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(Auto)Biography and Fiction – Sommersemester 2007 Prof. Dr. Anton Kirchhofer Minutes April 26th 2007 Minute taker: Christina Beckers-Bunk

The session on April 26th dealt with two different prefaces to The Adventures of Rivella and to the fourth edition of 1724. Starting off with a discussion on the Frontispiece, we tried to figure out the constellation of characters in the prefaces, and to deal with the question of authenticity and perceived authenticity of the book by contemporaries:

1. Structure (Frontispiece, Title and Subtitle)

2. Characters

3. Authenticity

1. Structure

1.1 Rivella, p. 1 – The Frontispiece

The Frontispiece of “Rivella”, which appears in both editions we worked with, shows two men standing in a garden near a river. Considering the story told in the translator’s preface, which is also included in both editions, the two men were identified to be Mr. Lovemore and the Young Chevalier D’Aumont. The picture seems to illustrate their conversation in Summer-House-Garden, which is discribed in the preface. According to the latter this conversation is the origin of the books contents.

1.2 Title and Subtitle

Dealing with title and subtitle of the book, several questions arose which should recur during the following discussion:

• Wouldn’t people know that the ‘New Atalantis’ was written by Mrs. Manley?
• And conclude from this account, that she was also the author of ‘Rivella’?
• Which reasons would drive Manley and her publisher to cover up her identity?
• And why would they finally give up this camouflage in 1724?

As it is the intention of a heading to hint at the message of the text it titles, these questions kept resurfacing during the session, and shall be dealt with later on.

2. Characters

Talking about the characters, more questions emerged. To begin with, it seemed hard to identify different protagonists of the book, respectivly the introduction and their function:

• The Ambassador – according to the introduction he is the French ambassador
• Chevalier D’Aumont in London who brought along his son or nephew, the young Chevalier D’Aumont. Whether or not the ambassador himself and his younger relative were real or only a means of the frame narrative couldn’t be determined. To do so, one would be advised to check with the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (DNB). Arguing from within the text, we are to conclude that the ambassador was real as he is not listed in the key. On the other hand, it might not be of greater importance to clarify his authenticity. His – or rather – his young relative’s function seems to be to conceal the origin of the story told in the book and the identity of its author.
• A more important character, and even more drawn to speculation, is the figure of Rivella. As the subtitle of the book already indicates, Rivella is the author of The New Atalantis, a book which caused great discussion in 1709. The New Atalantis describes life on an island in the Mediterranean, which already makes one puzzle, as the author of this book claims to originate from that Island. The story of the life of Rivella is told to be set in England – a discontinuity which paves the way to the assumption that the general readership of The New Atalantis was aware of the fact, that this book was not describing the situation on this far removed Island but back home in England. And so does the Adventure of Rivella. Concerning Rivella several hints exist which point the way to the identity of its author: The most obvious would be the preface to the fourth edition. The printed corespondence between the publisher and Mrs. Manley is meant to reveal her authorship of the text. It also gives away the identity and function of another character we had troubles with, Mr. Charles Gildon: In her letters to the publisher Mrs. Manley asks to describe the life of the author of The new Atalantis herself – in reaction to the announcement of Mr. Gildon to write this ‘autobiography’. To prevent Gildon writing something unfavourable, Mrs. Manley feels pressed to write The advantures of Rivella. Aside from that, there are other hints which reveal Mrs. Manley to be the author of Rivella. For one, the name of Rivella might be the realisation of the second part of Manley’s christian name Delarivier. In Atalantis Manley calls her protagonist Delia. A contemporary critic used rivier to create‘Rivella, a name removed but yet identified with Manley to offend her.

Therefore The Adventures of Rivella are not solely linked to the New Atalantis but might also provide an answer to critique Manley had to face. Another hint to real identity of the author and Rivella is the fact that in the course of the book several passages from Manley’s plays are cited. To draw a conclusion: Even though we cannot be sure to identify Manley as the real author of Rivella, there are strong indications in favor such an argument. But obviously the question of authenticity and truth adds an important facette to the discussion of Rivella.

3. Authenticity Considering the two different prefaces to the book, we are facing two different histories of origins. The story of how the story made its way into the hands of the publisher in the 1715 preface is meant to blur traces: Young Chevallier D’Aumont heard the story of Rivella’s life from Mr. Lovemore – who knew her in person. Young Chevallier passed on this story to a translator. Whether this translator is identical with the publisher or how the story got into the hands of the publisher, isn’t told. But more important than the idea of reality within such a chain of passing down stories, is the question why one should mention and even line out such a questionable source of information. The reason for that could be rather simple: As we assumed, it was meant to hide the real author, as he – or in this case: she – might suffer sever consequences if her identity was to be revealed. The preface to the fourth edition of 1724 even strengthens this line of argument: Mrs. Manley died the same year, and after her death there was no reason to hide the identity of the author of Rivella respectivly The New Atalantis any longer. Considering this difficult attitude towars realtity and authenticity we were drawn to ask two major questions:

• Why was it neccessary for Manley to cover up her authorship?
• Were her contemporaries able to decipher her ‘codes’?

Discussiong the first question, it can certainly be stated that it is much easier to write freely for an unknown and somehow invisible author. As both books, The New Atalantis and Rivella presumably uncover some delicate information either of the contemporary socio-political system or individual politicians and parties, the author of such a book was exposed to hostilities from his/ her opponents. Considering the second question, we came to conlude that probably contemporaries were able to align Rivella to Mrs. Manley – and to identify some of the characters described in the books with people from real life. The key, published since the second edition, supports this theory, as it doesn’t give full names but only initials in some delicate cases. The assumption that contemporaries knew about the needs of an author to hide his/ her identity whenever he/she was writing something offensive to people in charge is also strengthened by the subtitle: Because the book is not only about Rivella herself, readers were able to conlude that Rivella was not the real name of the author. The pseudonym Manley chose to publish her recollections is a genre-convention which is indicated by these kinds of phrases.

To summarize the discussion of the different prefaces to Rivella it should be stated:

• the authorship of an (early modern) autobiography should be doubted as factors which we might not be able to identify might have caused necessities to hide the real identity
• in discussing autogigraphies, two different approaches could be chosen:

1. A definition of ‘autobiography’ must be established. That definition would then be applied to the texts we are going to read during the course of the seminar. This approach would yield an insight in a general genre of literature – but would eventually not be able to explain the function of autobiographies.

2. Departing from the assumption that all (auto)biographies are questionable in their claim of truth – even if the author was trying to be honest – can an author be objective after all? Therefore, taking uncertainty as a point of departure in the course of our seminar might lead us to an answer to the question, which elements appear to be certain to people of the time, which issues were to be discussed under which conditions, and finally, which role could a fictive autobiography play as a piece of literature.

To conclude the discussion, it was stated that Rivella is not a traditional biography as it uses public space and different devices to construct uncertainty to bring forward some other (political) causes.

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