Jane Austen is a master literary technician. How does Jane Austen use the literary technique, the device, the figure of speech, zeugma? And what is zeugma? The lecture provides examples (from Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, & Sense and Sensibility) and analysis of Jane Austen’s uses of zeugma in her novels.
KEYWORDS english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen northanger abbey jane austen sense and sensibility english literature analysis jane austen zeugma literary technique literary device figure of speech jane austen pride and prejudice jane austen zeugma
hello i'm dr octavia cox and welcome to
my channel where i do all things classic
literature
in this video today i'm going to be
looking at a literary technique that is
particularly utilized by jane austen
it's a technique that she is incredibly
adept at i think and that is zhugma
so i'm going to provide some examples
and analysis of jane austen's zyugma
jokes from pride and prejudice north
anchor abbey and sense and sensibility
and i'm going to suggest the effects of
these
zeugma jokes so what the zoomatic
construction achieves so i hope that
this video will be both fun
and interesting who who doesn't love a
good joke especially a very tightly
constructed one
first things first we need to ask
ourselves what is zhugma
derives from the greek for uh yoking
zuma is where two
or more
words are yoked together to
um being governed by a separate other
word
it's usually a verb
but not always so the oxford dictionary
of literary terms defines zygma as a
figure of speech by which one word
refers to two others in the same
sentence
i would add at least two others
a figure of speech by which one word
refers to two at least
others in the same sentence a very
typical example of zougma is from
alexander pope's poem the rape of the
lock
the five-counter version of which was
published in 1714
and
this use of zygma is pope uh describing
queen anne and her governance at hampton
court palace
and the couplet reads here so at hampton
court palace thou queen anne great anna
whom three realms obey
dust sometimes counsel take
and sometimes tea
so alexander pope's zhugma here applies
to the verb take
which governs both council and tea
so the words council and tea are yoked
together
through the word take
and takes counsel
and anne takes tea
and what this yoking together does what
this zyugma does
is it puts the two things in direct
comparison with one another
taking counsel from her statesman so
something
serious you would hope is aligned with
something as
trivial as ordinary as every day as
mundane as taking tea
the zygomatic joke then asks readers to
think about how
seriously
or trivially
and takes both
or either
so how does jane austen use this very
popular very mock epic literary
technique of zeugma in her novels
i'm going to look first at pride and
prejudice and start with a classic
example
so when elizabeth bennett and mr darcy
are walking in front of mr and mrs
gardner in the grounds at pemberley
elizabeth is struggling to know what to
say
and the text reads yet time and her aunt
moved slowly and her patience and her
ideas were nearly worn out before the
teta tete was over
and there's double zegma here as if one
was not enough we've got double here the
moving of time
and
mrs gardner
both of those are slow
and because of the slow moving of her
aunt and time lizzie bennet has almost
worn out both her patience and her ideas
for conversational topics so the two uh
uses of zeugma here are
the moved slowly which governs both time
and her aunt and the worn out which
governs both her patients and her ideas
and as an additional
point here in terms of analyzing jane
austen's beautiful
construction her
how highly wrought her texts are i think
the extended hyphen here grammatically
links her
lizzy's slow-moving aunt
and her patients
creating
a a chiastic a a mirroring
way of reading the sentence so chiasmus
comes from the greek for crossing over
so a chiastic structure is one one
like that which is um sort of a b b a
where the middle bits relate to each
other and the the end bits relate to
each other uh either in a sentence or in
a line of poetry it's a very
also like zumbo zugma it's also a very
popian
construction form
so here the b so the middle part is at
which is linked with
literally linked with the hyphen
the b part is her aunt moving slowly
wearing out her patience
and the a part so at the outer outer
side at the slow moving of time
wearing out her ideas another example
from pride and prejudice which i think
is more
deliberately provocative for readers
asking them to think more about what is
being yoked together and why it's being
joked together is used to describe the
thinking of lady lucas
about her daughter charlotte lucas who
is now mrs collins so the text reads
lady lucas was inquiring of mariah
mariah is
another another daughter sister of
charlotte lady lucas was inquiring of
mariah after the welfare and poultry of
her eldest daughter
so the zebra here is that lady lucas is
inquiring after charlotte's welfare and
charlotte's poultry so her her chickens
her geese her ducks uh her domestic
birds that she keeps for eggs
and for eating
so sh so lady lucas allied's the
the serious so charlotte's welfare
surely the greatest concern
of any parent the welfare of their
children
and especially
for charlotte at this time given her new
situation in life as the wife of mr
collins
in a new house in another part of the
country surrounded by new people
um and lady lucas has not visited
charlotte in her new house yet so she's
getting all her information from mariah
so
you would hope that this would be
serious
lady lucas asking about her daughter's
welfare with all these great big changes
that have happened to her
but lady lucas seems to allied the
serious same charlotte's welfare
and
the more trivial so her poultry
situation
on a more
profound
level what jane austen's use of zhugma
here might encourage
is for the reader to consider how much
of a woman's welfare
in this period relied on
her
mundane
you might say trivial domestic concerns
it's
funny
but it's also rather tragic i think that
lady lucas seems to consider the two to
be equivalents
to be
relational and jane austen achieves this
through having lady lucas think or
representing lady lucas's thinking to us
readers
through zyugma
i'm now going to consider two examples
from northanger abbey so at the end of
the very opening chapter chapter one
where the allens proposed taking
catherine moorland to bath
with them but the text reads
mr and mrs moreland were all compliance
and catherine
all happiness
and what this
does at the end of the first chapter is
prefigure the idea that
yoking together comparisons
is going to play an important part in
the rest of the novel that follows
because what catherine morland almost
constantly does in the novel is try to
navigate the world
bath and north anger
by comparing reality with fiction
gothic novels in particular
there is a confusion of analogies in
catherine moorland's mind throughout the
novel jane austen represents catherine's
confusion of analogies in northanger
abbey through a rhetoric of comparison
or drawing of likenesses between
disparate things
and this is beautifully encapsulated
i think in the zoomer and alliteration
of the narrative voices description of
catherine moreland's thinking in this
quotation
so this quotation i'm about to unpick a
bit more is when
she so catherine morland is in bath and
she has been forced on a carriage ride
with john thorpe having been convinced
that the tilneys have stood her up
for their proposed walk so the text
reads she meditated by turns on broken
promises and broken arches fatans and
false hangings till knees and trapdoors
this is such a wonderfully constructed
tightly wrought sentence where catherine
is meditating by turns on reality and
the gothic on reality and fiction so in
terms of the sentences balance
so first in each comparison is is the is
the reality or the real world so the
broken promises phaetons and tilneys
these are all linked together these
parts of the real world phaeton's
because
catherine has been told by by the
thoughts that the tilneys have gone for
a carriage ride in their phaeton which
is a type of carriage
thus breaking their promise to go on a
walk with her
so the first then is the reality or the
real world
part um and in the second part of each
comparison is the gothic
imagery the fictional imagery so the
broken arches the false hangings and the
trapdoors
so emphasizing in this triplicate that
catherine's mind is constantly veering
between
fiction and reality i mean literally
we've got reality fiction reality
fiction reality fiction three times in
one sentence she bounces between those
so jane austen also uses alliteration to
kind of enhance the comic
element but also to draw
comparisons better to draw comparison so
we've got the b sound of the broken
promises and broken arches the f sound
of phaetons and false hangings and the t
sound of tilneys and trap doors
the
zhugma is highlighted in the repetition
of the word broken catherine meditated
on broken
promises and broken
arches
figuratively then in this eugma she
meditates on both
sort of fiction and reality equally and
furthermore
a broken promise
is a figurative break
and a broken arch is a
physical
break in a ruined crumbling gothic
castle for example you might have a
broken
crumbling arch
there is an ironic reversal then of the
real world described using figurative
language so broken promises in the real
world
and the fictional world
so the the
the world of ruined castles
described using physical imagery so
broken arches
all of which
shows the jumble
that's kind of going on in catherine's
imagination at this moment
my final example is from sense and
sensibility
in the very final chapter of the novel
we are told of the happy couple eleanor
and edward ferrers that
they had in fact nothing to wish for but
the marriage of colonel brandon and
marianne
and rather better pastries for their
cows
eleanor and edward wish for the marriage
and for better pasturage
pasturage meaning the fields
and
or the grass that
they're grazing
livestock feed on
in other words eleanor and edward would
like better farmland
not
just similarly to the lady lucas example
from pride and prejudice with her
concern for welfare and poultry
jane austen uses you zugmer here to
jokily link together the serious so the
welfare of marianne and colonel brandon
and the comically domestic
better pasturage
but
sense and sensibility in many ways is a
deeply
darkly
cynical
book
and i wonder if there is some latent
cynicism in jane austen's zyugma here
colonel brandon after all is the master
of the delaford estate
and their patron
he is the owner of delaford parsonage
the home of eleanor and edward
ferris
does
austin or austin's narrative voice
yoke the two together
so hoping for the marriage of her sister
and their landlord
and the hope of better pastorage
grazing land for their cows
in order to suggest that they they hope
there might be a direct link between the
two
that the former
might lead to
the latter
or at least that the first might
encourage
the the last
of course colonel brandon is a good
moral man
but
he might
be more inclined to do even more
uh to
well even more than he otherwise might
to improve his lands
if his wife's sister
depends on that improvement
does the text imply then that there
might be a very selfish reason
along with other more generous spirited
reasons for eleanor and edward ferris to
hope for the marriage of marianne and
colonel brandon
i'll leave it to you to decide
in her use of zhugma then jane austen
often yokes together the
the serious and the trivial in order to
kind of joke about
how
how we move through life and how we
navigate the serious and the trivial
but
although often and at first it's jokey
i do think that underneath the jokes
is
a desire in austin's narrative voices to
challenge the reader to think about
how
each part of an element of zhugma
relates to the other thank you very much
indeed for watching remember if you like
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zyugma and the way that jane austen uses
it do you have any of your own examples
of jane austen's use of zebra if so
leave them in the comments below
