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 55
... scene to something manageable , while in the second , she was cheering on James Edward after he lost two and a half chapters of his manuscript . But what she calls his " strong , manly , spirited Sketches , full of Variety & Glow " make ...
... scenes , frequent comparisons of Austen's works to the superrealistic " Dutch " or " Flemish " school of painting sug- gested a minuteness , stillness , and enclosure implying emotional as well as physical constraint . Respect generally ...
... scenes and streets invite exact tracing of the characters ' movements , but just as striking are the Romantic geographies of Lyme Regis and Bath's ambivalent reputation as a " Valley of Pleasure , yet a Sink of Iniq- uity . " 32 The ...
... scene of a young lady lay- ing down her book " with affected indifference , or momentary shame . " Burney asks that the novel ought not generally " to be branded as a mere vehicle for frivolous , or seductive and 1 : ORIGINS FOR ...
... scene at the White Hart , where Anne argues that brute strength does not affect intensity of feeling — Robinson made a similar point in her Letter to the Women of England on the Injustice of Mental Subordination , when she wrote , " In ...
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 |