The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Fiction, Classics, Romance, Horror
248
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Fiction, Classics, Romance, Horror
248Hardcover
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Overview
"Is it -- in this world -- vulgar to ask for more? To entreat a little wildness, a dark place or two in the soul?"
-- Katherine Mansfield
"There is no woman in American literature as fascinating as the doomed Madame Olenska. . . . Traditionally, Henry James has always been placed slightly higher up the slope of Parnassus than Edith Wharton. But now that the prejudice against the female writer is on the wane, they look to be exactly what they are: giants, equals, the tutelary and benign gods of our American literature."
-- Gore Vidal
"Will writers ever recover that peculiar blend of security and alertness which characterizes Mrs. Wharton and her tradition?"
-- E.M. Forster
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781598183689 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Aegypan |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2006 |
| Pages: | 248 |
| Sales rank: | 784,342 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d) |
| Age Range: | 14 Years |
About the Author
Date of Birth:
January 24, 1862Date of Death:
August 11, 1937Place of Birth:
New York, New YorkPlace of Death:
Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, FranceEducation:
Educated privately in New York and EuropeRead an Excerpt
Chapter One
On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York.
Though there was already talk of the erection, in remote metropolitan distances "above the Forties," of a new Opera House which should compete in costliness and splendour with those of the great European capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy. Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the it new people" whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to; and the sentimental clung to it for its historic associations, and the musical for its excellent acoustics, always so problematic a quality in halls built for the hearing of music.
It was Madame Nilsson's first appearance that winter, and what the daily press had already learned to describe as "an exceptionally brilliant audience " had gathered to hear her, transported through the slippery snow streets in private broughams, in the spacious family landau, or in the humbler but more convenient "Brown coupe"' To come to the Opera in a Brown coupe was almost as honourable a way of arriving as in one 's own carriage; and departure by the same means had the immense advantage of enabling one (with a playful allusion to democratic principles) to scramble into the first Brown conveyance in the line, instead of waiting till the cold and--gin congested nose of one's own coachman gleamed under the portico of the Academy. It was one of the great livery-lstableman's most masterly intuitions to have discovered thatAmericans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it.
When Newland Archer opened the door at the back of the club box the curtain had just gone up on the garden scene. There was no reason why the young man should not have come earlier, for he had dined at seven, alone with his mother and sister, and had lingered afterward over a cigar in the Gothic library with glazed black-walnut bookcases and finial-topped chairs which was the only room in the house where Mrs. Archer allowed smoking. But, in the first place, New York was a metropolis, and perfectly aware that in metropolises it was "not the thing" to arrive early at the opera; and what was or was not "the thing" played a part as important in Newland Archer's New York as the inscrutable totem terrors that had ruled the destinies of his forefathers thousands of years ago.
The second reason for his delay was a personal one. He had dawdled over his cigar because he was at heart a dilettante, and thinking over a pleasure tocome often gave him a subtler satisfaction than its realisation. This was especially the case when the pleasure was a delicate one, as his pleasures mostly were; and on this occasion the moment he looked forward to was so rare and exquisite in quality that-well, if he had timed his arrival in accord with the prima donna's stage-manager he could not have entered the Academy at a more significant moment than just as she was singing: "He loves me-he loves me not-he loves me!" and sprinkling the falling daisy petals with notes as clear as dew.
She sang, of course, "Mama!" and not "he loves me," since an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences. This seemed as natural to Newland Archer as all the other conventions on which his life was moulded: such as the duty of using two silver-backed brushes with his monogram in blue enamel to part his hair, and of never appearing in society without a flower (preferably a gardenia) in his buttonhole.
"Mama . . . non mama the prima donna sang, and "Mama!", with a final burst of love triumphant, as she pressed the dishevelled daisy to her lips and lifted her large eyes to the sophisticated countenance of the little brown Faust-Capoul, who was vainly trying, in a tight purple velvet doublet and plumed cap, to look as pure and true as his artless victim.
Newland Archer, leaning against the wall at the back of the club box, turned his eyes from the stage and scanned the opposite side of the house. Directly facing him was the box of old Mrs. Manson Mingott, whose monstrous obesity had long since made it impossible for her to attend the Opera, but who was always represented on fashionable nights by some of the younger members of the family. On this occasion, the front of the box was filled by her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Lovell Mingott, and her niece, Mrs. Welland; and slightly withdrawn behind these brocaded matrons sat a young girl in white with eyes ecstatically fixed on the stagelovers. As Madame Nilsson's "M'ama!" thrilled out above the silent house (the boxes always stopped talking during the Daisy Song) a warm pink mounted to the girl's cheek, mantled her brow to the roots of her fair braids, and suffused the young slope of her breast to the line where it met a modest tulle tucker fastened with a single gardenia. She dropped her eyes to the immense bouquet of lilies of-the-valley on her knee, and Newland Archer saw her white-gloved finger-tips touch the flowers softly. He drew a breath of satisfied vanity and his eyes returned to the stage.
No expense had been spared on the setting, which was acknowledged to be very beautiful even by people who shared his acquaintance with the Opera houses of Paris and Vienna. The foreground, to the footlights, was covered with emerald green cloth.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements Introduction Edith Wharton: A Brief Chronology A Note on the Text
The Age of Innocence
Appendix A: Wharton’s Outlines
Appendix B: Wharton’s Correspondence About The Age of Innocence
Appendix C: Contemporary Reviews
- Edmund Wilson, “Edith Wharton” (1921)
- Vernon L. Parrington, “Our Literary Aristocrat” (1921)
- Henry Seidel Canby, “Our America” (1920)
- Carl Van Doren, “An Elder America” (1920)
- William Lyon Phelps, “As Mrs.Wharton Sees Us” (1920)
- Times Literary Supplement, “The Age of Innocence” (1920)
- Gilbert Seldes, “The Last Stand” (1921)
Appendix D: From “A Little Girl’s New York”
Appendix E: Wharton and Others on the Status of Women
- Theodore Roosevelt, “Women’s Rights; and the Duties of Both Men and Women” (1912)
- Carrie Chapman Catt, “Why the Federal Amendment?” (1917)
- Emma Goldman, “Marriage and Love” (1911)
- Edith Wharton, “The New Frenchwoman” (1919)
- Edith Wharton, “In Fez” (1920)
Appendix F: Ethnographic Discourse, Victorian to Modern
- Edward B.Tylor, from Primitive Culture (1871)
- John F. McLennan, from Primitive Marriage (1865)
- Sir James George Frazer, “Taboo” (1888)
- Sir James George Frazer, “Our Debt to the Savage” (1911)
- Edward Westermarck, from The History of Human Marriage (1903)
- Edward Westermarck, from The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas (1906)
- Franz Boas, “The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology” (1896)
- Elsie Clews Parsons, from Fear and Conventionality (1914)
- Bronislaw Malinowski, from Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922)
- Ruth Benedict, “The Science of Custom” (1934)
Appendix G: Wharton on Modernity and Tradition
- Notebook entry (c. 1918‒1923)
- From A Backward Glance (1934)
- From Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort (1915)
- From French Ways and Their Meaning (1919)
- From In Morocco (1920)
Select Bibliography
What People are Saying About This
Will writers ever recover that peculiar blend of security and alertness which characterizes Mrs. Wharton and her tradition?
Is it - in this world - vulgar to ask for more? To entreat a little wildness, a dark place or two in the soul?
There is no woman in American literature as fascinating as the doomed Madame Olenska... Traditionally, Henry James has always been placed slightly higher up the slope of Parnassus than Edith Wharton. But now that the prejudice against the female writer is on the wane, they look to be exactly what they are: giants, equals, the tutelary and benign gods of our American literature.
Reading Group Guide
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- Wharton's title was an allusion to a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds depicting a five-year-old girl. What light does this cast on Wharton's view of the world she was chronicling? Do you think the title is ironic?
- In the early outlines for this novel, Wharton played with the idea of having Newland break his engagement to May and marry Ellen; eventually the two separate and return to their own worlds. Why do you think Wharton, in the end, did not opt for this plot line? What, if she had, would have been different about the "message" of the book? What would you have ultimately thought of the characters?
- What does Wharton reveal about Old New York and about Newland Archer through the characters of Cynthia Mingott, Ned Winsett, Julius Beaufort, Mr. Welland, and Janey?
- Do you agree with Newland Archer that he missed "the flower of life"? What would this other life have been like, if he could have lived it without negative consequences to May or anyone else?
- The Age of Innocence contains both satire and nostalgia for for early twentieth-century New York society. What does Wharton find repellent about old New York? What admirable? How is the relationship between Newland and his son Dallas emblematic of the evolution of Old New York?