MDDM Ch.21 the Octagon

[jbor]

on 7/12/01 9:53 AM, JL at trailerman at cableinet.co.uk wrote:

> jbor :
>> 213.35 "Met this Herschel fella at the Octagon Chapel" Herschel, as we know,
>> was the one who officially discovered Uranus. He visited England in 1755 as
>> oboist in the Hanoverian Guards band; in 1766 he became an organist and
>> music teacher at Bath.
> 
> 
> i spent several schoolyears within a hundred yards or so of the octagon.
> in those days (mid-1970s) it was a sadly neglected dump but a couple of
> hundred years earlier it was the favoured place of worship for visitors
> to the fair city. quite likely then that a tourist might strike up
> conversation with the organist there.
> 
> not really a building, incidentally, more like a roofed courtyard or
> 'hollow centre' between buildings, lit from above (but even i can't
> stretch to analogy with a rifle barrel). frequented by Jane Austen in
> her time and featured, i believe, in _Northanger Abbey_ and/or _Persuasion_.

Thanks for this info. Yes, _Persuasion_ Ch. 20, where the "Heir Presumptive"
of the family seat at Kellynch Hall, William Elliot, flirts ("the sense of
an Italian love song must not be talked of") with his cousin, Anne, at the
concert put on for Lady Dalrymple. And, the first of a number of
assignations between the couples at the Octagon Room is in Ch. 7 of
_Northanger Abbey_.

I'm assuming that this "Octagon Room" in the two novels is one and the same
as the "Octagon Chapel", in which case its "sacred" space seems to have
doubled for secular events as well.
 
    In one of her letters Miss Austen remarks: "On Sunday we went to church
    twice, and after evening service walked a little in the Crescent
    Fields." Probably the "church" here mentioned was the Octagon Chapel,
    the favourite place of worship, in her day, of the visitors to Bath. It
    stands in Milsom-street at the end of a passage guarded by some iron
    gates, and would be on her way from Paragon to the Crescent Fields (now
    the Victoria Park). The building is no longer used as a chapel, but when
    we saw it a few years ago it was a quaint old-world place, with high
    pews, deep galleries, and pulpit, all of dark polished wood. The light
    came down from a lanthorn in the centre of the roof, and we noticed six
    curious recesses ranged beneath the galleries. These recesses "were
    really neatly furnished rooms, with chairs, tables, and all necessary
    comforts." An old advertisement announces that during the winter season
    "six fires are constantly kept burning" in them "for the benefit of
    invalids." The organ stands in the western gallery, and there William
    Herschel performed as organist for some years. He had, however, given up
    music for astronomy before Miss Austen's day. Mrs. Piozzi, who
    lived for a time in Bath, writes to a friend: "You will rejoice to
    hear that I came out alive from the Octagon Chapel, where Rider, Bishop
    of Gloucester, preached on behalf of the missionaries to a crowd, such
    as in my long life I never witnessed. We were packed like seeds in a
    sunflower."

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/hill/austen/homes11.html

_Northanger Abbey_, with its gothic parody and ongoing debate about the
comparative merits of "the novel" as opposed to "history", seems a likely
source for _M&D_ by the way.

> it has now been converted to a gallery and museum of the Royal Photographic
> Society.
> 
> another west-of-england public service announcement.
> 
> JL
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> climbing up on solsbury hill
> i could see the city lights.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wind was blowing, time stood still
Eagle flew out of the night ...

(It's on the turntable now.)

on 7/12/01 11:17 PM, Mutualcode at AOL.COM at Mutualcode at AOL.COM wrote:

>> [213.5 "Met this Herschel fella at the Octagon Chapel" Herschel, as we know,
>> was the one who officially discovered Uranus. He visited England in 1755 as
>> oboist in the Hanoverian Guards band; in 1766 he became an organist and
>> music teacher at Bath.
>> 
>> It's interesting how the themes and topics (Uranus, the Orrery, the Gothic
>> novel, Drury Lane operas ... America) of Pynchon's narrative are now winding
>> backwards towards the opening of the section. The structure of the narrative
>> is like a hinged mirror: MDDM.]
>> -------------------------------------------------
> 
> Yes, I think you're on the right track here, especially with
> the implied notion that besides any cause and effect relationship
> the past and the present are conjoined by some sort of timeless
> or ex-temporal symmetry, that constrains somehow just how
> much of the present is effected by the past, and how much is
> random and unpredictable, yet connected, not by determinism
> but by symmetry- or beauty, if you will.

Yes, I agree, and this goes to the attempted resurrection of the subjunctive
mood in the novel, too, I think. Poetry, or a type of poetic balance, or
order.
 
> A slender filament, perhaps, but enough somehow to guide us
> back, through the web of connections between any now and any then.
> 
> It's where to place the "hinge" that seems problematic.

Is the "hinge" perhaps being concealed behind all the smoke and reflections
(the narrative frames) in order to present the illusion of seamlessness?

best