> The name comes from a heroine of a Crabbe poem -- a young woman
> (described as a "meekly firm" by Crabbe) who refuses to marry a rich
> knight. And Crabbe's _Tales_ is one of the books in Fanny's collection.
> In both Crabbe & Austen it seems to be a simple (but powerful) irony:
> Fanny's fanny has no money price.
>.... the
> reverberations of echoes/quotes/allusions in MP to Marvell, Milton,
> Shakespeare, Johnson, Crabbe, Scott, and Cowper -- whose poem _The Task_
> reverberates all through the novel.
Cowper! Marvell! Now THAT is research. The Johnson and Milton and Shake stuff is reasonably patent, but _The Task_ is pretty tough going for us flibbertygibbet mod-rens. Sounds like a must-read.
I really like Mansfield Park -- if fact, when I'm asked what's my favorite of the immortal Jane's oeuvre, that's the one that always comes to mind -- and how the Janeites stare!
-- --Michael J. Smith --mjs at smithbowen.net
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org