Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets

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Columbia University Press, 2004 - 211 páginas

This elegant and thoughtful work offers an important new way of understanding Jane Austen by defining the fundamental impact and influence of British Romanticism on her later novels. In comparing the earlier and later phases of Austen's career, Deresiewicz addresses an important yet neglected issue regarding her work: the longstanding critical consensus that Austen's last three novels (Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion) represent far greater artistic achievements than do her first three (Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice).

Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets offers a rich account of the differences between the two phases of Austen's career. In doing so, it contextualizes her later novels within the British Romantic movement and the works of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, and Byron. Through close readings of Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion, Deresiewicz reveals the importance of Romantic ideas in Austen's later work, considering the ways in which the novels investigate hidden mechanisms of psychic and affective life, including "substitution," "ambiguous relationships," and "widowhood." Deresiewicz's innovative approach and its emphasis on Romanticism opens up new perspectives on Austen's later novels by exploring their patterns of imagery, narrative logics, and social and historical dimensions.

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Acerca del autor (2004)

William Deresiewicz was an associate professor of English at Yale University from 1998 to 2008. He is a contributing writer for The Nation and a contributing editor for The New Republic and The American Scholar. His work has also appeared in several publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. He has won the Hiett Prize in the Humanities and the Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. He is the author of several books including A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter and Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life.

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