[General] Her sympathy was ours

[raymondaliasapollyon]

No, that's not right. The basic sense of sympathy is that it is not mutual. It flows one way. In this case, from Elizabeth to Victor and Henry.

This is not to say that it cannot be mutual, however.

Who knows? The passage was written two centuries ago, when some words might have had different meanings.

https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=sympathy

 

[raymondaliasapollyon]

Who knows?

Perhaps jutfrank and Piscean, both native speakers of British Engllsh with years of experience of studying and teaching English.
Perhaps Charlie, a native speaker of American English. who has tutored writing at university level, , and done a good deal of copy editing and writing, occasionally for publication.

I'm curious about whether "Someone's sympathy is ours" is current English, or belongs to an earlier form of English that none of you speak as a native language.

 

[GoesStation]

I'm curious about whether "Someone's sympathy is ours" is current English, or belongs to an earlier form of English that none of you speak as a native language.

It's not a natural construction in contemporary English.

 

[jutfrank]

I'm curious about whether "Someone's sympathy is ours" is current English, or belongs to an earlier form of English that none of you speak as a native language.

There's nothing unusual about it, in my opinion. It's just a variation of the common pattern:

• to have someone's sympathy
  

This pattern has a possessive sense. The 'possessor' is the one receiving. Here are some more usual expressions of the same pattern:

You have my sympathy.
Could I have some sympathy, please?


This is not to be confused with the following pattern:

• to have sympathy for someone

Here, the possessor is the person giving. Here's an example

I have no sympathy for him.

I wonder if these two patterns have been confused.

 

[raymondaliasapollyon]

On other forums, I asked about the clause in question. Someone cited the following definition from the OED:

Sympathy: 3. a. Conformity of feelings, inclinations, or temperament, which makes persons agreeable to each other; community of feeling; harmony of disposition.

His understanding is this:
“[From her and by her example] we held those common sentiments that we shared amongst ourselves and which bound us together.”

It appears that this use of "sympathy" is different from the one most familiar in current English, i.e., feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune. If sense 3. a. is assumed for "her sympathy was ours," the rest of the passage (reproduced as follows) would be understood coherently as supporting details:

I might have become sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness. And Clerval—could aught ill entrench on the noble spirit of Clerval?—yet he might not have been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his generosity—so full of kindness and tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded to him the real loveliness of beneficence, and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring ambition.

With the OED definition, however, the phrasing of "her sympathy was ours" remains peculiar. Perhaps "X's sympathy is Y's" is used by Shelley as a poetic way of stressing (virtual) oneness of disposition.

 

[jutfrank]

I can't see a problem with any of this.

Shelley is simply attempting to characterise Elizabeth as a saintly figure. The sense of sympathy is in relation to this characterisation.

What's the problem here exactly? Understanding the sense of sympathy in the context? Or the particular phrasing of the words in bold (which doesn't seem to me to be very strange at all)?

 

[raymondaliasapollyon]

I can't see a problem with any of this.

Shelley is simply attempting to characterise Elizabeth as a saintly figure. The sense of sympathy is in relation to this characterisation.

St. Peter once called on Christians to be of one mind. Sympathy understood as oneness of disposition was thus a possible trait of devout Christians or saints.

I can't see a problem with any of this.
What's the problem here exactly? Understanding the sense of sympathy in the context? Or the particular phrasing of the words in bold (which doesn't seem to me to be very strange at all)?

There are two problems. One is the meaning of sympathy. The other, related to the first, is how to interpret the sentence frame X's sympathy is Y's with regard to the overall context.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Okay, I understand the question now. I thought you were asking if there was evidence within the four words themselves. . . .

That was the original question. It's morphed.

 

[raymondaliasapollyon]

Shelley might have intended to use "sympathy" as we are familiar with it today. If the resulting passage is not coherent enough, that could only mean her style is not worth emulating.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Shelley might have intended to use "sympathy" as we are familiar with it today. If the resulting passage is not coherent enough, that could only mean her style is not worth emulating.

Yes. Outdated English often needs some untangling. The only reason to write as Shelley did would be to mimic the language of the era.

An ambitious example of a contemporary author imitating the writing of a bygone time (the mid-eighteenth century) is Thomas Pynchon's Mason and Dixon.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I doubt if the style of any writer of two centuries ago is 'worth emulating' today.

As I say, try Mason and Dixon — a pitch-perfect parody of the style of the day.

 

[raymondaliasapollyon]

I doubt if the style of any writer of two centuries ago is 'worth emulating' today.

You probably have not encountered teachers in East Asia who claim students should read English classics to take their English to a new level.

 

[Tarheel]

You probably have not encountered teachers in East Asia who claim students should read English classics to take their English to a new level.

I definitely have not! As for your English, I would say it's so good you could teach ESL if you wanted to.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

You probably have not encountered teachers in East Asia who claim students should read English classics to take their English to a new level.

That's not a bad idea for fluent, motivated, curious students.

 

[raymondaliasapollyon]

That's not a bad idea for fluent, motivated, curious students.

If they follow the advice, they'll run the risk of picking up expressions or sentence patterns that'd be viewed as pet peeves by contemporary standards.