Young discusses Alice's life as having two separate parts. As Caroline Alice Roberts, she was the daughter of a lady, extremely well educated, intelligent and career driven. Alice was a published writer long before she had even met Edward Elgar. Her two most well known works were Isabel Trevithoe (an epic love story from which some poems were drawn and set to music by Elgar) and Marchcroft Manor, a novel considered to be the high point of her literary career (After she married Elgar, her ambitions were of course overshadowed and she did not write another novel). Sidenote: In an article by Diana McVeagh, she compares the lives and emotions of the characters in Marchcroft Manor to Alice's own emotions and view of what she wanted in a partner and husband.
My favorite part of Young's book is his inclusion of many of Alice's poems (before and during her marriage) adjacent to what was actually occurring in her life at the moment she wrote them. He also gives an analysis of some of the poetry and perhaps her inspiration for writing them. Something that has become clear to me is that Alice's writing was an of emotional outlet for her. Young discusses poems she wrote after major life events, including the death of her brother, her meeting Elgar and subsequent piano accompaniment lessons, and also the geriatric care of her mother.
Young discusses throughout the book Alice's sort of radical view point about the changes necessary in the structure of society. Young analyzes many of her works and concludes that her viewpoints are evident through the characters and circumstances within the works. For instance, he says "In The Portrait, a long short story, and in Isabel Trevithoe, written two years later, the theme of the young woman of gentle birth distinguishing herself by a concern for intellectual and social issues, is quite extensively developed."(pg 70). He also goes on to discuss her self portraiture through her characters in her writing and also the characterization of her ideal husband.
When Alice met Elgar, he was traveling back and forth to Malvern from Worcester to give lessons. At the time he was a young violinist and violin teacher, but also gave piano forte accompaniment lessons. A brief account from the coachman who used to drive Alice into the Malvern for lessons said that he thought "there was more in it than music." (page 86). Soon after meeting Elgar, alice wrote the poem An Admonition against Despondency which is surely about Edward. The poem is written seemingly to uplift someone from a state of depression.
In the chapter entitled The Consolation of Music, Young digs deep into Alice's true feelings while in the dating -phase of her relationship with Elgar. If her poems have anything to do with her true feelings (and Young believes it so), she was in a state of sadness for much of the time before she and Elgar were engaged. All of her poems are in such deep devotion to the subject (Elgar), using such words as "dear and beloved," "May pleasant gifts of earth be thine,"and "My dear friend, be thine to find some paradise of light." It is very clear through her poetry that Alice was deeply in love with Elgar, and also apparent is her family's apprehension about the relationship. Elgar was after all, a poor musician and branded by the family piano forte business which carried their name. I really enjoyed the way that Young traces Alice's life through her writing. Alice was known to keep her feelings to herself in person, but clearly her true thoughts emerged in her writing.
After their marriage and the birth of their daughter, Alice began to realize their rather destitute position and she began to put all her energy into her husbands career, and their song writing duo marriage. It was at this point in the book where Young included personal correspondence between Alice and Edward which was attached to poems and music. I was actually not surprised to learn that they spoke baby talk to each other and went so far as to write it out, which is of course, forever preserved in history. This babytalk included things such as "For my Beloved's bootful music. Will dis do?" This may be going too far, but the fact that Alice is so much older than Elgar and they spoke baby talk to each other are very interesting pieces to a confusing puzzle of Elgar's sexuality.
Young discusses an interesting change in Alice's life during her marriage. As Elgar became more well known, she began to emerge from the somewhat social disgrace she had placed on herself by marrying him (which, as Young points out, was a sort of victory in her mind over her family who doubted her choice of husband) and she also continued to write even though her husband no longer really included her poetry in his works. Towards the end of Elgar's greatest creative period, Alice had less time to write, but when she did write it was mostly sad writing. Young briefly discusses Alice's family responsibility as a source of frustration, but could these sad poems also have arisen from Elgar's friendships with other women? it was well known that Edward had many moods that were understood not only by Alice. Young makes it clear that Alice kept her sorrows to herself, probably because she saw her husbands sorrows as more important. We read in class that Alice could have possibly condoned Elgar's relationship with other women. Young points out that she did this out of sacrifice for his own depression. When Rosa Burley visited them, he was always in better spirits. Young says "Alice asserted satisfaction at such visits in her diary. She went along with her solemn duty to preserve the integrity of the genius she had married, or the genius whom through marriage she may have made. "(page 176)
Young concludes that by marriage, Alice gave up her own ambitions and substituted them for Edward's because she saw it as her duty. He says that Alice was so strictly adherent to the social "code" set forth by her military father and dutiful mother that she destroyed her own personality. It seems that Elgar may have become bored of her, and she even bored of herself. This story really is a sad one, because Alice really did what she was supposed to do as a wife in the Victorian era. Perhaps she gave too much of herself?
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