Riding the Wave of Modern Sentimentality by Griselda Heppel

Joy Margetts’s post on 23 July, A Tale Most Tragical, set me thinking.
Anne of Green Gables by
L M Montgomery


I’m ashamed to say I’ve never read Anne of Green Gables; but I’ve listened to the audiobook, which I hope counts, and watched a delightful BBC dramatisation about 30 years ago, and loved both. Even if I hadn’t, I’d back Joy to the hilt about interfering with another writer’s work; but loving the story as I do, I was aghast at what Joy revealed the makers of Anne with an E on Netflix have done with it. Not happy with the storyline as written by L M Montgomery in 1908, which lacked the modern required exploration of racism, colonialism and homophobia, the creators of Anne with an E have cheerfully added several new characters and storylines to make up for this. Joy kindly gives the screen writers the widest possible benefit of the doubt, judging that perhaps only this way could the series attract a modern audience. 

Really? Anne of Green Gables is a timeless classic, a wonderful tale in its own right, whose strong, determined, flawed and irresistibly engaging heroine speaks to any age and any culture. Of course it would attract a modern audience. But – and here’s the thing – would it be good for them? 

Eric, or Little by Little
by Frederic W Farrar
Nowadays we laugh at the way many nineteenth century children’s books sought, not to entertain. but to inculcate a moral message in their readers. Eric, or Little by Little by Frederic Farrar (1858) is a classic example, being a tale in which the hero destroys himself by a succession of moral transgressions, tiny to begin with, but each one leading to another just a bit worse… you get the picture. Religious correctness in the Victorian era was the equivalent of political correctness today, and books like these were designed to teach young people how they should think.

Lovers' Vows by Elizabeth Inchbald








In the century before, a wave of sentimentality swept through literary Europe, leading to a wealth of appallingly bad plays, featuring nothing but good, decent, pure-minded characters, in reaction to the licence and naughtiness of Restoration comedy. The emptiness, hypocrisy and sheer tedium of sentimental drama is shown up brilliantly by Jane Austen, and it says everything about the genre that we’ve only ever heard of one example – out of the hundreds if not thousands written – because Lovers’ Vows by Elizabeth Inchbald (1798) plays an important role in Mansfield Park (1814).


I have drifted somewhat from Anne with an E. From what Joy says it’s well written and the new storylines and characters well drawn, so it’s not fair to equate it with those dreadful sentimental plays. My point is that, no matter how much we scoff at the way previous eras used literature to instil morality into young people – who, by implication, would otherwise do all sorts of frightfully wicked things – we can’t stop doing the same ourselves. And while it’s one thing to create our own stories with a clear moral purpose, rewriting someone else’s work – and a great classic to boot – so as to incorporate Modern Received Morality is pure cheek, in my view. (See my annual despair at productions of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol). No matter how good the intention, this is parasitism disguised as righteousness. 

Bowdler did the same with Shakespeare, after all, massacring some of the world’s greatest literary works to purify the minds of his readers.
Shakespeare's works, bowdlerised by
Thomas Bowdler, 1818

I'm sure the last thing the screenwriters of Anne with an E would want, or expect, is to be seen as present day Bowdlers. (Oh come on, of course they'll have heard of him. Or the verb, at least, to bowdlerise. 

Or not.)



Comments

Peter Leyland said…
Great post Griselda which shows the rewards of research. I love Restoration Drama particularly Congreve, Wycherley and Farquar. Lots of wickedness there.

However, I have to admit that I eventually ditched Anne of GB for Katy of the katydids. Whether it was because my mother loved the former and I discovered the latter for myself I don't know, but mothers always have their son's best interests at heart, don't they?
Susan Price said…
Great blog, Griselda -- but surely what the tv writers have done to Anne is anti-Bowdlerism?
Bowdler removed filth and immorality that was actually there -- "Shall I lie in your lap, lady?" -- and made everything all nice and pretty.
While the tv writers are, presumably, adding racism, homophobia, etc that was blithely ignored in the original book, so that Anne can bring her happy wisdom along to cure all these ills.
I should say that I haven't read 'Anne of Green Gables' or watched the series but I'm convinced by you and Joy. It is a bit of a cheek to piggy-back your tv series on a very successful book and then set about making big changes to that book. Next up: Elizabeth Bennett campaigns against slavery.
Thanks for the warning, Griselda - I might have tried to watch this on Netflix otherwise and it sounds like just the thing to raise my blood pressure! Like you, I can't understand why people don't just start again and write something of their own instead of wrecking stories written by others, particularly classics.As someone who has studied history I hate to see our present-day concerns and prejudices reflected back into the past too.

I also re-read your other post about A Christmas Carol - coincidentally my son and I once adapted it as a children's play, so there are chunks of it I can still remember word for word if I concentrate! Apart from adding some songs, the only real change we made was in the point of view as we decided to make the POV character/narrator Marley's ghost. My favourite film version is definitely the Muppets one. But last Christmas I watched a film I hadn't seen before called 'The Man who Invented Christmas' which was about (more or less) Charles Dickens and his writing process, and I really enjoyed that.
Griselda Heppel said…
Brilliant comments, thank you all! I too loved the What Katy Did books, Peter, but I am seriously impressed you enjoyed them as a boy. A lot of people still think boys won't read books with girls as the main characters and that just isn't true - as long as some silly adult doesn't tell them they shouldn't.

Susan you're absolutely right about Bowdler - he took things out rather than adding them. It just struck me that the screenwriters' motive of morally improving their audience was rather Bowdlerist. Yes, I bet Elizabeth Bennett championing abolition will be next!

So glad you like the Muppet Christmas Carol, Cecilia. Your dramatisation of the novel sounds really good. Marley's ghost does after all set everything going and his miserable fate looms over the whole story.

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