How we cite our quotes: Possession: A Romance. London: Vintage Books, 1991.
Quote #7
I did know, that I had a Papa who told better Tales than any other Papa—or Mama—or nursemaid—that could possibly be imagined. Now, he was in the habit of talking to me some of the time—when his tale-telling fit was upon him—as though he were the Ancient Mariner […]—But some of the time he would talk as though I were a fellow-worker in the field, a fellow-scholar, erudite and speculative—and he would talk in three or four languages—for he thought in French—and English—and Latin—and of course in Breton. (10.85)
Christabel LaMotte's letters to Randolph Henry Ash reveal that she owed much of her early education to her father, the folklorist Isidore LaMotte. Through him, it seems, she gained her lasting love of stories, language, literature, and literary study.
Quote #8
Great Galileo, with his optic tube
A century ago, displaced this Earth
From apprehension's Centre, and made out
The planet's swimming circles and the Sun
And beyond that, motion of infinite space Sphere upon sphere […] (11.14)
On top of taking a sometimes satirical look at academic life in the late twentieth-century, Possession also explores the ways in which new knowledge can force whole societies to see themselves differently. In his poem about the biologist Jan Swammerdam, Randolph Henry Ash reflects on the enormous stir—and serious controversy—that was caused by Galileo's astronomical discovery that the Earth orbits the sun.
Quote #9
I don't think you can imagine, Miss Bailey, how it was then. We were dependent and excluded persons. In my early days—indeed until the late 1960s—women were not permitted to enter the main Senior Common Room at Prince Albert College. We had our own which was small and slightly pretty. Everything was decided in the pub—everything of import—where we were not invited and did not wish to go. (12.117)
Beatrice Nest's experience makes it clear that universities aren't simply ivory towers of higher learning: they're also political institutions that reflect the realities (including the ideologies and injustices) of the world around them. As Maud Bailey knows all too well, those ideologies and injustices may also determine what is taught in universities, and how.