On a first-name basis with the great
I read a book just recently called Searching for Jane Austen. Its avowed purpose was to destroy all notions of Jane Austen being a sweet motherly person, a false notion that started when her nephew wrote a biography that edited her life to fit his picture. He declared she never thought about politics...after editing all the political passages from her letters. He said she never spoke an ill word of anyone...after he trimmed "I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow" and the like. Jane Austen was not sweet, or nice, but she was very brilliant. It is painful for me to read some of the biting comments she makes. I would rather see the nicened version than this cruel satirical lady. But that is just my sentiment, and I by no means support rewriting a person's life.
Another purpose of the book was to ridicule the condescension that biographers use towards Jane Austen, and other women writers. Most biographies of Jane Austen call her "Jane", and always mention that she never got married. As the author of Searching for Jane Austen accurately pointed out, no one calls Dickens "Charles", or cares about any male writer's marital status.
The business of calling Austen "Jane" really struck me, and gave me much thinking on the subject of first-name basis relationships.
After all, we think of Sir Winston Churchill as "Churchill", and George Washington as "Washington", and the same with all people who had last names. But then, as I was thinking this over, I realized that there are two notable exceptions. Two exceptions that make no sense.
The first is Napoleon. Everyone nowadays knows him as "Napoleon", and some are even unaware that it is not his last name. There is no logical reason that I can see for this strange occurence. His last name, Bonaparte (or Buonoparte) is not too generic, nor is it too difficult to pronounce. Even stranger is the fact that in his own time period, the English at least knew him as "Bonaparte" or "Boney". When did we become on first-name basis with the Emperor of the French?
The second exception is Galileo. He had a last name: Galilei. Why do we not know him as such? Does anyone think of Leonardo da Vinci as "Leonardo"?
These exceptions seem so rooted in our minds, that I wonder if I shall ever find out why this strange custom exists.
3 comments:
Our local university was doing a free series on Jane Austen, and I really wanted to attend it. It looked really interesting.
It is sad that she is treated differently simply because she was a woman. It happens all the time. I will never understand why a woman's marital status is almost always mentioned (especially if she was single) and a man's marital status rarely seems to matter...
Because it was uncommon for a woman to remain unmarried back then, but it wasn't all that uncommon for a man to be single.
Really, I don't know, that's just the first thought that came to mind.
I like first names, whether the person is male or female.
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