Plot and Characters in Possession by A.S. Byatt
Description of Plot and Characters Contributed by Participants in SeniorLearn's Discussion of Possession
The letters suggest a possible relationship between Ash and Christabel LaMotte, a minor poet, hitherto unknown.
This sets Roland on a quest to see if there are more letters from those who might know, Leonora Stern and Maud Bailey. This takes them to Seal Court, the Bailey seat where they find because of a verse on a doll, a hidden cache of letters. but Sir George insists he have somebody advise him on them. Thus endeth Chapter 5.
Expert in Randolph Ash Felt Ash "neither liked nor understood women, that his female speaker were constructs of his own fear and aggression, that even the poem cycle Ask to Embla was the work not of love but of narcissism, the poet addressing his Anima." Page 16.
State of somnolence, sick juddering wakefulness, worry about Val, pg 11; Graduate of Prince Albert College, London and PhD from same at 29.
Thought of himself as a latecomer. Grew up in a depressed Lancashire cotton town. Father: County official, Mother: disappointed English grad, disappointed in herself, his father and in himself. She drank. Kept changing Roland's schooling. A's at A level. Saw himself as a failure and vaguely responsible for this. Essentially unemployed, part-time tutoring, dogsbodying for Blackadder, and restaurant dishwashing. Compact, clearcut, precise features, soft black hair, thoughtful dark brown eyes. Paid little attention to what people thought of him. Women liked him. Val called him Mole? Met her when 18 years old. Pg 14
Dissertation: "History, Historians and Poetry? A Study of the Presentation of Historical "Evidence" in the Poems of Randolph Henry Ash." Page 11 Roland's index cards - one set of grassy green, the other tomato-red. Page 6 "Oxford Selected Ash" - book Roland carried page 10.
Val
lives with Roland, works in the city, resists pressure to "specialize" in one type of job or another. Seems bitter. I don't see that she got a degree, did she?
Lived in a basement room called a garden flat with Roland. Not allowed to enter the garden. Quarreled seldom with Roland - usually about Val's reserve, refusal to advance opinions. The more success Roland had the less she said. Wrote her required essay "Male Ventriloquism: The Women of Randolph Henry Ash." Examiners had thought wrongly that Roland had done the work. Pg 16 Was from Croydon, mother divorced, drinker. Father in Merchant Navy - hadn't seen him since five. Pg 16 Val left Roland, he was glad, then she came back, took course in shorthand-typing.
Became the breadwinner. Academic typing at home, various temp jobs during the day. Called her work "menial." Two Vals - one sat silent at home in old jeans the other made up for day job. Not constructed to be attractive. She didn't like Fergus.
Maud Bailey, PhD
Lincoln University professor, has a lot of Christabel's unpublished papers, runs a Women's Resource Centre in Lincoln.
Had an affair with Fergus. Pg 39 Expert on Christabel LaMotte. Wrote essay - see below.
Most untouchable woman, trustworthy.pg 55
Taller than Roland. Roland thought of her as green and white. Had a Green Beattle car. Green towels, green sheets, white divan. pg 63 Lived at top of Tennyson Towers. Pg 45
Contents of Christabel's desk sent to one of her cousins May Bailey upon her death. Maude is great-great-grandaughter of May and great-great-great-great niece of Christabel. Pg 46
Leonora Stern, PhD
Tallahassee, PhD, knows all there is known about Christabel along with Maud. Sir George Bailey threatened her with a gun, pg 47.
Fergus Wolff, PhD
Tells the story of Melusina and its connection with Christabel's poem/ interpretation of the same name.
Roland's rival in Blackadder's Ash Factory. Pg 17 Got job Roland had applied for. Roland afraid Fergus might think him resentful., pg 18 Tall, brassy hair cut long on top and short at the back. Bright blue eyes, white teeth. Pleasant enough in general. Roland liked Fergus because Fergus seemed to like him. Pg 37 Writing a deconstructive account of Balzac's "Chef-d'Oeuvre Inconnu.
Expert on Christabel LaMotte because of an affair he had with Maud., pg 39
The new feminists "see Melusina in her bath as a symbol of self-sufficient female sexuality needing no poor males."
Mortimer Cropper, PhD
Stant Collection, working on "The Complete Correspondence of Randolph Henry Ash." Page 4. Trustee of Newsome Foundation page 13.
F. R. Leavis
Downing College, Cambridge Don: real person, former instructor of Byatt. . Showed the "terrible, the magnificent importance and urgency of English literature and simultaneously deprived him of any confidence in this own capacity to contribute to or change it." page 32.
James Blackadder, PhD
Trained in literature by Leaves who "showed him the terrible, the magnificent importance and urgency of English literature and simultaneously deprived him of any confidence in his own capacity to contribute to or change it." (32) Wrote his thesis on Randolph Henry Ash's poems.
Writing "Complete Works of Ash." Discouraged and liked to discourage others, stringent scholar. Blackadder's Ash Factory, operated from British Museum on a small grant from Newsome Foundation in Albuquerque, charitable trust. pg 11,13.
A Scot, pg 13 Thought British writings should stay in Britain and be studied by British. Thought Cropper trying to worm his way into confidence and goodwill of owners of manuscripts lodged within, but not owned by, the British Library, pg 13.
54 years old, Downing College, Cambridge. Saw examples of Ash's ventriloquism - became an expert on Ash. PhD "Conscious Argument and Unconscious Bias: A Source of Tension in the Dramatic Poems of Randolph Henry Ash." Pg 32
Thought often of how a man becomes his job., pg 33. Blackadder allowed himself to see clearly that he would end his working life in this task, that all his thoughts would have been another man's thoughts, all his work another man's work. But he did find Ash fascinating. It was a pleasant subordination, if he was a subordinate., pg 33
Paola
Blackadder's clerical assistant. Long colorless hair, huge glasses.
Dr. Beatrice Nest
"Helpmeets" was her book - doesn't go down well with today's feminists. Studying Ellen Ash. Feminists believe Ash suppressed Ellen's writing. Beatrice spent 25 years wanting to show how self-denying and supporting Ellen was. Found that no one cared - they wanted proof that Ellen was raging with rebellion, pain, and untapped talent.
Sir George Bailey
Seal Court, Croysant le Wold. Not willing to let anyone look for info on Christabel., pg 47
Joan Bailey
Wheelchair incident, pg 81-83 Lives at Seal Court.
Fictional poet, body vanished? Pg 24.
Christabel Madeleine LaMotte -fictional poet 1825 Never married. Had house in Richmond in Surrey shared with woman friend Miss Blanche Glover. Pg 41. She is undertaking a grand Fairy Topic. Tapping spirits, pg 29 Wrote religious poems "Last Things" and children's stories "Tales Told in November". Page 36 Wrote "The Fairy Melusina." Pg 38 Tragedy and romance and symbolism rampant all over it, a kind of dream-world full of strange beasts and hidden meanings and a really weird sexuality or sensuality. Wrote insect poems, pg 43 Wrote "Glass Coffin" pg 52 Birdlike. Pale crimped hair, generic Victorian lady, pg 44
Reputation rests on restrained and delicate lyrics, products of a fine sensibility, a somewhat somber temperament, and a troubled but steadfast Christian faith., pg 42
Lived with Sophie for rest of life after Blanche drowned. Pg 42 Feminists saw her as distraught and enraged.
Ellen Ash
Gave many of Ash's poems to British Museum, pg 13 Childless, pg 30
Crabb Robinson
Real person and Ash met at breakfast at his house. Kept a Diary -had hoped to be a writer but deciding he lacked the ability he kept a diary of interviews he had with famous authors. Recorded breakfast party where Ash and LaMotte met. They had questioned LaMotte about the tapping spirits - she declined to express an opinion. Pg 29
Mr. Isidore LaMotte
Born 1801. Cambridge. Mythographer. Wrote "Mythologies indigenes de la Bretagne et de la Grande Bretagne" and "Mythologies francaises." Scholarly comendium of folklore and legends., pg 33 Parents Jean-Baptiste and Emilie LaMotte. Married Miss Arabel Gumpert. Two daughters: Sophie, 1830, wife of Sir George Bailey of Seal Close, Croysant le Wold; Christabel, 1825, never married. Lived with young woman friend, Blanche Glover.
Blanche Glover
Lived with Christabel LaMotte, artistic ambitions. Oil paintings, wood carvings. Drowned in Thames in 1861, pg 42 Wrote a diary - pg 46 "A Journal of Our Home-Life, In Our House in Richmond." Pg 49 Wrote about Robinson breakfast - read aloud a little of the Faerie Queene. Irritated that Cristabel is spending so much time on letter writing, pg 52 Letters kept from her - I am not a blind mouldiwarp. Not her governess. A prowler? Where is our frankness of intercourse? This Peeping Tom - I know nothing, I never have known very much, but I fear for her. The Wolf is gone from the door. Then the diary ends abruptly. Pg 54 No evidence to connect the Prowler with Ash. Leonora Stern thinks Prowler is Mr Thomas Hearst of Richmond who played the oboe with the ladies. Blanche was jealous. Pg 55
Giovanni Battista Vico (real person)
1668-1744 Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian and jurist. His magnum opus is titled Principi di Scienza Nuova
The work is explicitly presented as a 'Science of Reasoning' and includes a dialectic between axioms and reasonings linking and clarifying the axioms Vico is often claimed to have inaugurated modern philosophy of history.
Relying on a complex etymology, Vico argues that civilisation develops in a recurring cycle of three ages: the divine, the heroic and the human. Each age exhibits distinct political and social features and can be characterised by master tropes or figures of language. The giganti of the divine age rely on metaphor to compare and thus comprehend human and natural phenomena. In the heroic age, metonymy and synecdoche support the development of feudal or monarchic institutions embodied by idealised figures. The final age is characterised by popular democracy or reflection via irony: in this epoch, the rise of rationality leads to barbarism of reflection, and civilisation descends once more into the poetic era. Taken together, the recurring cycle of three ages - common to every nation - constitutes for Vico a storia ideale eterna or ideal eternal history.
Vico's work was poorly received during his own life but has since inspired a cadre of famous thinkers and artists including: Benedetti Croce, James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, Bertrand Russell, Samuel Beckett, Isaiah Berlin, Giovanni Gentile, Erich Auerbach, Jose Faur, Northrop Frye, Harold Bloom, Julius Evola, Edward Said, Marshall McLuham etc.
Jan Swammerdam (real person)
(1637-1680) 17th century Dutch microscopist, made major discoveries in medicine and anatomy. Above all, he made a decisive contribution to the development of biology and a materialist understanding of nature.
His greatest contribution to biology was his understanding of insect development and his demonstration that the same organism persists through its various stages. Using meticulous dissections and careful experimentation, he showed the errors of spontaneous generation and laid the basis of the modern understanding of development.
His science was profoundly marked by his mystical and emotional response to nature, which sometimes entered into contradiction with his avowed "experimental philosophy" and even led him to abandon science for a period. It has also been argued that this led him to put forward the idea of "preformationism".
Plot
Roland, looking for sources for Ash's Garden of Proserpina, finds some letters in an old book in the London Library (supposedly however all the letters were returned to Christabel, these are apparently drafts). Lots of gold in this segment, the linking of Proserpina, Aeneas and Hercules.The letters suggest a possible relationship between Ash and Christabel LaMotte, a minor poet, hitherto unknown.
This sets Roland on a quest to see if there are more letters from those who might know, Leonora Stern and Maud Bailey. This takes them to Seal Court, the Bailey seat where they find because of a verse on a doll, a hidden cache of letters. but Sir George insists he have somebody advise him on them. Thus endeth Chapter 5.
Dramatis Personae
Roland Mitchell, PhDExpert in Randolph Ash Felt Ash "neither liked nor understood women, that his female speaker were constructs of his own fear and aggression, that even the poem cycle Ask to Embla was the work not of love but of narcissism, the poet addressing his Anima." Page 16.
State of somnolence, sick juddering wakefulness, worry about Val, pg 11; Graduate of Prince Albert College, London and PhD from same at 29.
Thought of himself as a latecomer. Grew up in a depressed Lancashire cotton town. Father: County official, Mother: disappointed English grad, disappointed in herself, his father and in himself. She drank. Kept changing Roland's schooling. A's at A level. Saw himself as a failure and vaguely responsible for this. Essentially unemployed, part-time tutoring, dogsbodying for Blackadder, and restaurant dishwashing. Compact, clearcut, precise features, soft black hair, thoughtful dark brown eyes. Paid little attention to what people thought of him. Women liked him. Val called him Mole? Met her when 18 years old. Pg 14
Dissertation: "History, Historians and Poetry? A Study of the Presentation of Historical "Evidence" in the Poems of Randolph Henry Ash." Page 11 Roland's index cards - one set of grassy green, the other tomato-red. Page 6 "Oxford Selected Ash" - book Roland carried page 10.
Val
lives with Roland, works in the city, resists pressure to "specialize" in one type of job or another. Seems bitter. I don't see that she got a degree, did she?
Lived in a basement room called a garden flat with Roland. Not allowed to enter the garden. Quarreled seldom with Roland - usually about Val's reserve, refusal to advance opinions. The more success Roland had the less she said. Wrote her required essay "Male Ventriloquism: The Women of Randolph Henry Ash." Examiners had thought wrongly that Roland had done the work. Pg 16 Was from Croydon, mother divorced, drinker. Father in Merchant Navy - hadn't seen him since five. Pg 16 Val left Roland, he was glad, then she came back, took course in shorthand-typing.
Became the breadwinner. Academic typing at home, various temp jobs during the day. Called her work "menial." Two Vals - one sat silent at home in old jeans the other made up for day job. Not constructed to be attractive. She didn't like Fergus.
Maud Bailey, PhD
Lincoln University professor, has a lot of Christabel's unpublished papers, runs a Women's Resource Centre in Lincoln.
Had an affair with Fergus. Pg 39 Expert on Christabel LaMotte. Wrote essay - see below.
Most untouchable woman, trustworthy.pg 55
Taller than Roland. Roland thought of her as green and white. Had a Green Beattle car. Green towels, green sheets, white divan. pg 63 Lived at top of Tennyson Towers. Pg 45
Contents of Christabel's desk sent to one of her cousins May Bailey upon her death. Maude is great-great-grandaughter of May and great-great-great-great niece of Christabel. Pg 46
Leonora Stern, PhD
Tallahassee, PhD, knows all there is known about Christabel along with Maud. Sir George Bailey threatened her with a gun, pg 47.
Fergus Wolff, PhD
Tells the story of Melusina and its connection with Christabel's poem/ interpretation of the same name.
Roland's rival in Blackadder's Ash Factory. Pg 17 Got job Roland had applied for. Roland afraid Fergus might think him resentful., pg 18 Tall, brassy hair cut long on top and short at the back. Bright blue eyes, white teeth. Pleasant enough in general. Roland liked Fergus because Fergus seemed to like him. Pg 37 Writing a deconstructive account of Balzac's "Chef-d'Oeuvre Inconnu.
Expert on Christabel LaMotte because of an affair he had with Maud., pg 39
The new feminists "see Melusina in her bath as a symbol of self-sufficient female sexuality needing no poor males."
Mortimer Cropper, PhD
Stant Collection, working on "The Complete Correspondence of Randolph Henry Ash." Page 4. Trustee of Newsome Foundation page 13.
F. R. Leavis
Downing College, Cambridge Don: real person, former instructor of Byatt. . Showed the "terrible, the magnificent importance and urgency of English literature and simultaneously deprived him of any confidence in this own capacity to contribute to or change it." page 32.
James Blackadder, PhD
Trained in literature by Leaves who "showed him the terrible, the magnificent importance and urgency of English literature and simultaneously deprived him of any confidence in his own capacity to contribute to or change it." (32) Wrote his thesis on Randolph Henry Ash's poems.
Writing "Complete Works of Ash." Discouraged and liked to discourage others, stringent scholar. Blackadder's Ash Factory, operated from British Museum on a small grant from Newsome Foundation in Albuquerque, charitable trust. pg 11,13.
A Scot, pg 13 Thought British writings should stay in Britain and be studied by British. Thought Cropper trying to worm his way into confidence and goodwill of owners of manuscripts lodged within, but not owned by, the British Library, pg 13.
54 years old, Downing College, Cambridge. Saw examples of Ash's ventriloquism - became an expert on Ash. PhD "Conscious Argument and Unconscious Bias: A Source of Tension in the Dramatic Poems of Randolph Henry Ash." Pg 32
Thought often of how a man becomes his job., pg 33. Blackadder allowed himself to see clearly that he would end his working life in this task, that all his thoughts would have been another man's thoughts, all his work another man's work. But he did find Ash fascinating. It was a pleasant subordination, if he was a subordinate., pg 33
Paola
Blackadder's clerical assistant. Long colorless hair, huge glasses.
Dr. Beatrice Nest
"Helpmeets" was her book - doesn't go down well with today's feminists. Studying Ellen Ash. Feminists believe Ash suppressed Ellen's writing. Beatrice spent 25 years wanting to show how self-denying and supporting Ellen was. Found that no one cared - they wanted proof that Ellen was raging with rebellion, pain, and untapped talent.
Sir George Bailey
Seal Court, Croysant le Wold. Not willing to let anyone look for info on Christabel., pg 47
Joan Bailey
Wheelchair incident, pg 81-83 Lives at Seal Court.
Cast from the Past
Randolph Henry AshFictional poet, body vanished? Pg 24.
Christabel Madeleine LaMotte -fictional poet 1825 Never married. Had house in Richmond in Surrey shared with woman friend Miss Blanche Glover. Pg 41. She is undertaking a grand Fairy Topic. Tapping spirits, pg 29 Wrote religious poems "Last Things" and children's stories "Tales Told in November". Page 36 Wrote "The Fairy Melusina." Pg 38 Tragedy and romance and symbolism rampant all over it, a kind of dream-world full of strange beasts and hidden meanings and a really weird sexuality or sensuality. Wrote insect poems, pg 43 Wrote "Glass Coffin" pg 52 Birdlike. Pale crimped hair, generic Victorian lady, pg 44
Reputation rests on restrained and delicate lyrics, products of a fine sensibility, a somewhat somber temperament, and a troubled but steadfast Christian faith., pg 42
Lived with Sophie for rest of life after Blanche drowned. Pg 42 Feminists saw her as distraught and enraged.
Ellen Ash
Gave many of Ash's poems to British Museum, pg 13 Childless, pg 30
Crabb Robinson
Real person and Ash met at breakfast at his house. Kept a Diary -had hoped to be a writer but deciding he lacked the ability he kept a diary of interviews he had with famous authors. Recorded breakfast party where Ash and LaMotte met. They had questioned LaMotte about the tapping spirits - she declined to express an opinion. Pg 29
Mr. Isidore LaMotte
Born 1801. Cambridge. Mythographer. Wrote "Mythologies indigenes de la Bretagne et de la Grande Bretagne" and "Mythologies francaises." Scholarly comendium of folklore and legends., pg 33 Parents Jean-Baptiste and Emilie LaMotte. Married Miss Arabel Gumpert. Two daughters: Sophie, 1830, wife of Sir George Bailey of Seal Close, Croysant le Wold; Christabel, 1825, never married. Lived with young woman friend, Blanche Glover.
Blanche Glover
Lived with Christabel LaMotte, artistic ambitions. Oil paintings, wood carvings. Drowned in Thames in 1861, pg 42 Wrote a diary - pg 46 "A Journal of Our Home-Life, In Our House in Richmond." Pg 49 Wrote about Robinson breakfast - read aloud a little of the Faerie Queene. Irritated that Cristabel is spending so much time on letter writing, pg 52 Letters kept from her - I am not a blind mouldiwarp. Not her governess. A prowler? Where is our frankness of intercourse? This Peeping Tom - I know nothing, I never have known very much, but I fear for her. The Wolf is gone from the door. Then the diary ends abruptly. Pg 54 No evidence to connect the Prowler with Ash. Leonora Stern thinks Prowler is Mr Thomas Hearst of Richmond who played the oboe with the ladies. Blanche was jealous. Pg 55
Giovanni Battista Vico (real person)
1668-1744 Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian and jurist. His magnum opus is titled Principi di Scienza Nuova
The work is explicitly presented as a 'Science of Reasoning' and includes a dialectic between axioms and reasonings linking and clarifying the axioms Vico is often claimed to have inaugurated modern philosophy of history.
Relying on a complex etymology, Vico argues that civilisation develops in a recurring cycle of three ages: the divine, the heroic and the human. Each age exhibits distinct political and social features and can be characterised by master tropes or figures of language. The giganti of the divine age rely on metaphor to compare and thus comprehend human and natural phenomena. In the heroic age, metonymy and synecdoche support the development of feudal or monarchic institutions embodied by idealised figures. The final age is characterised by popular democracy or reflection via irony: in this epoch, the rise of rationality leads to barbarism of reflection, and civilisation descends once more into the poetic era. Taken together, the recurring cycle of three ages - common to every nation - constitutes for Vico a storia ideale eterna or ideal eternal history.
Vico's work was poorly received during his own life but has since inspired a cadre of famous thinkers and artists including: Benedetti Croce, James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, Bertrand Russell, Samuel Beckett, Isaiah Berlin, Giovanni Gentile, Erich Auerbach, Jose Faur, Northrop Frye, Harold Bloom, Julius Evola, Edward Said, Marshall McLuham etc.
Jan Swammerdam (real person)
(1637-1680) 17th century Dutch microscopist, made major discoveries in medicine and anatomy. Above all, he made a decisive contribution to the development of biology and a materialist understanding of nature.
His greatest contribution to biology was his understanding of insect development and his demonstration that the same organism persists through its various stages. Using meticulous dissections and careful experimentation, he showed the errors of spontaneous generation and laid the basis of the modern understanding of development.
His science was profoundly marked by his mystical and emotional response to nature, which sometimes entered into contradiction with his avowed "experimental philosophy" and even led him to abandon science for a period. It has also been argued that this led him to put forward the idea of "preformationism".
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