Related Research Articles
Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage for the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works are an implicit critique of the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her deft use of social commentary, realism and biting irony have earned her acclaim among critics and scholars.
Pride and Prejudice is an 1813 novel of manners by English author Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of the book, who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness.
Sense and Sensibility is the first novel by the English author Jane Austen, published in 1811. It was published anonymously; By A Lady appears on the title page where the author's name might have been. It tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne as they come of age. They have an older half-brother, John, and a younger sister, Margaret.
Emma is a novel written by English author Jane Austen. It is set in the fictional country village of Highbury and the surrounding estates of Hartfield, Randalls and Donwell Abbey, and involves the relationships among people from a small number of families. The novel was first published in December 1815, although the title page is dated 1816. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian–Regency England. Emma is a comedy of manners.
The Beautifull Cassandra [sic] is a short novel from Jane Austen's juvenilia. It is a parody of the melodramatic, sentimental and picaresque novels of the time, and tells the story of a young woman who sets off into the world to make her fortune.
Love and Freindship [sic] is a juvenile story by Jane Austen, dated 1790. While aged 11–18, Austen wrote her tales in three notebooks. These still exist, one in the Bodleian Library and the other two in the British Museum. They contain, among other works, Love and Friendship, written when she was 14, and The History of England, written at 15.
The reception history of Jane Austen follows a path from modest fame to wild popularity. Jane Austen (1775–1817), the author of such works as Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Emma (1815), has become one of the best-known and most widely read novelists in the English language. Her novels are the subject of intense scholarly study and the centre of a diverse fan culture.
Jane Austen lived her entire life as part of a family located socially and economically on the lower fringes of the English gentry. The Rev. George Austen and Cassandra Leigh, Jane Austen's parents, lived in Steventon, Hampshire, where Rev. Austen was the rector of the Anglican parish from 1765 until 1801. Jane Austen's immediate family was large and close-knit. She had six brothers—James, George, Charles, Francis, Henry, and Edward—and a beloved older sister, Cassandra. Austen's brother Edward was adopted by Thomas and Elizabeth Knight and eventually inherited their estates at Godmersham, Kent, and Chawton, Hampshire. In 1801, Rev. Austen retired from the ministry and moved his family to Bath, Somerset. He died in 1805 and for the next four years, Jane, Cassandra, and their mother lived first in rented quarters and then in Southampton where they shared a house with Frank Austen's family. During these unsettled years, they spent much time visiting various branches of the family. In 1809, Jane, Cassandra, and their mother moved permanently into a large "cottage" in Chawton village that was part of Edward's nearby estate. Austen lived at Chawton until she moved to Winchester for medical treatment shortly before her death in 1817.
Jane Austen's (1775–1817) distinctive literary style relies on a combination of parody, burlesque, irony, free indirect speech and a degree of realism. She uses parody and burlesque for comic effect and to critique the portrayal of women in 18th-century sentimental and Gothic novels. Austen extends her critique by highlighting social hypocrisy through irony; she often creates an ironic tone through free indirect speech in which the thoughts and words of the characters mix with the voice of the narrator. The degree to which critics believe Austen's characters have psychological depth informs their views regarding her realism. While some scholars argue that Austen falls into a tradition of realism because of her finely executed portrayal of individual characters and her emphasis on "the everyday", others contend that her characters lack a depth of feeling compared with earlier works, and that this, combined with Austen's polemical tone, places her outside the realist tradition.
Georgian society in Jane Austen's novels is the ever-present background of her work, the world in which all her characters are set. Entirely situated during the reign of George III, the novels of Jane Austen describe their characters' everyday lives, joys, sorrows, and loves, providing insight into the period.
Eliza Capot, Comtesse de Feuillide was the cousin, and later sister-in-law, of novelist Jane Austen. She is believed to have been the inspiration for a number of Austen's works, such as Love and Freindship, Henry and Eliza, and Lady Susan. She may have also been the model from whom the character of Mary Crawford is derived.
Mr Henry Woodhouse is a central character in Jane Austen's 1815 novel Emma and the father of the protagonist, Emma Woodhouse. He is a wealthy member of the English landed gentry who owns a large country estate.
Mr William Collins is a fictional character in the 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. He is the distant cousin of Mr Bennet, a clergyman and holder of a valuable living at the Hunsford parsonage near Rosings Park, the estate of his patroness Lady Catherine De Bourgh, in Kent. Since Mr and Mrs Bennet have no sons, Mr Collins is also the current heir presumptive to the Bennet family estate of Longbourn in Meryton, Hertfordshire, due to the estate being entailed to heirs male. Mr Collins is first introduced during his visit to Longbourn. His dull-witted character is in parallel to another 'Austen' character, Mr. Rushworth, from Mansfield Park. Mr Collins is also somewhat comparable to the Shakespearean character, Malvolio, from Twelfth Night.
Henry Tilney is the leading man in Jane Austen's 1817 novel Northanger Abbey. The younger son of a local landowner, Tilney is comfortably placed as a beneficed clergyman on his father's estate.
Deirdre Le Faye was an English writer and literary critic.
George Wickham is a fictional character created by Jane Austen who appears in her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice. George Wickham is introduced as a militia officer who has a shared history with Mr. Darcy. Wickham's charming demeanour and his story of being badly treated by Darcy attracts the sympathy of the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, to the point that she is warned by her aunt not to fall in love and marry him. It is revealed through the course of the story that George Wickham's true nature is that of a manipulative unprincipled layabout, a ne'er-do-well wastrel, compulsive liar and a degenerate, compulsive gambler, a seducer and a libertine, living the lifestyle of a rake. Lacking the finances to pay for his lifestyle, he gambles regularly and cons credit from tradesmen and shopkeepers and skips out on paying-up.
Mr Weston is a supporting character in Jane Austen's novel Emma, written in 1815. He marries the governess of the heroine, Emma Woodhouse, and it is the arrival of his son, Frank Churchill, in Highbury that sets the events of the plot in motion.
Catharine, or the Bower is an unfinished novel from Jane Austen's juvenilia. With its realistic setting and characters, it represents something of a bridge between her early burlesques and the soberer novels that made her name.
Anna Austen Lefroy (1793-1872) was the niece of Jane Austen by her eldest brother James Austen, and a contributor to her life-history via the so-called Lefroy MS.
Charlotte Wattell was an English actress of the late 18th and early 19th-centuries and the first wife of the churchman Thomas James Twisleton.
References
- ↑ E. Copeland, The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen (Cambridge 1997) p. 125-6
- ↑ E. Copeland, The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen (Cambridge 1997) p. 107 and p. 141
- ↑ R. Jenkins, A Fine Brush on Ivory (Oxford 2007) p. 153
- ↑ Jane Austen, Emma (Penguin 1973) p. 368 (Ch. 43)
- ↑ C. Harman, Jane's Fame (Edinburgh 2009) p. 74
- ↑ P. Graham, Jane Austen and Charles Darwin (2016) p. 37
- ↑ E. Auerbach, Searching for Jane Austen (2004) p. 209
- ↑ C. Harman, Jane's Fame (Edinburgh 2009) p. 66-7
- ↑ E. Copeland, The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen (Cambridge 1997) p. 104
- ↑ Deirdre Le Faye ed, Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford 1995) p. 30
- ↑ P. Graham, Jane Austen and Charles Darwin (2016) p. 53
- ↑ Deirdre Le Faye ed, Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford 1995) p. 245, p. 332 and p. x