Riassunto esame Letteratura inglese, Prof. Perletti Greta, libro consigliato Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Historical Background

23.09.2022

Augustan Age

• 18th Century reference for Jane Austen
• Queen Anne, King George I and II (political stability)
• Reference to Roman history: Augusto and the arts
• Also Golden Age from perspective of artists and writers because prosperous and easy to find patrons who could pay
• The Enlightenment in whole ESP. Europe (Age of Reason)
• Jane Austen respects traditions and values (order, harmony, balance, Aestheticism)
• Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson
• Poetry
• Novelists
• Important for women writers

Romantic Age

• 1785 - 1832 Literary movement rather than historical
• In Europe not only England (2 generations of poets)
• 1832 Reform Act to extend right to vote (also middle class)
• Poetry not prose

Regency

• 1811 - 1820 King George III mad = Prince Regent
• Jane Austen started writing in Romantic Age but published during Regency (all 6 novels)
• Elegance and prosperity (not really because Prince not skilled to rule and because Napoleonic Wars but remembered like stable)

Victorian Age

• 1837 - 1901 Queen Victoria
• England changed during reign and also English novels
• Jane Austen's reputation grows even if died 1817
• "the long 19th century" used for common features
• Contains Augustan Age, Romantic Age, Regency, Victorian Age

Why do we read stories

• Cognitive Literary Theory (emphasis on brain + interest in literature)
• Jonathan Gottschall - "The Storytelling Animal" (academic book)
• How mental processes evolved during time
• To reinforce a group of societies, human is addicted to stories and is advantage from evolutive perspective

storytelling is instict and fundamental/useful so is an

adaptative because it activates in brain neural processes/responces

which is useful for real life situations (react faster and more

successful way)

literature strengths mind: like training for real life

Lisa Zunshine: “why we read fiction” theory of mind and novel

theory of mind: ability in mind displays, when tries to read

others mind (mind reading) (distinct in us to interpret and

imagine why behaviour of others)

literature improves it (in particular fiction)

act of interpretation to understand behaviours: who is more

successful is more social one

assumption we treat characters as if they were real people

(since we should do that) essential to learn something from

books and stories

practice to interpretation (training space)

type of fiction one reads tells which type of theory of mind

like and try to understand

Women Writers

• Novels of manners and comedies of social life
• Frances Burney and Maria Edgeworth important for Austen
• Quoted in Northanger Abbey
• Conversation, society, explore conversion society
• Novel dominates action of story
• Social interaction
• Female characters and context with society
• Comedies - happy ending: marriage
• Also Jane Austen's novels even if there is some tragedy
• Burney really successful, published by subscription because had lots of readers ("Cecilia")
• Important and famous
• Conventional novels, didactic tone (virtue), sense of duty, place in society
• Protagonists intelligent, witty, smart
• Edgeworth more radical
• Irish life and traditions (interest of Romantics, regional life)
• Woman should marry man who suits her in character, temper and understanding (intellect) = better stay alone than uncomtemplable marriage
• In "Belinda" marries black man (removed because too radical)
• Jane Austen followed these ideas and didn't marry but Charlotte Lucas (Pride and Prejudice) prefers marriage with Mr. Collin than poverty
• Professional women: wheel of works
• Inspiration for Austen
• Published with their own names: unconventional
• Jane Austen never used that (a lady or the author of: ) even if many knew it was her
• Not involve family but let know it was a woman

https://archive.org/details/prideprejvoice00aust

• 1869 James Edward Austen-Leigh (grandnephew) publishes ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen’
• serious & devoted woman > typical Victorian woman
• novels had a boom after it
• particular not really true: many duties in house so writing in spare time, author by chance (hagiological figure)
• figure of “dear aunt” who created masterpieces with no effort during leisure time
• 1929 Virginia Woolf ‘A Room of One’s Own’ figure of Jane Austen like the one in the Memoir is example of woman author always interrupted by family duties
• but family supported her and her work
• Memoir starts a cult of Jane Austen, author “Dear Jane”
• shift of attention from novels to commercial figure
• 1870 “A Memoir” in 1871 to which is added Lady Susan and Two Other Unfinished Tales by Miss Austen”
• 1884 publication “Letters of Jane Austen”
• many letters burned by family, but many were emended/censored to be published
• wit, jokes, irritation (relatives, children) removed because not typical Victorian woman, not “Dear Jane” canon
• scholars vs Janeites
• critics and cult of Jane, critical distance and personal involvings
• necessity to adopt a critical distance vs passionate attachment to Jane as a friend
• Victorian were Janeites many editions with illustrations but not careful because eager to publish (punctuation confused), so scholars came out to change this carelessness
• 1894 luxury edition “Pride and Prejudice” with beautiful but not accurate (dresses not Regency but Victorian)
• publisher Saintsbury uses term “Janeites” first time
• 1924 Rudyard Kipling short story “The Janeites” (only men)
• veterans of 1st World War with interest in Jane Austen

• Conduct book literature & novels as improper for young women
• "Sermons to Young Women" James Fordyce 1766 (Sermon IV)
• Novel harmful, corruptive, moral depreciation, futility, lewdness
• Philosophical debate: novels dangerous for young women
• "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" Mary Wollstonecraft 1792
• Novels: inferior education to women makes them inferior in life
• Limited to accomplishments
• Essays: Benjamin Rush 1798
• Sentimental novel should teach emotions but stressing sensibility obtains the opposite: hardened heart
• Metafiction to mock moral panic (chapter 2)
• Language of sentimental and Gothic novel to mock them
• Hyperbolic language, evil foreboding
• Pay attention, not be carried away by illusional reality
• Contrast: common life and fineries, effect that novels can have on real people — harmful because real people have more important things to think of
• Defense of novel in chapter 5
• Normally before novel: preface/defend own work in contrast with other novels
• In story narrator says novels generate pleasure so are important; interrupts story: intrusive narrator who is now close to Austen
• Addresses reader directly
• Attack writers who are aware common thought of novel and join it (hypocrisy/broke) giving worst wretcheds to novels and forbidding own heroine to read them (paradox)
• Importance of collective identity as novelists
• Attack reviewers: mimic their language to show how excessive text it is and to mock them, language of moral panic (stains of the trash)
• Novelists should know they are injured body: vulnerable, every attack causes pain
• Presence of main aim of novel: no other types of writing can do that
• Types of writing considered better than novels: collection of