Jean Webster & Adelaide Crapsey

[osprey_archer]

As you may recall, some time ago I posted about discovering a blog about female literary friendships which was accepting guest posts. “I could write about Jean Webster and Adelaide Crapsey,” I mused.

Jean Webster wrote Daddy-Long-Legs - which I feel is long overdue a new film adaptation, one that focuses more on her intellectual development, although there would be the problem of adapting the romance to suit a modern audience. Adelaide Crapsey, meanwhile, invented the cinquain. You may have read her poems without knowing it: she’s often anthologized.

November Night

Listen…
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.

I wonder if I could read some of these with my coven of fourth-graders. Frost-crisp’d would undoubtedly perplex them.

ANYWAY. I wrote the essay, and it has been posted! Go feast your eyes upon its magnificence.

Comments

[missroserose]

MY DUDE. That's an amazing essay! (And an adorable author photo, too.) Thanks for sharing it! I think we far too often study writers (especially female writers, sigh) alone and don't consider them in the context of their culture and friendships (which are usually dismissed as frivolous gossip), when it's precisely that sort of frivolous gossip that makes them human! And often informs their writing, too, because we're human and relationships are such an integral part of who we are.

[osprey_archer]

I still feel a low-key sense of mourning because the shirt I wore in that photo wore out. Goodbye, beloved shirt!

There's definitely a tendency to focus on female writers as Sole Exceptions, or to focus on their relationships with men & downplay those with women; apparently there's an argument that Charlotte Bronte & Elizabeth Gaskell weren't that close, never mind Gaskell WROTE A BOOK about Bronte. I mean come on. Even Hemingway only devoted a few chapters to F. Scott Fitzgerald, but no one's denying they're friends.

(Hemingway got mad at Scott when Scott had a nervous breakdown and then wrote a series of articles about it. Didn't Scott realize that real manly men never mention their weaknesses in public??? Hemingway made snide remarks about this not only in letters but in print, which evidently hurt Scott's feelings, and you know if they had been female writers people would be all over "Cattiness! They were never really friends in the first place!" but because they are guys... everyone knows Hemingway & Scott were totally bros.)

[nineveh_uk]

Nice essay! I'd not heard of Crapsey before.

I would love a good film adaptation of Daddy Long-Legs that focussed on it as a Bildungsroman and Judy's opportunity for intellectual growth and discovery. I think that it would be entirely possible to adapt the romance in a way that audiences found non-cringy, if the will were there. Cast a Jervis who is young - the plot really doesn't require him to be any older than 26/27 at the start of the book if he started putting orphans through college when he started college himself - and show his own developing awareness that he's messed this one up.

[osprey_archer]

I was discussing somewhere else the idea that Daddy-Long-Legs would make a great vlog adaptation, a la the Lizzie Bennet Diaries; the story is already cut up into bite size pieces in the form of Judy's letters, and her personality and verve would easily translate into a great screen presence. That doesn't solve the Jervis problem, of course, but there has to be some way to make that work for modern audiences... Certainly I think laying plenty of emphasis on the Bildungsroman parts would help, and I think most adaptations have actually focused far more on the romance, so it would be a new angle.

[asakiyume]

That is a really lovely essay, and somehow I didn't know--though probably you've even said--about their early deaths. It's really sad! I think it's great that Jean managed at least to get Adelaide's one poem published, for Adelaide to enjoy, before her death, and I think it's great that their friendship was strong enough to withstand the difference in levels of success (and health) that came their way.

[osprey_archer]

I think Jean got the poem accepted but not actually in print before Adelaide died - but even that is better than nothing, right? (Although who knows if that did much to assuage Adelaide's frustration at her inability to fulfill her calling during her lifetime.)

I'm still turning over the idea of doing cinquains with the kids in my head. The problem is that the structure is less set than haiku - not as easy to explain as counting syllables - I think trying to explain that it's about the pattern of stresses may be too much. On the other hand, "the lines get longer & longer & longer & then - pop!" is pretty self-explanatory. What do you think?

[asakiyume]

I think you could definitely do cinquains with your kids--I have a memory of doing them in school. I seem to recall being given a very clear-cut explanation of how to construct them [searches online] ... okay, that's because we were taught what Wikipedia terms the "didactic cinquain"--I remember the -ing line in the middle.

... But I think there'd be a way of avoiding something quite that formulaic, maybe especially if you had examples.

[osprey_archer]

Reading the description of the didactic cinquain gives me a strong feeling that I learned about cinquains this way, too, although I can't remember when or where. That's actually not a bad idea: I might give that a try.

Or I could just throw a few of Crapsey's cinquains at them and see what they come up with. That might work too.

[asakiyume]

I like "the lines get longer and longer and then *pop*" very much--I think kids could have fun with that.

[amaebi]

Nice! Thanks!

I knew almost nothing about Crapsey.

I finally read Webster's The Wheat Princess. In my view the weakest of her novels, but still interesting.

Have you read the Patty books? Or Dear Enemy? Dear Enemy might be easier to make a Bildungsroman movie of-- aside from the eugenicism. But I think that would be pretty easy to cut.

[osprey_archer]

The Wheat Princess is the only one that I have yet to read. I find it hard to believe that it's even weaker than The Four Pools Mystery, but anything is possible.

I've read both the Patty books and Dear Enemy. I think the Patty books would make amazing miniseries, as they're pretty much loosely linked mostly comical short stories - one half-hour episode per chapter, probably. As for Dear Enemy - I think it would be easier to adapt than Daddy-Long-Legs (and you could just cut the eugenics stuff), but I'd hate to just leave Daddy-Long-Legs by the wayside. Judy's such a great character; there has to be some way to deal with the romance plot that won't make modern audiences O.o

[amaebi]

Oh, I forgot about the Four Pools Mystery! I used to have a copy, but never read it, and then I lost it in the Flood of the Frozen Pipes!

I think the Patty books would work awfully well, though I wonder how the sociology of the all-women's college of the period would go over.

Agreed on Dear Enemy. The doctor's secretiveness about his past wife and present children, if any retained, could just be sorry about the wife, and reluctance to explain disabled children.

I wouldn't want to lose Judy, either. Your suggestion about something like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries seems sound, as does your suggestion about making Jervis younger-- but what about making the story a more obvious Bildungsroman for Jervis, through Judy, as well?

[osprey_archer]

I'm sure someone would complain about the demographics of Patty's college, but someone's always going to complain about something, and if the producers are clever they can arrange it so people complain that there's too much diversity while actually keeping it at a more or less historically accurate level. There were already Japanese exchange students in women's colleges at this time (I think the first ones went to Bryn Mawr in the 1880s); you could also have a smattering of students from Latin America (like Rita, the Cuban cousin in Three Margarets - not a college book, but from the same time period).

Heck, you could even have a black student: Vassar graduated its first black student in 1897 (though she was passing as white at the time: here's the Wikipedia article). Smith graduated an openly black woman in 1900, and there were two others in the class after hers.

Re: Daddy-Long-Legs: on the one hand, giving Jervis more room to grow might help the audience warm to him; but on the other hand, I'd hate to shift the focus away from Judy as much as might be required to make that happen.

[amaebi]

Oh, my, I hadn't been thinking about the Whiteness, about which, yeah, your solutions are perfect. I was thinking of all the sweethearting among the women students, not that the Pattys are particularly rife with it.

Go women's college with their more successful Bronson Alcotting!

I was thinking that Jervis would have a lot of easy of-courses of wealth, unconsciously, and get them made visible by Judy, thus keeping the spotlight on Judy. Or, oh, he could give up mansplaining, which I'm sure he felt entitled to as man, elder, and secret patron.

I forgot about Jerry Junior, and don't remember! I've never read Jerry! Much Ado bout Peter is a complete mystery to me!

And I don't know Three Margarets and hadn't heard of it or its author.

[osprey_archer]

Is there are Jerry? Unless Wikipedia is cruelly misleading, I think Jean Webster only ever wrote a Jerry Junior. (IIRC the character actually appears first in Just Patty - he's the member of the Yale Glee club that the girls all have a crush on, and it seems like maybe Patty accidentally traded suitcases with him on the train, but then alas it turns out it was someone else suitcase.

[amaebi]

I was going from covers on Gutenberg. I bet Just Jerry was republished as (just) Jerry. Whew.

It was long, long ago when I read it, and I hadn't remembered that he appeared in the Patty books, from which (of course) Patty appears most clearly.

I think I haven't ate unpacked my Websters, but rereads are clearly in order.

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, well done! That's great!

[osprey_archer]

Today: a blog. Tomorrow: the world!

[kore]

Oh very nice!

[osprey_archer]

Thank you!

[littlerhymes]

That is a lovely essay, congrats! I hadn't known about this friendship... did you uncover any others when you were researching your thesis?

[osprey_archer]

Oh, yes! I'm actually going to write two more essays about even more obscure writers: one about Josephine Preston Peabody (a poet) and her friend the children's book author Abby Farwell Brown, and another about children's book author Annie Fellows Johnston and her writing group.

I also found a copy of Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona with a lengthy eulogistic essay by Susan Coolidge (of What Katy Did fame) which was about not only their friendship, but Jackson's genius for friendship in general (she managed to be friends with Emily Dickinson, which is quite a feat), but I didn't buy the book and now it is lost forever.

[littlerhymes]

I know nothing about Peabody and Brown, or Johnston, so I will look forward to reading about them!

Oh gosh that's a sad literary tale of the one that got away. I hope it turns up again on one of your bookhunting trawls, I love Coolidge but know very little about her and her friendships.