Publication Date
Fall 2024
Presentation Length
15 minutes
College
College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences
Department
History, Department of
Student Level
Undergraduate
Faculty Advisor
Peter Kuryla
SPARK Session
History
Presentation Type
Talk/Oral
Summary
1813 was a big year for Chatsworth, although no one living there knew it. In theory, it was a year like any other. William George Spencer Cavendish, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, had inherited the estate from his father two years prior, and just a year ago had made an impressive purchase of the entirety of the Bishop of Ely’s library–his book-adoring mother, of course, would be proud. William had no marital prospects, nor would he ever. In thirteen years, he would begin work with famous architect Joseph Paxton. Unbeknownst to twenty-three-year-old William, this partnership would result in some of the most iconic structures and innovations to come from the Chatsworth estate.
A two-day walk away (if one prefers to walk like Lizzy Bennett) in London, the very first copies of Pride and Prejudice were hot off the printing press. It had been over a decade since Jane Austen had first penned the story, and it would be another century before the first movie adaption was released in 1940. Since then, seventeen movies have been based off of the iconic novel, the two most famous having been released in 1995 and 2005.
This leaves a particularly difficult query to answer: which Pride and Prejudice movie adaptation would the 6th Duke prefer? Would it be the 1995, the truer-to-text version for our book-loving friend? Or would the charm and Chatsworth of 2005 win the Bachelor Duke over?
Important, impossible questions aside, William George Spencer Cavendish and the brooding Fitzwilliam Darcy have more in common than what first meets the eye. They both are resistant to love; Cavendish ends up being somewhat defined by this resistance, but Darcy goes down in literary history as the romantic goal. How many Austenites have “I’m looking for my Mr. Darcy” somewhere on their Pinterest board, I wonder? Both men have an inherent relationship to books and literature. Cavendish inherits his mother’s love for a well-stocked library, and Darcy, of course, is a fictional character who exists within the confines of a book itself. And, most importantly for the existence of this exhibit, both men call the Chatsworth estate their home. (Even though Mr. Darcy calls it Pemberley. He doesn’t actually live there, it’s just a filming location.)
The goal of the exhibit is to compare and contrast the 6th Duke of Devonshire and Mr. Darcy, centered around Chatsworth in the year 1813. The nature of information will be that the exhibit will transcend just a singular year, but everything should draw back to those two ideas: place and time. The Duke and Darcy will be framed as whole individuals, and viewers of the exhibit will hopefully be inspired to come to their own conclusions about what it means to be romantic and Romantic.
Recommended Citation
Kapsch, Elizabeth, "A Home for Literature" (2024). SPARK Symposium Presentations. 117.
https://repository.belmont.edu/spark_presentations/117
Included in
Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Art and Architecture Commons, European History Commons, Fiction Commons, Historic Preservation and Conservation Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Museum Studies Commons, Public History Commons, Theory and Criticism Commons, Women's History Commons
