When her contemporaries were engaging with European themes in their novels, Austen remained rooted in her home country.
Behind the rose-coloured tales of well-matched couples falling deeply in love, Austen’s novels vigorously critique the patriarchal structures of her day.
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The Times columnist’s self-serving critique of one of the greats of English literature says more about his ignorance than anything else.
It’s the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Jane Austen’s novel, “Persuasion.” This illustration by artist Liz Monahan depicts Captain Wentworth writing his love letter to Anne.
(Liz Monahan)
Prof. Robert Morrison edited Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” for Harvard University Press. On the classic’s 200th anniversary, he explains how Austen’s rhythmic words on loss, love and hope still resonate.
Grotesques, prattlers, hysterical women … historically, spinsters have had a raw deal in fiction. But astonishingly, the situation for older single ladies in contemporary novels has scarcely improved.
Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood in the 1995 film of Sense and Sensibility: a competent moral agent drawing only on her intelligence and experience.
Columbia Pictures Corporation
This year is the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s death and her celebrity continues to grow. But relegating Austen’s work to plots about ‘whether the heroine gets her man’ belittles her achievement.
Fourteen of Jane Austen’s female characters – witty or ridiculous, selfish or avaricious – are presented in the astonishing show, Austen’s Women. But her graver, more nuanced creations and stern but comic moralism fail to materialise.
Jane Eyre has been retold over and over again, but remains eternally relevant.
Jane Eyre (2011), Focus Features
Charlotte Brontë’s heroines - most famously Jane Eyre - struggle with psychologically complex questions. And unlike Jane Austen’s female protagonists, they prize self knowledge and self expression over conventional moralism.
Let’s critique the literary canon, but we shouldn’t throw the Brontës out with the bathwater.
The Brontë Sisters, by Patrick Branwell Brontë, circa 1834.
Like it or not, the literary canon is part of the cultural capital of the West. Universities that choose not to teach it – or refuse to critically engage with it – are actually disempowering students.
At the time of publication, the longevity of Jane Austen’s fifth novel Emma was far from guaranteed. And yet, 200 years later, it now seems immortal. This is the story of its remarkable life.
The definition of ‘literature’ is changeable, and inextricably linked with fashion.
Pratchett image: EPA/Alessandro Della Bella. Austen image: Wikimedia Commons
Pratchett’s work is often classified as ‘genre fiction’ rather than literary fiction. Yet his relationship with genre is complex and adversarial. He sets genre stereotypes up to be deconstructed.
In reading, we feel ourselves able to get up close and personal with a dead author.
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The reader who loves literature of the past seeks to forge intimate connections with those who are no longer alive. In reading, we feel ourselves able to get up close and personal with a dead author.
Austen periodically runs afoul of a particular kind of cultural hypocrisy.
jamelah e.
Once pivotal to the English canon, Jane Austen has been adapted and readapted for Hollywood and Bollywood – and that kind of popularity comes at a cost.