A Revolution Almost Beyond Expression: Jane Austen's PersuasionUniversity of Delaware Press, 2007 - 280 páginas To praise Jane Austen's novels only as stylistic masterpieces is to strip them of the historical, cultural, and literary contexts that might otherwise illuminate them. By focusing primarily on the political, historical, satiric, actively intertextual, and deeply sexualized text of Persuasion, Jocelyn Harris seeks to reconcile the so-called insignificance of her content with her high canonical status, for Austen's interactions with real and imagined worlds prove her to be innovative, even revolutionary. This book answers common assertions that Austen's content is restricted; that being uneducated and a woman, she could only write unconsciously, realistically, and autobiographically of what she knew; that her national and sexual politics were reactionary; and that her novels serve mainly as havens from reality. Such ideas arose from literal readings of Austen's letters, the family's representation of her as a gentle, unlearned genius, and the assumption that she could not write about the Napoleonic Wars. Persuasion is, though, permeated with references to war as well as peace. Harris suggests that Persuasion may respond to Walter Scott's review of Emma, Austen's correspondence with Fanny Knight, hostile reviews of Frances Burney's The Wanderer, contemporary attacks on the novel, and her own defense of fiction in Northanger Abbey. Self-critical in revision, Austen calls on Byron, Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Cook to modify wartime constructions of English masculinity such as Southey's Nelson. Similarly, her critique of Scott's first three novels confirms that her attitude toward class and gender is far from reactionary. |
Dentro del libro
Resultados 1-5 de 45
... mean to recuperate her as a " serious " artist for that rea- son alone . But the fact that she could and did write ... means that the time line for her Napoleonic novel is as reveal- ing as it is exact . Napoleon's exile to St. Helena ...
... means of intertextual refer- ences from Job , Ecclesiastes , the Book of Common Prayer , Chaucer , Shakespeare , Bunyan , the satiric , sentimental , and political writers of the eighteenth century , and the most recent publications of ...
... mean rank among the pro- ductions of genius ; and , in truth , there is hardly any department of liter- ature in ... means been measured by the pleasure he affords to his readers ; yet the invention of a story , the choice of proper ...
... means " less power of continued voluntary attention , —of rea- son — passion and imagination , " the " intuitive perception of their mind is less disturbed by general reasonings on causes or conse- quences . " He asserts that women are ...
... means of obtaining what I imagined the only cure for my distempered mind . Weary of life , I could not possess her in whom all my joys , all the wishes of my soul were centred , I seized every occasion of exposing myself to the enemy's ...
Contenido
20 | |
The Reviser at Work MS Chapter 10 to Chapters XXI 1818 | 36 |
At the White Hart MS Chapter 11 to Chapter XII 1818 | 63 |
The History of Buonaparte | 73 |
Domestic Virtues and National Importance | 91 |
A Critique on Walter Scott | 109 |
Prejudice on the Side of Ancestry | 130 |
The Worth of Lyme | 146 |
The White Glare of Bath | 160 |
Meaning to Have Spring Again | 188 |
A Thoughtless Gay Set | 195 |
Notes | 202 |
248 | |
267 | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
A Revolution Almost Beyond Expression: Jane Austen's Persuasion Jocelyn Harris Vista de fragmentos - 2007 |