Lionel Trilling
MANSFIELD PARK
Sooner or later, when we speak of Jane Austen, we speak
of her irony, and
it
is better to speak of it sooner rather than later
because nothing can so far mislead us about her work as a wrong
understanding of this one aspect of
it.
Most people either value
irony too much or fear
it
too much. This is true of their response
to irony in its first simple meaning, that of a device of rhetoric
by which we say one thing and intend its opposite, or intend more,
or less, than we say. It is equally true of their response to irony in
its derived meaning, the loose generalized sense in which we speak
of irony as a quality of someone's mind, Montaigne's for example.
Both the excessive v,aluation and the excessive fear of irony lead us
to misconceive the part it can play in the intellectual and moral life.
To Jane Austen, irony does not mean, as it means to many, a moral
detachment or the tone of superiority that goes with moral detach–
ment. Upon irony so conceived she has made her own judgment in
the figure of Mr. Bennet of
Pride and Prejudice,
whose irony of
moral detachment is shown to be the cause of
his
becoming a moral
nonentity.
Jane Austen's irony is only secondarily a matter of tone. Primar–
ily it is a method of comprehension. It perceives the world through
an awareness of its contradictions, paradoxes, and anomalies. It is
by no means detached. It is partisan with generosity of spirit-it is
on the side of "life," of "affirmation." But it is preoccupied not
only with the charm of the expansive virtues but also with the cost
at which they are to be gained and exercised. This cost is regarded
as being at once ridiculously high and perfectly fair. What we may
call Jane Austen's first or basic irony is the recognition of the fact
that spirit is not free, that it is conditioned, that it is limited by cir-
