Adams's Accents

Kirk Ellis, one of John Adams's writers is jumping into TNR's exchange on the series, and provides some insight into the provenance of the accents on display in the series:

Steve, you also inquire as to origins of the "hybrid accents" we use in the series. From the beginning, we wanted to emphasize that independence was a battle between British Americans and their brethren in England, not, as so often depicted, a conflict that pitted Crown officers with plumy Oxonian accents against patriots with full-blown American dialects. All our research pointed to the fact that, in written and spoken speech, America was much closer to the mother country than had been acknowledged in past dramatizations.

He says they provided capsule biographies of the different characters to the series' dialogue coach to help them come up with something appropriate, sometimes based on the insight "that one's residence in America frequently depended on one's point of origin in England. Virginia, for instance, was largely settled by residents of East Anglia--in terms of dialect and accent a very distinctive region."

Ellis' participation in this, along with some other similar examples, does raise some questions about the changing nature of the critical enterprise in the internet era. My sense is that, traditionally, creators have tended to shy away from direct intervention into critical debates about their work. But something about the seemingly informal nature of internet commentary seems to have subverted that rule, so you're seeing much more of this kind of intervention. It has, I think, the potential for a distorting impact on our understanding of things since, at the end of the day, it's really not the creator's role to offer authoritative accounts of what a given work "really" was or is.

Comments

It has, I think, the potential for a distorting impact on our understanding of things since, at the end of the day, it's really not the creator's role to offer authoritative accounts of what a given work "really" was or is.

No, far better for some snarky, uninformed commentator to make that account.

Posted by James | March 25, 2008 5:47 PM

I'm with James. I don't think it's anyone's role to tell artists what their role is.

Posted by southpaw | March 25, 2008 5:57 PM

it's really not the creator's role to offer authoritative accounts of what a given work "really" was or is.

No. But it is the creators' role to offer authoritative accounts of what they think about their work. Or what their thought process was in creating it. This is all perfectly valid information for us to want to have in assessing the meaning of a work.

Posted by Leonard | March 25, 2008 6:00 PM

it's really not the creator's role to offer authoritative accounts of what a given work "really" was or is.

Criticism will survive, I feel certain.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | March 25, 2008 6:09 PM

Who knew Matt was so hostile to DVD director's commentaries? I'm the first to deny author's intention as in any way definitive, but the author is often defined as the "first reader" of their work, and a fairly educated one at that.

I can understand why the author may not want to, but I don't know why we wouldn't welcome it. Every bit of data is helpful.

Posted by nolaboyd | March 25, 2008 6:16 PM

I agree with Matt -- perhaps it's my English teacher father, but I was brought up to believe that creators, in some sense, are not the final authorities concerning what their works are about. (Not that it's not interesting to hear -- it's just not dispositive.) I've written things where, much later, I realized why I was attracted to that particular area.

The difficulty in pitching sitcoms (my own little corner of the world), is that that's exactly what the powers that be want to know -- not "why is it funny?" but "what is it about?" I liken it to having to invent both the show and the American Studies paper about the show.

Posted by Delicious Pundit | March 25, 2008 6:38 PM

I think it's more Matt may feelhe (or people like him) should be able to define what a work is - the idea that a creator should answer back and call him out when it's a half-assed criticism isn't appealing.

I think the way David Simon answered the Wire's criticism is a good example, by pointing out the astonishing narcissism in most of the journalist's gripes, being completely about themselves and their depiction, yet completely ignoring all the stories which their screen counterparts also ignored.

Posted by James | March 25, 2008 6:47 PM

In regard to the accents: it is extremely unlikely that the Crown's officers spoke in "plumy Oxonian accents" either in the late 18th C. What we think of as the "received" Oxbridge accent is - like most British traditions - largely a Victorian creation, and has most to do with the manufacture of more rigid class lines in the wake of industrialization.

I would think most British officers spoke more like the yokels of their county than a BBC announcer, especially since almost none of them would have attended a university. London as a common meeting place of the elites would begin to produce something like a national upper class accent, but this would still have some way to go in the revolutionary period.

Posted by Estrien | March 25, 2008 7:08 PM

Quit right, Matthew. A work does not belong to its author, but rather is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control it. The work belongs to the public.

Posted by Ghost of W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley | March 25, 2008 7:17 PM

Well, there are circumstances where I feel like the artist is completely justified in entering the critical debate, circumstances where it's gray but interesting, and circumstances where they'd best stay out of it. I appreciated David Simon's engagement with some blogs because I appreciate David Simon, but I felt a little iffy about the nature of the enterprise. On the other hand what was he doing but preemptively answer questions he was going to eventually get asked in an interview?

I don't think Ellis' comments quoted above are really noteworthy, though, because he's addressing a completely factual issue about the process. Why are the accents the way they are? Why shouldn't he just jump in and say "Hey, this was our motivation"?

Posted by Quarterican | March 25, 2008 7:24 PM

It has, I think, the potential for a distorting impact on our understanding of things since, at the end of the day, it's really not the creator's role to offer authoritative accounts of what a given work "really" was or is.

I think what you mean is that the easy accessibility to the creator and his ability to comment on his own work ruins the process of criticism which before was much more isolated by distance and ease of communication from the creator, spoiling a lot of fun for everyone.

As SCMT notes, criticism will, no doubt, survive, despite the occasional appearance of the creator to kick things up in the critics' sandbox.

Posted by Tyro | March 25, 2008 7:38 PM

I was also wondering about the French accents in episode 3. The French courtiers and King all seem to speak with more-or-less modern accents. I know that 17th-century French sounded very different (more like the modern Quebecois accent -- really nasal), but I'm not sure what aristocratic French sounded like in the late 18th century. Anyone out there know more?

Posted by Pesto | March 25, 2008 7:40 PM

[I]t's really not the creator's role to offer authoritative accounts of what a given work "really" was or is.

Right on James, southpaw & nolaboyd.

Matt just wants to reserve the ability to offer "authoritative accounts" of various issues to the class of prep school- & Ivy-educated elites to which he belongs.

Posted by MY strikes again | March 25, 2008 7:51 PM

Ah, bugger off, man. You seem to say, "Shhh, you! We're talking about you! The last thing we want is your opinion!"

The author, having sent his work out into the world, no longer controls its meaning; but he still knows what his intent was. It is a commonplace that an artist might introduce a theme into his work easily discernible to the critic, entirely subconscious to himself. And trying to draw stuff like that out is a big part of criticism. But he certainly put some stuff in on purpose; indeed, it's pretty hard to be a great artist without a great deal of conscious intent. Why should they not be able to express that? Why should the artist's point of view on what his work means be _less_ valid than his critic's?

Posted by Diablevert | March 25, 2008 7:56 PM

"Virginia, for instance, was largely settled by residents of East Anglia."

Not in this timeline, it wasn't. Many settlers came from the south and west of England, few from East Anglia or the north.

Posted by gcochran | March 25, 2008 7:57 PM

Shame, shame on "gcochran"!

How dare he have to nerve to disagree with Kirk Ellis, the esteemed writer of the TV show in question, who did such exhaustive research for his scripts. That's exactly Matt's point, namely that the writer of the TV show is the final authority on such details...

And isn't Matt's own family filled with TV/movie writers and such? So he should certainly know!

When the writer of a TV show has Queen Elizabeth I bearing George Washington's illegitimate son, who later conquered Europe as Napoleon I, then that's EXACTLY what happened!

Posted by RKU | March 25, 2008 8:06 PM

Why should the artist's point of view on what his work means be _less_ valid than his critic's?

Because the history of literary theory is the history of turning intelligent and perceptive observations about criticism into simplistic and small-minded dogmas?

Posted by Quarterican | March 25, 2008 8:08 PM

"My sense is that, traditionally, creators have tended to shy away from direct intervention into critical debates about their work"

That's just not true at all.

"it's really not the creator's role to offer authoritative accounts of what a given work "really" was or is. "

Like the scene in Back to School, with the english professor telling Rodney Dangerfield's character that he didn't know the first thing about Vonnegut, despite the fact that his paper was actually written by Vonnegut himself. It was a funny joke because that's a ludicrous idea. Creators may not get the final say, but they're certainly not to be ignored, especially in technical matters like accents such as this.

Posted by mad6798j | March 25, 2008 8:13 PM

The creator can say any dang thing he or she pleases to say. And so can you. So the creator gasses about his creation, maybe even says he is the authoritative voice. In the immmortal words of Dick Cheney: 'so?'

My comment is that it is odd that they will spend so much time on trivia like this, and miss the big things. I been thinking on it, and went bck to look at the McCollough book this series is based on. More I think about the omissions and distortions in that book, which all seem to me to nudge John Adams into a loveable ol' curmudgeon sitcom stereotype, the less I like the idea that this series is based on his book.

The omissions on Adams' later thought are very disappointing. I re-read some sections several times and went through the index several times, because I could not believe so much was left out.

But no time to watch it now, so am glad there will be a DVD, with the creators' apparently inappropriate and intrusive comments. Whatever. I'll listen to what the dude says and survive.

Posted by John Adams fan | March 25, 2008 8:14 PM

It's also fascinating that people who make the argument against the validity of authorial intent are rarely authors of fictional works themselves. Grind out material on the empty page from the sheer space, and you may feel quite differently about that theory.

Posted by jonrog1 | March 25, 2008 8:17 PM

My sense is that, traditionally, creators have tended to shy away from direct intervention into critical debates about their work. - Matt

My sense of this is very different. I can only think of a few creators who shied away. I guess Samuel Beckett qualifies, but what in the world did he did not shy away from? But most great artists have also been great critics; and of course most love to talk about themselves, like everyone. Look up practically any English poet. They spent more time intervening into critical debates about their works than they did writing them.

it's really not the creator's role to offer authoritative accounts of what a given work "really" was or is." - Matt

I don't agree with this at all. The artist is most authoritative about some aspects of the work, and the only authority about others. Maybe Matt just isn't interested - I don't know.

Posted by Gary Sugar | March 25, 2008 8:20 PM

gcochran: It seems highly unlikely that the people who settled Virginia came from somewhere other than East Anglia and then proceeded to name their counties Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk. And certainly the people who run tourist offices in East Anglia are laying claim to being the fatherland of Virginia; see, for example, here and here.

So I'm guessing this guy knows what he's talking about when he says the first Virginians mostly came from East Anglia.

Posted by dbeach | March 25, 2008 8:32 PM

The impressment issue that precipitated the War of 1812 took advantage of this. Brits and Americans sounded so much alike that it was easy for Brits to impress them into the Navy and later claim "nope, no Americans impressed into service here, just a bunch of lying Liverpuddlians!"

It's like we Americans do now, impressing Canadians into our comedy troupes...

Posted by anonymiss | March 25, 2008 9:04 PM

to debeach: you're wrong. Stop guessing. Try reading Albion's Seed.

Posted by gcochran | March 25, 2008 9:15 PM

It seems highly unlikely that the people who settled Virginia came from somewhere other than East Anglia and then proceeded to name their counties Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk.

Well, check out the list of Virginia county names in the link below--they named their counties after English counties from all over the Kingdom, not just from East Anglia. What should we make of Gloucester, or Northumberland, or Bath, or Bedford or Buckingham, or Lancaster? Or Middlesex, or Westmoreland, or York?

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/51000.html

Posted by rea | March 25, 2008 9:45 PM

There was a case recently where Ray Bradbury chimed in about his 1953 book Fahrenheit 451 to claim that it wasn't about censorship, it was about the corrupting influence of television. There, I thought there was a pretty compelling case to be made that the author was an unreliable source of authorial intent. However, one could compellingly argue that he was an unreliable source of his own work because 50 years had elapsed since he had first written it and never felt the need to make that argument before until very recently.

On the other hand, being able to ask a creator specific questions about his work at the same time it has been released is much more plausibly authoritative, even if it makes the process much less fun for critics.

Posted by Tyro | March 25, 2008 10:32 PM

Well actually there is a lot of time in Fahrenheit 451 devoted to the hyper violent wall-Tvs that enthrall the average citizen in that book. So not as off the wall as it sounds.

Posted by mad6798j | March 25, 2008 10:39 PM

Massachusetts was settled more by people from East Anglia, while Virginia was settled by immigrants from the south and west of England. One authority on this is David Hackett Fischer in his book Albion's Seed, as mentioned above. Among other things, poetry from the 1600s can be used to compare speech ways, i.e. to trace accents from the past to those of today, such as the New England nasal. Also, architecture, place names, and other cultural markers were used to compare regions of America to their English origins.

Posted by me | March 25, 2008 11:03 PM

Oh yeah?

Posted by God | March 25, 2008 11:13 PM

"I think, the potential for a distorting impact on our understanding of things since, at the end of the day, it's really not the creator's role to offer authoritative accounts of what a given work 'really' was or is."

I think creators are the ultimate authorities as to what the meaning of their works are. It's rather absurd to claim otherwise. No one can have a better understanding of the meaning of a work than the individual who actually created it.

Posted by Jack | March 25, 2008 11:33 PM

One assumes the East Anglia bit was probably a misstatement by Ellis in the TNR post, not a mistake made in the series, although of course I'm not certain of that.

In terms of historical inaccuracies, I found the portrayal of Louis XVI in Episode III rather poor. Louis XVI wasn't a silly fop who would viciously mock poor American envoys who didn't speak French. He was a taciturn, shy, young man who was deeply uncomfortable with the court ritual he was forced to live in, and who avoided it as much as he could through his hobbies of hunting (obviously typical of the aristocracy) and clock-making (considerably less so). In 1778, when we have Adams visiting him, he was 23, and would have only just consummated his marriage with his wife of eight years. He would probably have been abrupt and curt with Adams, but I daresay he wouldn't have mocked him to his face and laughed at him.

Posted by John | March 26, 2008 12:44 AM

As to the question of critical authorship, it's one thing to say that the author is not the sole and final judge of the meaning of a work - I think this is absolutely true. It's quite another to say that this means we're better off without the writer's own assessment of the work. When such sources are available, they are of course fully mined by literary scholars, even as those scholars don't necessarily accept everything the author says at face value. Basically, the more information, the better. We can still judge, for instance, that Ellis has failed in some particular aim. Just because he says that he wanted to do such and such for such and such a reason doesn't mean we have to agree that this is well done. The whole complaint strikes me as silly.

Posted by John | March 26, 2008 12:47 AM

I would think most British officers spoke more like the yokels of their county than a BBC announcer, especially since almost none of them would have attended a university.

There's the issue of bought commissions, and the commissions granted to otherwise-useless second and third sons of the gentry and aristocracy, and the country-town mobility of the upper and upper-middle classes.

But there's also the impact of distance on accent: before the railways allowed relatively rapid transport for a relatively large number of people, it's a fair surmise. based upon the dialectal differences evident at the start of the 20th century, that footsoldiers from Cornwall and Cumberland would have trouble understanding one another.

That extends to the American colonies, where you had a vast area by comparison, settled by relatively few people (in Virginia, 40pc of whom were slaves).

By comparison, the dramatisations of the Sharpe novels are determinedly populist, and working from a slightly different dynamic, between the officers who buy their rank -- posh, silly -- and the ones who earn them. The aim is to work by analogy.

In the case of John Adams, the analogy is more fitting than in The Patriot, and
'British American' as the population's self-identification, at least pre-1774, is historically valid. Like the Ulster Unionists today, albeit for different reasons, the people who became the founding fathers considered themselves the apotheosis of the political beings born out of the 1688 bloodless revolution.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | March 26, 2008 2:01 AM

[i]It has, I think, the potential for a distorting impact on our understanding of things since, at the end of the day, it's really not the creator's role to offer authoritative accounts of what a given work "really" was or is.[/i]

Translation: Screw you, David Simon, for commenting on my blog!

Posted by Rob | March 26, 2008 7:35 AM

All I know is that watching General Washington express concerns about the lack of provisions from the Congress in a sort of lilting Scottish accent makes a chill run up my leg.

Posted by Ted Atkinson | March 26, 2008 9:50 AM

All I know is that watching General Washington complain about the lack of provisions from Congress in a lilting Scottish accent sends a thrill up my leg.

Posted by Ted Atkinson | March 26, 2008 9:53 AM

It has, I think, the potential for a distorting impact on our understanding of things since, at the end of the day, it's really not the creator's role to offer authoritative accounts of what a given work "really" was or is.

My god, I hope Yglesias doesn't write anything dumber that than the rest of the year.

It's extraordinarily valuable to have the creator's input on what he was doing.

We don't have to ACCEPT it -- we can argue, or say that the creator overlooked something.

But to say it's better for us NOT to have potentially useful information is just ... well, Republican.

(How cool is it that the series' creators actually bothered to think about this issue?)

Posted by Anderson | March 26, 2008 9:55 AM

Verisimilitude in historical fiction is an interesting question - should the artists strive for accuracy to the period, or should they use details for dramatic or artistic effect, even if not precisely accurate? The director of the recent German movie "The Lives of Others" was quoted as saying that he put the Stasi officers in jackboots, although he knew that this was incorrect, because he wanted to communicate their totalitarian power through their uniforms. In John Adams, should the accents be chosen for historical accuracy, or for their affect on us, the modern-day viewers?

Posted by Bloix | March 26, 2008 10:25 AM

Illustrated History is a bizarre genre. Thomas Hardy, for example, wrote an excellent (and accurate) history of the Napoleonic Era in verse. Who reads it when they can read his novels or lyrics?

Shakespeare wrote history plays whose aesthetic appeal lies in their tension between fact and propaganda: the era demanded a monster of Richard III but he's one of the most memorable villain's in literature.

Art sometimes creates Myth which supplants History, and if historians are angered they should earn their keep by thinking better and writing better.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | March 26, 2008 10:31 AM

I am not clear why we have simply accepted the old axiom the art is no longer owned by the artist once it is out in the world. Why is the act of distribution a somehow philosophically significant act? Before the artist sends it out he is perfectly free to subtract or add to the text (or whatever media we are discussing), why is this not the case afterwards. As we live in an increasingly cross-platform, multimedia world art is no longer static and can have several aspects to it as well. Who's to say that the author or creator's commentary is not part of the artistic project itself.

Authoritative footnotes and addendum have always been a critical part of artistic works (T.S. Eliot's Wasteland is an ideal example of this sort of metaanalysis (as well as gimmickry). A more relevant example might actually be the show Lost which is not just an ongoing television show, but has had several small media platforms, games and commentaries that have become part of the overarching story. In fact, the two producers of the show do a commentary podcast every week, authoritatively separating fiction-fact from fiction-fiction. The decision to intervene authoritatively, it seems to me, is a relevant artistic decision, not an outright rule.

Posted by Jonathan | March 26, 2008 10:33 AM

Isn't this John Adams thing history? And isn't history supposed to be accurate? Wasn't the complaint that it didn't seem accurate, just slapdash? And isn't it normally OK for a historian to respond, "Yes, it is accurate, as best we could figure out?"

That is, I think the following is totally relevant: "All our research pointed to the fact that, in written and spoken speech, America was much closer to the mother country than had been acknowledged in past dramatizations."

That said, I'm not sure that the author of a novel, say, true fiction, has much to say in the way of, "You've entirely misconstrued the motives of the main charachter ...." and so on.

But I remember hearing a lot about the literary theory of this three or four decades ago, and if you think evolution is "just a theory," that stuff is really "just a theory."

Posted by David in NY | March 26, 2008 12:06 PM

What if you think of continued involvement in the conversation as an extension of the creative work itself, then why not? I mean, why is there a definitive line between the creative endeavor and conversing about it?

BTW artists have for a very long time insinuated themselves into the critical discussion of their work, and sometimes their work itself comments upon and shapes the critical conversation of *earlier* work.

Posted by Andrew Hinton | March 26, 2008 12:18 PM

Thanks for pointing this out. Not going to get into your meta question, rather,

I am fascinated by the series so far, and watching what they spin and how they do it is a good part of that fascination, what details they fiddle with for end effect, etc.

Other examples besides the accents, on characterization...Tommy Jefferson so far has been depicted strongly as an introvert, a very intriguing way to go with him....they have depicted Rutledge of South Carolina with a gay personality and I read somewhere that that might have been the case...in the second episode, you have Edward Bancroft in several scenes as Ben Franklin's assistan in France, but nothing suggestive so far of his spying for England in that job....in George Washington you have a painstakingly accurate depiction so far as we know, right down to the blatant wearing of his uniform at congress, as noted by Josh Marshall in this 2005 review of David McCullough's '1776'

Also, they managed to get across the idea that initially rebellion was against Parliament and not the King, nor the idea of being being part of an empire, that the rebellious colonists simply wanted to make their own laws under the King. That's crucial nuance which makes what they eventually did all the more astounding. I think they did a great job with the congress scenes, I watched those over several times.

Finally, I recommended the following blog on another post, I am going to do it again because it is such a great resource, and he has taken to commenting on the HBO series a bit:
http://boston1775.blogspot.com/

Posted by artappraiser | March 26, 2008 1:59 PM

p.s. to my last:

Besides the accents, the whole culture clash theme is quite evident so far. they made much of Ben Franklin wearing the coonskin cap in Paris so as to entertain the caricature of collectible loveable bumpkin so enjoyed by the Parisians. The whole second episode was about John Adams culture clash with France. And then in the Netherlands, part of his argument is to persuade them that their cultures are far more alike, but he himself knows they are not. This is clearly setting him up as "as English as an American can be in culture, style and temperment" for the next episode as Minister to Great Britain.

Posted by artappraiser | March 26, 2008 2:08 PM

Wow, this is about as opposite from me as it is possible to be.

1) If it's factual things I get to tell the author/creator how they screwed up, which as you know, I love and 2) If I understand what the author is trying to convey the story is usually richer.

A given work is ALWAYS what its creator intended it to be. That such works can have a different interpretation are a tribute to their richness, but regardless of what someone else thinks it means and can make good and interesting points on that, what the author says it is, is actually what it is. The baseline, and definitive version.

Posted by MNPundit | March 26, 2008 2:50 PM

A given work is ALWAYS what its creator intended it to be. That such works can have a different interpretation are a tribute to their richness, but regardless of what someone else thinks it means and can make good and interesting points on that, what the author says it is, is actually what it is. The baseline, and definitive version.

"I'm always right and I never lie, so vote for me, George Leroy Tirebiter."

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | March 26, 2008 4:05 PM

The dialog is so awful, it hardly matters what the accents are.

Posted by Sherry | March 26, 2008 10:25 PM

I wanted to pile on again on the East Anglia issue.

As others have noted, NEW ENGLAND was primarily settled by East Anglians (with a significant number of Lincolnshire and other eastern English settlers); VIRGINIA was primarily settled by people from the Southwest and Northwest parts of the old country, i.e., Devon, Somerset, Cumberland, so on.

According to David Hackett Fischer's magisterial ALBION's SEED, East Anglian sounds much like New England English, flat and nasal (he even gestures at Dutch influence from right across the North Sea -- East Anglians were long forced into the North Sea trade because the famous fens isolated them from the rest of England) while the "burr" of the West Country went into making the Southern US dialect.

One must also take the mountain speech of the Scots-Irish settlers into account in the South, too.

As for County names, those don't prove much, e.g., there is a Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex county in Massachusetts as well as Virginia.

Posted by Ben Cronin | March 27, 2008 12:18 AM