Reading The Prime Minister at Olli at Mason: An Autumn Syllabus

The two friends, Susan Hamilton as the Duchess and Barbara Murray, as Mrs Flynn (The Pallisers 1974, BBC, scripted Simon Raven, Episode 20)

Philip Latham as the Duke wandering about on the grounds of Gatherum Castle, being told it is not for him to question what the Duchess is doing (Episode 20)

For a course at the Oscher LifeLong Learning Institute at George Mason University
Day: Wednesday, later afternoon, 2:15 to 3:40 pm,
Sept 22 to Nov 10
8 sessions online (location of building: Tallwood, 4210 Roberts Road, Fairfax, Va 22032)
Dr Ellen Moody

Stuart Wilson as Ferdinand Lopez visiting his friend, and business associate

David Riall as Sexty Parker (The Pallisers, Episode 20)

Description of Course:

The 5th Palliser refocuses us on Plantagenet & Lady Glen, now Duke & Duchess of Omnium, Phineas & Marie (Madame Max) Finn are characters in the story of the Duke & Duchess’s political education as he takes office and she becomes a political hostess. We delve practical politics & philosophies asking what is political power, patronage, elections, how can you use these realities/events. A new group of characters provide a story of corrupt stockbroking, familial, marital and sexual conflicts & violence. And what power have women? Trollope eschews the realities of most women’s lives and their political, economic and social activities during this period so we will also read as true contexts, selections from Susan Hamilton’s collection of Victorian Women’s Non-fiction writings, Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors: these writers are Anna Jameson,, Harriet Martineau, Francis Power Cobb, Eliza Lynn Linton, Margaret Oliphant, Helen Taylor, Millicent Garrett Fawcett and Mona Caird.

Required Texts:

Trollope, Anthony. The Prime Minister, ed., introd, notes. Nicholas Shrimpton. NY: OxfordUP, 20011. Or
—————————————–——————————–, ed., introd, notes David Skilton. NY: Penguin Classics, 1994.
There is a readily available relatively inexpensive audio-recording of the novel read by Timothy West; an earlier one by Simon Vance. West’s more genial ironic voice is the one many people say they prefer.

Strongly recommended:

Hamilton, Susan, ed. Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors: Victorian Writing by Women on Women. 2nd Edition Broadview Press, 2004. ISBN 978-1-55111-608-2. Available new from Amazon and used from various used bookstore sites.

Suggested supplementary reading or the best life-story and best handbook:

Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography and Other Writings, ed, introd., notes Nicholas Shrimpton. NY: Oxford Classics, 2014; see Trollope’s “A Walk in a Wood,” on my website online: http://www.jimandellen.org/trollope/nonfiction.WalkWood.html
Gerould, Winifred Gregory and James Thayer Gerould. A Guide to Trollope: An Index to the Characters and Places, and Digests of the Plots, in All of Trollope’s Works. 1948: rpt Princeton: Princeton UP, 1987 (a paperback)

I will discuss briefly at the opening of our session the 1974 BBC Palliser series, which covers all 6 Palliser novels in 26 episodes, and in general is more or less faithful. They may be found in older and recent digitalized form on Amazon; they also available to rent as DVDs from Netflix; each disk contains 3 or 4 episodes. There is a considerably abridged version on YouTube (4 hours) and one can find on YouTube single episodes here and there. The Prime Minister in the full version (26 episodes) begins at Episode 20 and ends at 23. It is only four episodes of all 26 as one of two majors stories, Wharton and Lopez is cut, and ends quite differently. I think this abridgement and new ending a sort of contemporary take and will discuss it at in our last session. You do not need to have seen any of these, but if you can manage to see some, these are splendid experiences and can add considerably to your enjoyment and understanding of Trollope’s Parliamentary novels as a story about the Pallisers and Phineas Finn primarily.

Ferdinand has to apply to Brewster Mason as his father-in-law, Mr (Abel) Wharton for money (Episode 22)

The Duke with Sheila Keith as Lady Rosina DeCourcy escaping and talking of cork sole boots (Episode 22)

Format: The class will be a mix of informal lecture and group discussion. You don’t have to follow the specific chapters as I’ve laid them out; I divide the book to help you read it, and so we can in class be more or less in the same section of the book. I hope everyone will be interested in women in the era as part of the context of this book, but you do not have to read the selections from Hamilton, I will tell what is in them and discuss the issues brought up. Similarly you don’t have to read the on-line essays and columns by Trollope (but they are very good), my own, and others. I will again tell what’s in them — they will form part of our background for topics brought up by The Prime Minister. It’s entirely up to you what you’d like to do, if anything, beyond reading The Prime Minister. Please for the first week, read The Prime Minister, Chapters 1-9 and if you like, in Hamilton, Anna Jameson’s “The Milliners.”

Sept 22: 1st week: Introduction: Trollope’s life and career. The Barchester and Parliamentary or Palliser novels. “The Woman Question.” Read for coming week, Prime Minister, Chapters 10-18 and in Hamilton, Martineau, “Female Industry,” and Trollope’s “The Young Women at the Telegraph Office,” on my website at: http://www.jimandellen.org/trollope/nonfiction.TelegraphGirls.html

Sept 29: 2nd week: The two stories: their connections and subtexts. Read for next time, PM, Chs 19-27. In Hamilton, Margaret Oliphant, “The Grievances of Women” and Trollope’s “The Uncontrolled Ruffianism of London” on my website: http://www.jimandellen.org/trollope/Ruffianism.html

Oct 6: 3rd week: For next time, PM, Chs 28-35. Courtney C. Berger, “Partying with the Opposition: Social Partying as Politics in the Prime Minister,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 45:3 (fall 2003):315-336.

Oct 13: 4th week: For next time, PM, Chs 36-44. In Hamilton, Frances Power Cobbe, “The Education of Womem” “Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors,” “Wife Torture in England.”

Oct 20: 5th week: For next time, PR, Chs 45-53. On Trollope’s politics conventionally considered: Trollope’s Duke of Omnium and the Pain of History: A Study of the Novelist’s Politics,” Victorian Studies 24 91981):204-227.

Oct 27: 6th week: For next time, PM, Chs 54-62. In Hamilton, Mona Caird on “Marriage.” Barbara Gates, “Victorian Attitudes Towards Suicide and Mr Tennyson’s “Despair,” Tennyson Research Bulletin, 3:3 (1979):101-110; and my essay, ”On Inventing a New Country: Trollope’s Depiction of Settler Colonialism,” Antipodes, 31:1 (2017):89-119.

Nov 3: 7th week: For next time, finish the book, PM, Chs 63-80. Helmut Klinger, “Varieties of Failure,” The Significance of Trollope’s Prime Minister,” English Miscellany, 23 (1972):167-83. The last of the Hamilton selections: Mona Caird on “Marriage.”

Nov 10: 8th week: We will cover the fourth volume of the book, the 4 episodes in Simon Raven’s Pallisers, and the relationship of Trollope and Henry James (as in his novella, Washington Square) and Ferdinand Lopez. I will discuss with the class the last of the Palliser novels, The Duke’s Children (Palliser 6) and if they would like next fall, a return to the Barchester novels, The Last Chronicle of Barset and Joanna Trollope’s The Rector’s Wife.

For after the class is over, I will send on for those who are interested, the URL to my Ellen Moody, “Trollope on TV: Simon Raven’s Adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s Parliamentary Novels,” Victorian Literature and Film Adaptation, edd. Abigail Bloom and Mary Pollock (NY: Cambria Press, 2011) online at: https://www.academia.edu/6438191/Trollope_on_TV_Simon_Ravens_adaptation_of_Anthony_Trollopes_Parliamentary_novels_as_the_Pallisers

Sheila Ruskin as Emily realizing whom she has married, her mistake (Episode 22)

The Duchess at night, hard at work, nervously tired of “shaking hands and smiling” (Episode 22)

Recommended outside reading:

Godfrey, Emelyne. Masculinity, Crime and Self-Defence in Victorian Literature: Duelling with Danger. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Halperin, John. Trollope and Politics: A Study of the Pallisers and Others. Macmillan Press, 1977.
Harvie, Christopher. The Centre of Things: Political Fiction in Britain from Disraeli to the Present. London: Unwin, 1991.
Kincaid, James. The Novels of Anthony Trollope. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975. Old-fashioned close reading of the novels. One of the best general books on Trollope’s novels.
McMaster, Juliet. Trollope’s Palliser Novels: Theme and Pattern London: Macmillan, 1978
Mill, John Stuart, The Subjection of Women. Broadview Press, 2000. Online at: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/mill/john_stuart/m645s/
Moody, Ellen. “Trollope on TV: Simon Raven’s Adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s Parliamentary Novels,” Victorian Literature and Film Adaptation, edd. Abigail Bloom and Mary Pollock (NY: Cambria Press, 2011) online at: https://www.academia.edu/6438191/Trollope_on_TV_Simon_Ravens_adaptation_of_Anthony_Trollopes_Parliamentary_novels_as_the_Pallisers
Steinbach, Susie. Understanding The Victorians: Culture and Society in 19th century Britain. London: Routledge, 2012.
Snow, C. P. Trollope: An Illustrated Biography NY: New Amsterdam Books, 1975. A fairly short well written biography, profuse with illustrations and a concise description of Trollope’s centrally appealing artistic techniques.
Vicinus, Martha. Independent women: Work and Community for Single Women, 1850-1930. Virago, 1985. See my summary and analysis: https://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/martha-vicinuss-independent-women-work-community-for-single-women-1850-1930/
Wilson. A.N. The Victorians. NY: Norton, 2003. The chapter on chartism provides the best explanation I’ve read for the movement, who were its leaders, the body of people, and why they failed to secure universal suffrage (who and what got in the way).

Donal McCann as Phineas Finn defending the Duke in Parliament (Episode 23)

The Duchess and Roger Livesay as the Duke of St Bungay conferring as coalition comes to an end: considerable relief (Episode 23)