Fanny Kemble (1809-93) was the niece of two Shakespearean tragedians, Sarah Siddons and Siddons's brother, John Philip Kemble. Her father and her French mother were also actors. In fact her whole extended family constituted the foremost theatrical dynasty of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Handsome and gifted, they crop up in letters and diaries throughout the period, and were generally regarded as a kind of royalty: a race apart.
The real competition for any biographer of Kemble is Kemble herself. As her friend Henry James noted: ¡°in two hemispheres, she had seen everyone, had known everyone¡±. What's more, she recorded it all in many volumes of vividly written memoirs, all swarming with people, criticism, social commentary, anecdote, scenery, political opinion and superb set-pieces: the digging of Brunel's Thames tunnel, for instance.
Kemble's memoirs, especially her ¡°Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation¡±, are as important historically as they are engrossing. But what fascinates us now is the way that Fanny, clever and reckless as she was, broke the rules¡ªor the way she appropriated and revised the role prescribed to her by gender politics. She never cared about such prescriptions. She spoke her mind and thought nothing of walking into a stream fully clothed if it was hot. It wasn't until her marriage that her gender collided with the realities of power and money. Though she was never intended for the stage, the looming bankruptcy of her father obliged her to try her chances. Overnight, she became the toast of London. Money flowed, and yet more on a tour of America, where she met a seductive young man, Pierce Butler, heir to huge rice and cotton slave-plantations in Georgia. Hoping to escape the shallow emotionalism of the theatre, assuming a companionship of equals and somehow managing to forget the slaves, she married him.
At a stroke she lost everything. Butler, deeply illiberal, exerted his rights. He appropriated her earnings, censored her writing and when she woke to the horrors of slavery, forbade her public opposition to it. She wept, she ran away, she returned. The birth of children, in whom she had no legal rights, further enchained her.
The rest of Kemble's life was sheer indomitability. The Butlers did divorce. She did lose the children. But on their majority, she recovered them. She made her own money again. Criss-crossing the Atlantic, she gave Shakespeare readings to packed audiences. Every summer, she climbed the Alps, startling the guides by singing loudly as she went. She met James in 1872 and he fell under her spell, fascinated by her proud idealism, her eccentric honesty and above all by her talk of ¡°old London¡±. ¡°She reanimated the old drawing rooms,¡± he wrote, ¡°relighted the old lamps, retuned the old pianos.¡± When at last she died, he felt it, he said, ¡°like the end of some reign or the fall of some empire¡±.
×¢£¨1£©£º±¾ÎÄÑ¡×ÔEconomist, 06/21/2007
×¢£¨2£©£º±¾ÎÄÏ°ÌâÃüÌâÄ£·Â¶ÔÏóΪ2003ÄêÕæÌâText 4¡£
1£® What is implied in the first paragraph?
[A] The Kemble family keep a lot of diaries and letters.
[B] Fanny Kemble was an actress of Shakespearean plays.
[C] This passage talks about Fanny Kemble.
[D] The Kemble family was once a royal family.
2£® The author uses Fanny¡¯s memoirs to show that _______.
[A] Fanny was a good biographer of herself.
[B] Fanny wrote biographers for others.
[C] Fanny competed with other biographers.
[D] Fanny knew everyone.
3£® The author¡¯s attitude towards Fanny Kemble is probably one of_______.
[A] strong hatred
[B] enthusiastic support
[C] mild satire
[D] objective
4£® Fanny decided to marry Pierce Butler for the following reasons EXCEPT _______.
[A] She did not want to be an actress anymore.
[B] She wanted to have a life company.
[C] She was attracted by the handsome Pierce Butler.
[D] She supported the slave system.
5£® The text intends to express the idea that _______.
[A] Fanny Kemble had a life of bad luck.
[B] Fanny Kemble didn¡¯t enjoy much during her life.
[C] Fanny Kemble had an optimistic attitude towards life.
[D] Fanny Kemble
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Hoping to escape the shallow emotionalism of the theatre, assuming a companionship of equals and somehow managing to forget the slaves, she married him.
Ö÷Ìå¾äʽ She married him.
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