Understanding Austen
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Understanding Austen
No other author uses abstract nouns as extensively as Jane Austen. Three of her six novels even draw on such words for their titles: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion. Terms like 'elegance', 'gentility' and 'propriety' seem to define her well-ordered, judgemental world. In making the fine moral, psychological and social discriminations on which her plots depend, Jane Austen draws on the vocabulary of her age, which is both more abstract and more fixed than that of today. But as this study shows, she was capable of subtlety and even ambiguity in her deployment of such key concepts. Here, Maggie Lane, acclaimed author of many Jane Austen books, turns her attention to the fascinating nuances of Austen's language and the way it embodies her most profound beliefs about human conduct and character.
Understanding Austen
[The author] "turns her attention to the fascinating nuances of Austen's language, and the way it embodies her most profound beliefs about human conduct and character. This book enhances understanding of Austen's moral values through the discussion of key words, investigates changes of meaning, and explains words which may confuse modern readers ... No other author uses abstract nouns as extensively as Jane Austen. Three of her six novels even draw on such words for their titles: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion. Terms like "elegance," "gentility," and "propriety" seem to define her well-ordered, judgemental world. In making the fine moral, psychological, and social discriminations on which her plots depend, Jane Austen draws on the vocabulary of her age, which is both more abstract and more fixed than that of today. But as this study shows, she was capable of subtlety and even ambiguity in her deployment of such key concepts."--Publisher description.
Jane Austen
This volume presents an exhilarating and insightful collection of essays on Jane Austen - distilling the author's deep understanding and appreciation of Austen's works across a lifetime. The volume is both intra- and inter-textual in focus, ranging from perceptive analysis of individual scenes to the exploration of motifs across Austen's fiction. Full of astute connections, these lively discussions hinge on the study of human behaviour - from family relationships to sickness and hypochondria - highlighting Austen's artful literary techniques and her powers of human observation. Jane Austen: Reflections of a Reader by (the late) Nora Bartlett is a brilliant contribution to the field of Jane Austen studies, both in its accessible style (which preserves the oral register of the original lectures), and in its foregrounding of the reader in a warm, compelling and incisive conversation about Austen's works. As such, it will appeal widely to all lovers of Jane Austen, whether first-time readers, students or scholars.