"A 'Said He' or a 'Said She'": Speech Attribution in Austen's Fiction

Abstract

THE SUBJECT OF THIS ESSAY is Austen's use of inquit tags or speech tags: in other words, hes or shes in passages of dialogue. Speech tags are, on the whole, fairly innocuous things, as they provide necessary signposting for readers making their way through written conversations. For many, they are barely visible elements of the reading experience. Speech tags, however, are also sites of stylistic concern and innovation. Writers have to decide with what frequency to use them, where to place the tag in relation to the direct speech (before, afterwards, or interruptively in the middle), which verbs to use (whether said, cried, exclaimed, shrieked, or gasped), and whether or not to accompany these verbs adverbially (said ardently, while rising from her seat) and so on. One of the very few stylistic observations that Jane Austen makes about her own writing concerns speech tags. She wrote to Cassandra about the recently published Pride and Prejudice: There are a few Typical errors--& a said he or a said she would sometimes make the Dialogue more immediately clear--but do not write for such dull Elves As have not a great deal of Ingenuity themselves.-(29 January 1813) What we seem to see in this letter is both anxiety and justification about missing hes and shes, or rather anxiety swiftly followed by justification. Austen's thoughts run from printer's errors to a potential authorial misjudgment, but concludes by shifting responsibility to the less able of readers. Fascinatingly, Austen seems to be grappling here with the risks took with the dialogue of Pride and Prejudice, dialogue that would become celebrated for its vivacious dramatic qualities. Frequently repeated speech tags caused dissatisfaction for writers long before Austen. In 1754 Marmontel disparaged the repetitions of lui dis-je, reprit-il, me repondit-elle in an essay in the Encylopedie and subsequently experimented with dashes and dots to mark the introduction of a new speaker (Mylne 5O). Samuel Richardson, as Austen would have known well, has his characters adopt dramatic layout in their letters to avoid such enervating repetition. In Sir Charles Grand#on (1753-54) Harriet Byron writes, By the way, Lucy, you are fond of plays; and is come into my head, to avoid all says-I's and says-she's, I will henceforth, in all dialogues, write names in the margin (1: 273). While Austen had some post-publication concern over missing attributions in Pride and Prejudice, seemingly this anxiety did not affect her commitment to non-attribution as a stylistic choice. Instead that commitment persists and intensifies in her subsequent work, such that in Mansfield Park, Austen increases the number of conversational turns governed by a single reporting clause. Furthermore, this feature of her writing--free direct discourse--converges interestingly with her more celebrated development of free indirect discourse. Innovative non-attribution is common to both. Austen's restrained use of speech tags in her mature novels can be explained, to some degree, by her excessive use of them in her early satire. Speech tags are a common source of comedy in her early writing. Austen seems to have seen and heard speech tags when read, and in the juvenilia, they are often portrayed as intrusive and affected. This practice is evident in the following example from Love and Freindship: My Father started--What noise is that, (said he.) It sounds like a loud rapping at the Door--(replied my Mother.) it does indeed. (cried I.) am of your opinion; (said my Father) certainly does appear to proceed from some uncommon violence exerted against our unoffending Door. Yes (exclaimed I) I cannot help thinking must be somebody who knocks for Admittance. (106) Here a high dramatic manner is initiated by Laura's father's starting at an unexpected noise. …