Jane Austen - facts, quotes, works

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Jane AustenFacts, quotes, works



Facts

„ The seventh child of George Austen and CassandraLeigh Austen, Jane Austen was born in Steventon, avillage in southern England in 1775.

„ In her lifetime she completed six novels,

including Northanger Abbey, Sense and SensibilityPride and Prejudice Mansfield ParkEmma and Persuasion. Four of them were publishedbefore her death.

„ For her first love, Austen got a story worthy of one ofher novels - one that in fact has certain things incommon with that of Marianne Dashwood in Senseand Sensibility. The object of her love, Tom Lefroy, wasthe Irish nephew of her close friend Anne Lefroy.Knowing that Tom would lose his inheritance if he



Quotes“ Wisdom is better than wit, and in the long run

will certainly have the laugh on her side.”

“ I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it

saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”

“ Nothing ever fatigues me, but doing what I do not

like.”

“My idea of good company is the company of

clever, well-informed people who have a great

deal of conversation; that is what I call good

company.”

“ My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.”



Works

„ Northanger AbbeyIn Northanger Abbey we have two kinds of novels cleverly and mosteffectively welded into one. The Bath scenes which occupy the firstpart of the novel belong to the genre that describes a young lady'sentrance into the world. The later chapters set in Northanger Abbeyare a skit on the popular Gothic novels of the day.

With such literary origins, it is not surprising to find in NorthangerAbbey a highly self-conscious work of art. Quite deliberately, JaneAusten keeps reminding us that we are reading a novel. This isappropriate in a work whose chief theme is the difference betweenillusion and reality, and the importance of knowing which we are

dealing with at any one time.

The novel follows Catherine Morland's progress from innocence anddelusion to understanding and clear sight. She never loses her honestand unaffectedness, which is what makes her an attractive heroinedespite being neither clever nor witty. But she does learn a few

lessons in the ways of the world, while artlessly working her way intothe affections of the hero. He is clever and witt - in fact, in his



„ Sense and SensibilityThe integrity of the self and the claims of society lie at the heart ofthis novel, which explores the destiny of two sisters, Elinor and

Marianne Dashwood. The world of Sense and Sensibility is aparticularly public one. Much of life is lived communally; theheroines are forced into a great deal of empty socialising andtheir romantic and financial circumstances are the subject ofspeculation and curiosity. With the exception of their mother andthe men they eventually marry, the characters surrounding the

heroines are mean-spirited, impertinent or vulgar. Against thisbackground, we see two young women falling in love, sufferingdisappointment and heartache, and learning to achieve a balancebetween passion and prudence. Their stories are parallel, butwhile Elinor endures and is rewarded by marriage with the manshe loves, Marianne has to remake her own character before shecan find peace of mind.

The earliest of her novels, Sense and Sensibility is a reaction toJane Austen's youthful reading. The cult of sensibility, which wasprevalent in the literature of that time, argued that to haveoverpowering feelings was a sign of superior character. Itfollowed that it was as wrong as it was hopeless to try to controlor hide such feelings, whatever inconvenience or suffering theymay cause their owner or anybody else. Jane Austen had twoquarrels with the cult of sensibility. The first was that peoplemi ht exa erate and falsif their feelin s in order to be thou ht



„ Pride and PrejudiceFrom its famous first sentence to its almost fairytale ending, Pride andPrejudice sparkles with wit and youthful high spirits. The heroine isperhaps the most delightful of any created by Jane Austen - or by any

other writer, for that matter. The dialogue is masterly, the comiccharacters wonderfully ridiculous and the plot has a most satisfyingshape. If the novel lacks the depth of Jane Austen's later creations, it isunequalled in surface brilliance and humour.The tone of the novel is a happy one. The heroine, Elizabeth Bennet,laughs at most of the follies around her, and we laugh with her. She has

her share of suffering, but not enough to occupy a very largeproportion of the narrative. Except for occasional moments of despair,her outlook is an optimistic one. Perhaps more optimistic than hereconomic circumstances warrant - for the Bennet girls really will behomeless when their father dies, and Mrs Bennet, for all her faults,should be given some credit for worrying about their future. Elizabeth's

insouciance is partly the result of her nature, partly a reaction to hermother's fussing, but it is also an unconscious product of the author'syouth. At the time she wrote Pride and Prejudice , Jane Austen had notfailed to observe that in society as it stood, marriage was 'the onlyhonourable provision for well-educated young women of smallfortune'; but she had hardly yet begun to reflect seriously on the

predicament of dependent or dispossessed women.



„ Mansfield Park

The first of Jane Austen's novels to have been

conceived and wholly written at

Chawton, Mansfield Park is very different in tonefrom its predecessors. For some readers it is themost substantial and satisfying of Jane Austen'snovels. Others like it the least, perhaps because witand humour, though not absent from the novel,

seem to be regarded with some suspicion.Most controversial of all is the heroine, FannyPrice. Some feel as tenderly toward her as herauthor does; others find her too solemn. Fannycomes to Mansfield at the age of ten, a poor

relation. Timid and self-effacing, she stands on thesidelines for the first half of the novel, observingthe courtships and flirtations of her cousins theBertrams and visitors to the neighbourhood, Henryand Mary Crawford.The departure of some of these characters forces



„ Emma‘ A heroine whom no-one but myself will much like', JaneAusten called her eponymous heroine when she waswriting Emma . But readers do like Emma, very much, despite

her faults of snobbery and vanity. She is an affectionate andpatient daughter, a delightful aunt, and a loving friend to MrsWeston. But it is the play of her mind that perhaps entrancesus most.Emma is often playful. It is one of the qualities which MrKnightley loves her for, and which seems to promise them a

happy partnership. But she can also be rational. We are toldearly in the novel that though she dearly loves her father, he isno companion to her. 'He could not meet her in conversation,either rational or playful'. Mr Knightley can. They are bothnatural leaders of their society, and function well together,long before they have recognised their mutual love.

Emma dominates her novel to an extent not equalled by any

other Jane Austen heroine, and it is rightly named after her.While most of the novels begin by explaining the familycircumstances before coming in to focus on the heroine, thefirst words of this novel are: 'Emma Woodhouse', and the firstsentence is a description of her personality: 'handsome, cleverand rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition'.

All Jane Austen's narratives are seen through a young woman'seyes, but Emma Woodhouse does not just experience, she



„ PersuasionJane Austen was about forty years old when shewrote Persuasion . Until then, she had always taken as herheroine a young woman at the threshold of life,

inexperienced, falling in love for the first time, agedsomewhere between seventeen and twenty-one. Nowshe told a different kind of story. Anne Elliot is twenty-seven, with a fully mature mind. For her, falling in love issomething that belongs to her past. Eight years beforethe novel opens, she had become engaged to marry

Captain Wentworth of the Royal Navy, but waspersuaded to break off the engagement for reasons ofprudence. She has spent the last eight years regrettingthe decision, and does not expect to find love again.The novel has two settings. From Michaelmas toChristmas Anne resides in the Somerset countryside, first

at the home of her married sister, then with her friendLady Russell. Two days are spent by the sea at Lyme,where events occur that will change the destiny ofseveral of the characters. After Christmas Anne goesreluctantly to live in Bath. Her spend-thrift, snobbishfather, Sir Walter Elliot, has taken a house here in orderto economise, while his country estate is let to CaptainWentworth's sister and her husband Admiral Croft. Anne



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Jane Austen - facts, quotes, works

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