Mrs Grant).
As her story emerges, Agatha is shocked to learn that her former seducer is the local landowner, Baron Wildenhaim (Mr Yates), now a widower with a daughter, Amelia (Mary Crawford).
Amelia is secretly in love with her tutor, Anhalt (Edmund), a chaplain and spiritual adviser to her now repentant father. By her father's wishes, Amelia is to make an advantageous marriage with Count Cassel (Mr Rushworth), a rich but foppish suitor, and the Baron demands that Anhalt counsel her about love and marriage. This leads to a fairly predictable scene in which Amelia and Anhalt talk at cross-purposes, inevitably discovering their love for each other.
Meanwhile, Frederick, begging for money for his mother, draws his sward on the Baron and is arrested.
Amelia pleads for the young prisoner, and when his true identity as his illegitimate son is revealed, the Baron is persuaded to make amends by marrying Agatha. His prejudices in favour of riches and social position now set aside, the Baron allows Amelia to marry Anhalt, and the play ends in reconciliation.

Meh...

This play sounds silly by today's standards (which I mostly put aside when I read period literature or HR.)

If they must stage a play, I guess the illegitimacy issue is what Edmund particularly find objectionable.

Thank’s Nicole, I have picked up Lover’s Vows on Amazon, perhaps we should have a side thread for it!

I think they all know that what they were doing was wrong but since they wanted to do it, and didn’t really believe there would be any harm, they kept encouraging each other and telling themselves Edmund was just being disagreeable. But then, would there really have been any harm if there had been no other feelings involved?

Mr Rushworth wouldn’t have liked it if he’d had the brains to see what was going on, unfortunately he was too wrapped up in his own concerns.

I think you are right Nicole, if this were a modern story Henry would have seduced both sisters and I would like them even less.

This is the first time Mary Crawford really shows herself to be a good person at heart I think. Being shocked by Mrs Norris attitude towards Fanny she got a very good picture of how things really stand in the family and her response was to try to soothe Fanny. Despite Julia’s earlier argument with the others she could have stepped in to spare her cousin, but they all think only of themselves, something that Fanny had already observed in fact.

I start becoming frustrated with Edmund at this point, encouraging Fanny to stand up for herself and then being too angry to speak is all very well, but he is the only one who can defend her and he really does very little.

Well I took a slight detour and read Lovers Vows. Not the best play, but it is funny. It also has some moral considerations that certain of it's performers should have paid more attention to.

Unless I missed something though or there's a scene missing from the Amazon version, the Butler and Cottager are never in a scene together?

I'd say it's not just Frederick's illegitimacy that bothers Edmund, when he tells Maria to read just the first scene to her mother, it's because she is telling her son how she lost her honour... not something he wants to hear from his sister.

@Lousie about Lover's Vows and Maria
Plus there was quite a few embraces and one or two hands to the heart.To be embracing a man you weren't related to or going to be married to was just not done then either.

I did a quick read of Lover's Vows also.I liked it nothing special about it really.

@Louise and Nicole D. Re Lover's Vows

We also have to remember that acting was not a respectable thing to do and women who were actresses were viewed as little more than prostitutes. In addition, in Shakespeare's time, women weren't even allowed on the stage at all. The idea of a woman on the stage was considered "lewd."

@Andrea, We also have to remember that acting was not a respectable thing to do and women who were actresses were viewed as little more than prostitutes.

I think that's why there's so much talk about not inviting the neighbors; private theatricals weren't frowned on as much. In fact, Jane Austen adapted a bit of an 18th c. novel, Sir Charles Grandison, for her family to enact. (Her version was published in the 1980s.)