How we cite our quotes: Possession: A Romance. London: Vintage Books, 1991.
Quote #4
His fate was decided by a seminar on dating. […] The dating handout contained a troubadour lyric, a piece of dramatic Jacobean verse, some satirical couplets, a blank verse meditation on volcanic mud and a love-sonnet. Blackadder, schooled by his grandfather, saw immediately that all of these poems were by Randolph Henry Ash, examples of his ventriloquism, of his unwieldy range. (3.15)
As we learn, Randolph Henry Ash's interest in history wasn't limited to natural history or socio-political history; he was also interested in the history of literary forms, and he made a habit of writing poems as though they had been written in various centuries before his own. In this, R. H. Ash shares something in common with A. S. Byatt herself, as Possession is chock-full of her attempts to "recreate" Victorian language and writing faithfully.
Quote #5
George's great-great-grandfather planted all this woodland, you know. Partly for timber, partly because he loved trees. He tried to get everything to grow that he could. The rarer the tree, the more of a challenge. George keeps it up. […] Woods are diminishing in this part of the world. And hedges too. We've lost acres and acres of woodland to fast grain farming. George goes up and down protecting his trees. Like some old goblin. Somebody has to have a sense of the history of things. (5.106)
Lady Joan Bailey's comments to Maud Bailey and Roland Mitchell help to develop one of Possession's most fascinating themes: the relationship between natural landscapes and the preservation of memory. As Lady Bailey suggests, Sir George's steady care for the woods surrounding Seal Court is a way of preserving physical remnants of British history.
Quote #6
My father, who suffered from what would now be called periods of clinical depression […] amused himself from time to time by allowing me to examine these treasures, to the cataloguing of which he devoted his more lucid days, somewhat unsuccessfully, since he could never establish any guiding principle as to how they should be ordered. […] 'Here, Morty, my boy,' he would say to me, 'here is History to hold in your hand.' (6.26)
More than any other character in Possession, Mortimer Cropper believes that the best way to preserve memories of the past is to collect objects from the past. Although the novel generally represents his acquisitiveness in a negative light, his instincts to collect and preserve aren't all that different from other characters' ways of keeping history alive.