Ray Simply Austen

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943657-13-1
Verlag: Simply Charly
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 7, 258 Seiten

Reihe: Great Lives

'Simply Austen is simply a must for anyone just starting off their Janeite journey or for those wanting a quick refresher course. Jam-packed with biographical facts and contexts, this smart pocket tutorial offers a fast-paced and accessible distillation of what scholars and biographers have pieced together about an enigmatic author so beloved that many readers refer to her solely by her first name-as if a close personal friend.'
-Janine Barchas, Professor of English at the University of Texas, Austin
One of the most beloved novelists of all time, Jane Austen (1775-1817) is also one of the most scrutinized. Since the early 20th century, she has been a favorite topic of academic researchers and scholars; at the same time, the popularity of her books has continued to grow. Why are Austen's novels the subject of scholarly tomes and doctoral dissertations, and also the inspiration for a virtual cottage industry of popular adaptations? And how did this English country parson's daughter with little formal education become a major literary figure? 
In Simply Austen, author Joan Klingel Ray paints a carefully researched, comprehensive, and highly entertaining portrait of the phenomenon that is Jane Austen-an author whose works have been translated into dozens of languages and who critic Harold Bloom placed among the greatest writers of all time. In exploring Austen's life and books, Ray not only helps us understand the forces that shaped this talented writer, but also offers a wealth of insightful clues that help explain her lasting popularity and continuing relevance for a 21st-century audience. 
In Pride and Prejudice, the satirical character Mr. Collins announces, 'Oh, I never read novels.' For those of us who do-and especially for confirmed or aspiring Janeites-Simply Austen is an invaluable resource and a great way to discover the author who helped refine the art of novel writing.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ray, Joan Klingel

Leseproben

Introduction: Jane Austen and her Culture–the Context for her Novels
Before her death at only 41, Jane Austen (1775-1817) completed just six novels—all still popular with readers of all generations. They are taught in schools; discussed in book clubs; deconstructed by scholars; and adapted into films. Furthermore, her works have been updated with Internet trolling and drugs in a Harper Collins project, “Jane Austen Re-imagined,” where six current best-selling authors like Alexander McCall Smith and Joanna Trollope adapt her novels for the 21st-century world. I believe, however, that there is no need for such modernization because Austen’s works, although set in Georgian England, transcend time and place. She wrote about human nature, which, by definition, never changes: whether in bonnets, corsets, and bloomers of the 1800s, or the fashions of later centuries, her protagonists exhibit “timeless” character traits: boastfulness (John Thorpe); naiveté (Catherine Morland); impertinence (Elizabeth Bennet); over-indulgent emotionalism (Marianne Dashwood); over-confidence (Emma Woodhouse); male sexual carelessness, narcissism, and greed (Willoughby); and sexual jealousy (Fanny Price), among other characteristics. Janeites of all ages exist around the world. Janeites or Janites is a word coined in 1894 by George Saintsbury in his “Preface” to an illustrated edition of Pride and Prejudice. Writing of Austen’s growing readership, he stated: And in the sect—fairly large and yet unusually choice of Austenians or Janites, there would probably be found partisans of the claim to primacy of almost every one of the novels. He repeated the word two years later in his History of English  Literature:  It did not apparently occur to this critic that he (or she) was in the first place paying Miss Austen an extraordinarily high compliment—a compliment almost greater than the most enthusiastic “Janites” have ventured. In that sense, Jane Austen was and is unique. We don’t hear of Williamites who love Shakespeare or Rowlingites who adore Harry Potter books. But Janeites are an active and vocal community, sharing, as they do, their views on Austen’s books, characters, life, imaginary houses, actual houses, and characters on innumerable blogs. Despite the depth and breadth of her novels, Austen’s works can be enjoyed for their basic storyline and character appeal. While her satire is often subtle and her style and characters are frequently complex, many readers first come to her novels for one simple thing: their love stories. But that is not the main reason that this book is called Simply Austen. Rather, the title refers to the concise, yet comprehensive, format of the book, meant to provide an insightful introduction to the life and works of one of England’s—and the world’s—favorite authors. Written for anyone who wants a crisp refresher on or introduction to Jane Austen, her culture, and her writing, Simply Austen provides just that. My many years of teaching Austen at the university (years before we saw Darcy in the wet shirt in the 1995-television series), writing about her and her novels in articles and books, as well as my six years as President of the Jane Austen Society of North America (www.jasna.org) went into this book’s creation. Because of my classroom experiences and public speaking to JASNA groups across the U.S. and Canada, I introduce this book with the context of Austen’s cultural background, which may be as foreign to you, the reader, as it sometimes was to my students and many audiences. One such moment occurred during a classroom discussion of Pride and Prejudice, when a career Marine veteran impatiently griped that “Darcy and Bingley are just a couple of bums who ride around the countryside, but who should get jobs.”  Austen naturally expected her readers to understand the social conventions and mores of her day. While commentators have long praised her characters for their lifelikeness, these same characters live in a world of specific class distinctions and expectations. This is why my Marine vet student misinterpreted Darcy and Bingley. Though an intelligent man and a good reader, he simply did not know the culture in which these two characters lived: they were members of the gentry, a social class that did not hold jobs in a conventional sense, but rather derived their income from their land. In fact, in Austen’s time, the main standard of wealth was land. The gentry class (from which the word “gentleman” derived) was comprised of male landowners who had at least 300 acres, which they did not farm themselves. Instead, tenant farmers did the actual labor. As Mrs. Reynolds, Pemberley’s housekeeper, proudly tells Elizabeth and the Gardiners of Darcy, “‘He is the best landlord. . . . There is not one of his tenants or servants but what will give him a good name’” (PP 3:1). The breadth of this class appears in Pride and Prejudice. An incensed and interfering Lady Catherine tries to discourage Elizabeth from marrying Darcy, whose annual income is five times Mr. Bennet’s: “‘If you were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in which you have been brought up.’” Elizabeth calmly and correctly replies, “‘In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal’” (3:14)—to which Lady Catherine, who normally loves the sound of her own voice, can initially utter just a one-word reply, “‘True.’” (Then, of course, Lady Catherine reaches for Elizabeth’s non-gentry relatives, a country attorney and a man in trade in London.) Although Elizabeth’s father, with an income of £2,000 annually, does not own property as extensive as Darcy’s Pemberley, he stays home, reads in his library, is served by a household staff that includes a butler, housekeeper, maids, and cook, and makes memorably snide remarks about his wife and five daughters. His tenant farmers do the actual farming, which readers know about because Mrs. Bennet remarks that the horses “‘are wanted in the farm’” (1:7). Mr. Bennet is a “gentleman,” which even the hyper-class-conscious Lady Catherine understands. Gentlemen earned their wealth the truly old-fashioned way: they inherited it. The primary recipients of inherited titles and property were eldest sons in a system called primogeniture (first born). Inherited property and title (if there was one) legally went to the eldest son and then to his male child, thus keeping property in the paternal name and line. But by Austen’s day—and she recognized this—newly wealthy persons who earned or inherited their fortunes in the early years of the Industrial Revolution and its accompanying commercial enterprises aspired to buy estates that would raise them to the gentry as first-generation members. In Pride and Prejudice, Charles Bingley “inherited property [cash] to the amount of nearly an hundred thousand pounds from his father, who had intended to purchase an estate, but did not live to do it.” Charles “intended it likewise, . . . but . . . it was doubtful to many of those who best knew the easiness of his temper, whether he might not . . . leave the next generation to purchase.” His socially ambitious, catty sisters, who conveniently forget that their fortunes and their brother’s “had been acquired by trade” in the north of England and snicker at Elizabeth’s uncle’s living “within view of his own warehouses” in London (2:2), “were very anxious for his having an estate of his own,” obliterating the taint of trade and conferring on them gentry status (1:4).  Austen was a sharp satirist, relentlessly exposing vulgar social climbers, such as the Bingley sisters, Emma’s Mrs. Elton, and Mrs. Elton’s in-laws, the wonderfully named Sucklings who have owned Maple Grove for only 11 years—while Darcy’s Pemberley is “‘the work of many generations.’” (The Sucklings’ neighbors are the equally cleverly named Bragges.) Austen was also aware of the slowly changing social climate of her times: a gentleman was coming to be recognized as a man of excellent manners, good sense, and education, who may not own any land, rather than just being a landowner. Elizabeth’s Aunt and Uncle Gardiner, who live in the commercial area of Cheapside, London, are a lady and gentleman, despite Mr. Gardiner’s being in trade. Elizabeth even observes that when Darcy meets the Gardiners at Pemberley, he “takes them for people of fashion” (3:1). If Persuasion’s Naval hero, Captain Wentworth, was not of the gentry class when he first courted Anne Elliot of Kellynch Hall six years before the novel opens, he returns in 1814 as a wealthy Napoleonic War hero with the money and stature to socialize with the gentry and marry Anne. The fully established self-made gentleman had to wait until the Victorian period [1837-1901], during which the term “gentleman” underwent complex redefinition. But Austen saw the early stages of this transformation in her own day. As Austen’s father, George, was a clergyman, which was considered a respectable and “gentlemanly” occupation, the Austens mingled with the gentry. Being a clergyman in the Church of...