The Duchess: Preview and Q&A at the JBFC
Excerpts of a Q&A with producer Gabrielle Tana, author Amanda Foreman, and NY Times critic Janet Maslin following a preview screening of The ...
Why we're in the grip of medieval mania
Why, at different times, do readers start showing an interest in one period of history rather than another? Ten years ago, the fashion in fiction, history, film and television dramatisations seemed to lie between the late Georgian period and the late Victorian – from Amanda Foreman’s The Duchess and Alan Bennett’s The Madness of King George to Sarah Waters’s Victorian romps. A couple of years ago, everything was Austerity Chic, and you could hardly move in a bookshop for some tale of rationing, snoek curry and hard winters.
It’s never easy to account for fashion, but perhaps some real factors have contributed to the reading matter of 2010. This last year has seen a world-wide fear of a destructive plague, in the shape of swine flu. The court of our leader has grown increasingly suspicious, withdrawn and riddled with the sort of plots usually termed Byzantine. The coffers are empty, and an expensive foreign war against parts of the Muslim world has to be paid for somehow. It all sounds a little bit medieval, and that is what we’ve been reading about.
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
Born on June 7th 1757, the eldest child of John, 1st Earl Spencer, Georgiana married Britain’s most eligible bachelor, William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire on her seventeenth birthday. In her fascinating biography, Amanda Foreman postulates the theory that Georgiana was in love with the idea of being in love, that she assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that William was like her father: outwardly reserved due to shyness, but with depths of sensitivity and warmth once you got to know him. But William was a cold fish at 24, and saw little reason to change the lifestyle he’d been used to merely because he had acquired a wife. He continued to spend many a night at the gaming table with friends, and to see his mistress, and left Georgiana to organise her own social diary, only requiring her to host political meetings at home in Chatsworth occasionally, and to produce a male heir. At the time it was not considered for a married couple to be seen out together too much.
When she was 20, Georgiana wrote a novel in which she describes the life of a naive country girl who falls for a wealthy aristocratic rake and marries him when she is just seventeen. Any similarities with persons living or dead is purely intentional. The heroine’s life is portrayed as “a continual bustle without having literally anything to do”. The extravagent styles of the time meant that hours were spent merely dressing for dinner, and more hours dressing the hair in huge towering styles topped with feathers, fruit or even a sailing ship. These styles were quite perilous, sometimes catching fire on the chandeliers, and uncomfortable for the women who had to crouch on the floor of their carriages to accomodate the big hair.
But Georgiana herself found plenty to do. Apart from her literary aspirations – not only the novel, but also poetry and co-operation with the playwright Sheridan - she was active as leader of fashion and society, as political hostess and as campaigner for the Whig party, and later in life she also built a museum standard collection of minerals. If she nevertheless found her life a little empty and became addicted to gambling, then I think it’s quite forgivable. As she said herself years later: “Before you condemn me, remember that at 17 I was a toast, a beauty and a Duchess, and wholly neglected by my husband.”
...Amanda Foreman - News
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Ask Ausiello: Spoilers on 'Gossip Girl,' 'House,' 'Lost,' '24,' and more! Ask Ausiello: Spoilers on 'Gossip Girl,' 'House,' 'Lost,' '24,' and more!The episode — which scores bonus points for including both Felicity's Amanda Foreman and Everwood's Tom Amandes in memorable guest roles — also features a and more » |
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Shared heritage and sadness Based on Amanda Foreman's 1998 best-selling biography, Georgiana: Duchess Of Devonshire, the film concentrates on only about 10 years in Georgiana's life, |
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I had another dream, only this one was bad, and it involved David Lyons . . . The last time I saw Amanda Foreman she was on Private Practice performing an unscheduled home caesarean on Violet. Whereas tonight on ER she plays a woman |
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One to Watch: Chloe Schama Schama's book has garnered praise from Amanda Foreman : the author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire says, "I finished the book with regret, wanting more. |
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Most Popular Stories WBA junior middleweight champion Yuri Foreman will defend his title against former welterweight champion Miguel Cotto on June 5 at Yankee Stadium, and more » |
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