Austen, Jane - Life and Works (3)

Aesthetic Movement

In the later years of Queen Victoria’s reign, optimism declined, and many artists and intellectuals become more pessimistic. Spencer introduced the idea of Social Darwinism, according to which only the strongest race survived and this belief was used to justify imperialism where stronger nations led the weaker ones.
This decade was characterized by the Aesthetic Movement that reflected the sense of frustration and uncertainty of the artist. Italso represented an attempt to draw attention to hypocrisies of Victorian values and this protest led to an unconventional existence, cultivating sensation and excess. The motto of this movement was’’ Art for art’s sake’’, which saw beauty and art being above all. The artist reacted against the materialism and the restrictive moral code of the middle class and as a result, needs to redefine the role of art that was eternal with no references to life and nothing to teach, but only the task to feel sensations.

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was born in 1775 in Steventon, in Hampshire. His father was the rector of the local church and his family was very affectionate, especially by her sister Cassandra. She was educated at home by her father and showed an early interest in literature, with her first work in 1787. After his father's death, the family moved to Chawton where Austen wrote his most mature works. He died in Winchester in 1817. His main works are Northanger Abbey written in 1798 but published posthumously, Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816) and Persuasion (1818, published posthumously). Jane Austen was influenced by 18th-century novelists and she learned from them to analyze the psychology of characters and describe ordinary events like balls. She also learned to use an omniscient narrator, dialogue, third-person external narrator and an irony verbal and situational, that made her works interesting. She is considered the master of the novel of manners. This genre is set up in upper-and middle-class society. Her novels highlight the influence of social class distinction on character. The main themes of her works are marriage, love, and friendship. Third person narrator and dialogue was the main narrative mode. Austen’s values were property,money and marriage indeed the society of her time was based on the possession of land or country houses and marriage that was the result of the growing social mobility also called upward mobility. Indeed there is the marriage market takes place in London and some seaside resorts where Gossip, flirtations, seductions, adulteries are the themes. This produces a range of villains: like seducers and social climbers. In Austen’s novels there isn’t place for great passion but an interest with analysis of character. Thereare “Romantic” elements of happy ending like the marriagebetween the hero and heroine, and the author focus on their steps as social climbers. The aristocracy was at the top of the social ladder, and they tended to stay away from lower-class people. Characters from Austen’s novels belong to a class below the aristocracy that is the gentry, people that became rich thanks to land possession.