The Ongoing Appeal of English Comic Fiction

"Timely and Timeless" is a phrase that, almost by definition, applies to many works of English literature that we have today come to call "classics." Notable examples of such timely timelessness include Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers, and Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. While all we great sensations in their day, and are inextricably linked to their respective times and places, all are still widely read and enjoyed today. Their passage of this "test of time" illustrates how even a time period so idiosyncratic as nineteenth century England can produce literature of everlasting importance. This is largely because that literature deals not only with issues of contemporary importance, but ones that go to the very core of the human condition.

To be sure, each of the novels fly the colors of nineteenth century England proudly. While stratified societies are more the norm than the exception in world history, England presents a unique case, particularly in the years preceding the twentieth century. As Ian McKendrick points out in his book, The Birth of a Consumer Society, England's classes tended to butt up against each other more than the social strata present in, say, France. This provided a bait of sorts, encouraging Englishmen and women to strive for a higher position. This scrambling for class is ever-present in the literature of the day. To cite but a few examples, note young Pip's stumbling attempts to become a gentleman, the high talk of Mr. Darcy and his 10,000 pound-a-year income, and Mr. Slope's pursuit of the widow Eleanor Bold. In all cases, a search for greater wealth and respectability lurks just behind the words.

Of course, these novels struck at some things central to the very act of living, most notably the slings and arrows of courtship. Jane Austen recognized the basic and timeless quality of this eternal struggle in the opening lines of Pride & Prejudice, words that have become famous throughout the English language: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

True then and true today, as Donald Trump's legion of ex-wives will no doubt testify. Indeed, there is much in these novels that transcends age. Pip's failure to accept objective reality throughout Great Expectations is common to all cultures to some degree, and few of us can honestly view his courtship of the lovely ice queen Estella without a particularly humiliating sort of recognition. The problem of hypocritical clergy, so central to Barchester Towers, has been a fixture of popular literature at least since the middle ages; indeed, it seems like that , as long as there have been gods, there have been those who abused their service to them. And of course, Mr. Darcy's haughty first appearance in Pride & Prejudice, wherein he blithely insults Elizabeth, would be equally at home in Aramaic or Ancient Greek as in English.

While obviously products of their time, each work remains widely read, loved, and adapted today. A certain romantic fondness for England alone cannot explain this. The works of Austen, Trollope, and Dickens speak to something basic in man, and for this reason they remain among the honored corpus of Classic Literature.