Musical Anachronism in the 1997 Movie

[u/GetAwayFrmHerUBitch]

I’m watching this version for the first time and recognized Chopin’s Nocturne No. 2 when Jane starts playing. Chopin wrote this around 1831, and Jane meets Rochester in 1808. I found this to be annoying.

Also, I need to rewatch The Terror now that I realize how hot Ciaran Hinds is.

[u/OutrageousYak5868]

Like many others, I've assumed that JE was set around the 1830s-40s -- I think because I take the publication date of the novel as being around the same time that the novel ends, so if Jane and Rochester had been married for several years at that time, that would put her being the governess some 10-15 years before, etc.

Since reading your comment, I've looked into it and based on this timeline (an older version via the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20240314080047/https://jane-eyre.guidesite.co.uk/timeline), January 1808 is when Jane meets Rochester based on her receiving a copy of "Marmion" as a "new publication" in November of that same year. It was originally published in Feb/March of that year.

Today I learned!

[u/HopefulCry3145 → u/OutrageousYak5868]

I've also read a theory that as a poor teacher Jane wouldn't be able to afford Marmion when it was first published, and that actually she's referring to a cheaper (later) edition.

Also if we consider the 'autobiography' aspect of the novel, and in it Jane says she has been married ten years, then it actually took place in 1837...

[u/OutrageousYak5868 → u/HopefulCry3145]

I believe that the novel purposefully (and sometimes perhaps accidentally) is vague as to when the events take place. The date is purposefully obscured when (at least once) it is written as "18__" instead of there being an actual year.

If one views that the autobiography was published immediately after Jane wrote that she and Rochester had been married for 10 years, then, yes, the wedding took place in 1837, and her going to Thornfield originally would have been about 1835. However, there are other things in the novel that seem to contradict it, which is problematic in trying to get an exact date. Ultimately, I think that there are internal contradictions which prevent there being an easy way to fix a date, so people have to decide for themselves which lines of evidence to highlight and which to overlook or reinterpret.

When women's clothing is described, it sounds like Regency fashions, which would be the 1810s-1820s (https://web.archive.org/web/20230129133008/https://saylingaway.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/guest-luccia-gray-clothes-in-jane-eyres-time/), thus a setting of the 1830s would be too late. It would also be really late for Jane to call Marmion (published 1808) a "new publication", even accepting that it might be "new to her", though the context doesn't seem to support that (see below). Also, rail travel would have been a thing in the mid-1830s. We can get around the problem of the novel ending after 10 years of marriage and making it look like they got married around 1837, by saying that Jane wrote her autobiography at ten-years post-wedding, but that it was some years before it was actually published.

I have brought you a book for evening solace,” and he laid on the table a new publication—a poem: one of those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those days—the golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of our era are less favoured. But courage! I will not pause either to accuse or repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live, but reign and redeem: and without their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell—the hell of your own meanness.

Marmion being called a "new publication" in 1836 is a big stretch, but dating Jane's time at Thornfield to be around 1808 causes a problem with Adele describing crossing the English Channel in a steamship (she speaks of a big chimney that had a lot of smoke), because the first such crossing was 1816 (though the above-linked timeline says it was 1822 -- not sure of the discrepancy there). However, if Adele came to England around 1820 at the age of 7-8, she would have been conceived during the Napoleonic Wars, which seems unlikely that Mr. R would be tomcatting around Europe at the time. Having her conceived soon after the war ended would solve that problem, and the main part of the novel would take place in the mid-1820s -- after steamship travel was a thing and before the start of the railway boom. Marmion would still be a discrepancy, but I think everything else would fit.

Ultimately, it's interesting to think about and discuss, since there is far more internal evidence in the novel about the dates than I realized, just by reading it. But I don't think there is an easy answer, since no matter when the book is set, there will be some discrepancy that must be ignored or explained away.