Decadence and resilience : a study of the aristocratic novel in English in the twentieth century

Abstract

The aristocratic novel in the twentieth century depicts the successes and failures of the aristocracy's efforts to come to terms with the social realities brought about by contemporary egalitarianism. Although several of the novels discussed are written by aristocrats, the aristocratic novel as such refers to novels about the aristocracy as a social grouping. Seven authors are selected to represent fictional treatment of a class in crisis, struggling between decadence and resilience: V. Sackville-West, Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford, Elizabeth Bowen, Molly Keane, L.P. Hartley and Emma Tennant. Sackville-West faces and chronicles the inevitable decay of her class, yet cannot refrain from mourning its gracious past. To her, the manor house symbolizes an ancient idyllic symbiosis between aristocrat and worker. To Evelyn Waugh, the aristocracy embodies the finest achievements of inherited English culture. He regards its decline as the crumbling of Christian civilization itself. Resilience against the rising proletariate lies in faith and a chivalrous other-worldliness associated with the old Catholic aristocracy. Mitford uses comedy to defend the ideals of service and honour which she sees undermined by vulgarity and mercantilism. She resists her opponents with lethal swipes of raillery. Bowen and Keane deal with the decline of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy. The heirs of the ascendancy have to cope with the paralysing bequest of a more vital past. Ironically, resilience lies in breaking with their heritage. Hartley appears to criticize the class structure, but his work reveals a fascination for the captivating myth of patrician life. Tennant, representing an aristocracy which has profited from the resurgence of wealth in Thatcherite Britain, is unsparingly caustic on the condition of her class. Her satiric writing presents an ethical resurgence that goes beyond the mere financial recovery of her society. The genre examined suggests a primal need among urbanized citizens for the myth of an heroic order. In the finest aristocratic novels, admiration for an imitable superior order is used to rally a consciousness of a venerable ethical establishment. What is threatened or lost is not merely wealth and privilege, but aristokratos - government by the best.