DOCSLIB.ORG

Home Editorial Authors' Responses Guidelines For

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Home Editorial Authors' Responses Guidelines For Home Search Every Field Editorial Search Authors' Jane Austen's Style: Narrative Economy and the Novel's Growth Responses By Anne Toner (Cambridge, 2020) xi + 210 pp. Guidelines Reviewed by Megan Quinn on 2020-07-09. For Click here for a PDF version. Reviewers Click here to buy the book on Amazon. About Us Masthead We often treat Jane Austen's narrative economy as a truth universally acknowledged. For that reason, criticism tends to weave this feature of Austen's writing into studies focused on other topics, rather than making style itself the main event. Feedback The most prominent exception is D.A. Miller's Jane Austen, or The Secret of Style (2003). But Miller's main quarry is the idea that Austen's style, and indeed Style writ large, is impersonal, devoid of either any body or the specific, socially marginalized body that belonged to Austen the spinster. In other words, Miller aims to theorize Austen's style more than to identify its formal components, perhaps because the fact of her economy seems so obvious. This omission, as well as the problematically gendered terrain onto which Miller's idea of impersonal style leads, leaves ample room for new contributions to the study of Austen's stylistic economy. Surprisingly, then, Anne Toner's book makes us reconsider what we assumed was obvious--what, exactly, makes up Austen's famous narrative economy. Toner's introduction foregrounds two of the book's major strengths. Besides reviewing the history of critical praise for Austen's narrative economy, Toner argues that Austen's key stylistic concerns develop from her teenage writings, or juvenilia (25). Regarding the first point, Austen's narrative economy won praise from specific critics. In 1859, Toner notes, George Henry Lewes observed that Austen's writing displayed "economy of art" (qtd. 5), and Mary Augusta Ward is said to have made the "next major assessment" of this art (8). While Toner is certainly not the first scholar to cite these early accounts, her treatment of them highlights the process by which the economy of Austen's prose became something taken for granted by those who study her work. Not yet taken for granted is the primacy that Toner gives to Austen's juvenilia. In arguing that Austen's teenage writings are no less than the formal "foundation for all that she writes" (14), Toner is in part preceded by Claudia L. Johnson's afterword to her edition of The Beautifull Cassandra (2018), where this parodic miniature novel is said to "anticipate[]" the uneventfulness of Austen's mature fiction (not paginated). Toner's analysis of "The Beautifull Cassandra" would have benefited from Johnson's deft reading of it. But in drawing a connection between the juvenilia and the mature novels, Toner's book also contributes to a larger critical effort to draw the former from the margins of Austen studies to the center. In particular, the evidence of Austen's "radically contractive thinking" (14) that Toner finds in the juvenilia suggests the larger political stakes and potentials of Austen's early formal experiments. Yet even while reading the juvenilia along with the novels, readers may wonder what new can be said about Austen's interest in polarity: in the way, as Toner writes, that "one spatial extreme" is "inevitably productive of another," as when contraction produces expansion and vice versa (12). This seems, after all, like something we have heard before, and no doubt we have. But this book sheds new light on the specific details of Austenian economy: details often overlooked but nonetheless key to explaining how and why the contraction and expansion of Austen's novels works. According to Toner, Austen's economy includes three main formal components that are treated in each of the book's three chapters: the concision of Austen's plots, which Toner connects to picturesque aesthetics; "reductions of narrative description" through the use of the rhetorical figure apophasis; and the "omission of attribution" in free direct speech (25). First, Toner asks us to reconsider some familiar elements of Austen's narrative economy--its selectiveness and connectedness, and the exclusions and reductions that these entail (30-31). These elements of her style, Toner argues, "enacted a new aesthetic appreciation of the novel" that we can also see in the formalist turn of contemporary criticism (31). Grouping these formal techniques under the heading of what she calls "narratological picturesque" (60-61), Toner links them not only to the picturesque theories of William Gilpin and Uvedale Price, but also to the critical theories of Anna Letitia Barbauld in her preface to The British Novelists (1810) and to Oliver Goldsmith's attempts to abridge English history. Toner's later chapters trace further links between Barbauld's criticism and Austen's practice, and this uncovering of an indirect conversation between two of the era's most prominent female literary figures is another of the book's strengths. In discussing historical abridgements, however, as well as Austen's contrast between the "cohesive and sustained novel" and the "abridgement, the anthology, and the periodical" (47), Toner could have drawn upon Leah Price's The Anthology and The Rise of the Novel (2000), which would have enabled her to more fully and explicitly discuss the gendering of these forms. Turning from the most obvious hallmark of Austen's economy, the last two chapters discuss formal strategies that readers routinely take for granted. While it's often noted that Austen denies readers scenes of marriage proposals or romantic avowals, Toner's second chapter has more to say about this denial. Instances of apophasis--a rhetorical figure that "denies what it does in fact declare"--are said to be often part of a "dynamic of denying and disclosing" (83-85). Apophasis, Toner argues, shows that style "provoked [Austen's] thinking" (83), not just about the technique of free indirect discourse (84), but also about questions of "language and its ethics" (88), the (im)possibility of expression itself (96), and the "knowability of other people" (102). In briefly linking Austen's thinking to that of the Romantic poets, especially Wordsworth's theories of language, Toner might have questioned--rather than simply accepting--Paul de Man's idea of a Romantic obsession with the "failures of language." But Romanticism and language is not her main quarry and, to her credit, she does not find Austen suffering from linguistic failure. According to Toner, Austen believes that "[e]xpression is within our 'reach'" through the apophatic "not telling and telling" of free indirect discourse (130, 108). Toner's last full chapter magnifies the under-observed phenomenon of Austen's free direct speech--in other words, the author's pattern of quoted, direct speech "without a he said or she said" (132). Austen's predilection for free direct speech, Toner explains, can be traced to her mockery of its opposite in her juvenilia, where she parodies the excess of unnecessary attributions in sentimental fiction. Toner then shows what Austen learned about dramatic presentation from the novels of Samuel Richardson and Frances Burney, as well as from Barbauld's emphasis on the dramatic as a formal strategy for the novel. Thus schooled, Austen subtly heightens the contrast between unattributed and attributed direct speech. In Pride and Prejudice, for instance, she shifts from the former to the latter to stress the "distance and anxious formality" between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy (146). By contrast, Toner writes, she cuts attributions as well as the space between lines from the manuscripts of Persuasion and Sanditon, giving readers a sense of proximity to the characters' speech (151-54). At times, Toner argues, the unattributed speech of Mansfield Park and Emma acts like a chorus of voices (166-69), and Toner is particularly engaging on the blend of individual speech and thought with group conversation in the strawberry- picking scene of Emma (176-81). Toner links these experiments with Robert Bage's radical novel Hermsprong (1796), which Austen owned, and since Toner reminds us that "another name" for unattributed speech is "free speech," (161-66) Austen's experiments with it gain radical potential. Though Toner admits that Austen's writing "disallows unambiguous political messages" (165), this discussion of what she does with "free speech" picks up on the promise of Toner's earlier claim for the juvenilia's "radically contractive thinking." If Toner had more fully pursued this line of argument, might it not shed new light on the political stakes of Austen's style? I would have loved to read Toner's answer to this question. Toner ends where Austen does--with the author's last unfinished novel, Sanditon. Here Toner provocatively shows how the process of composition may have enhanced the development of Austen's free speech forms. In this way, as in each of her chapters on the formal features of Austen's style, Toner demonstrates how the effort of writing small worked to inspire some of Austen's biggest ideas and thus to shape nineteenth-century fiction. The beauty of Toner's book is that she repeatedly makes the most of this move, delivering big ideas about Austen's narrative economy through attention to its smallest, and most often overlooked, parts. Megan Quinn holds a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University. Leave a comment on Megan Quinn's review. Name: Email: Comments: I'm not a robot reCAPTCHA Privacy - Terms Submit About Us Copyright © Dartmouth College, 2008-2020.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Rewards of Impertinence: Happy and Unhappy Endings in Jane Austen's Novels Elizabeth Bolger Connecticut College, [email protected]
    Connecticut College Digital Commons @ Connecticut College English Honors Papers English Department 2017 The Rewards of Impertinence: Happy and Unhappy Endings in Jane Austen's Novels Elizabeth Bolger Connecticut College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/enghp Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Bolger, Elizabeth, "The Rewards of Impertinence: Happy and Unhappy Endings in Jane Austen's Novels" (2017). English Honors Papers. 31. http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/enghp/31 This Honors Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the English Department at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Honors Papers by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author. The Rewards of Impertinence: Happy and Unhappy Endings in Jane Austen’s Novels An Honors Thesis presented by Elizabeth Bolger to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in the Major Field Connecticut College New London, Connecticut May 2017 Acknowledgments I would like to thank the people whom I have become close to during my four years at Connecticut College. Their support, wisdom, perspective, and company are eternally valuable to me. I am grateful for our endless conversations—even when they are ridiculous—and the countless times they have listened to me ramble about my thesis. You know who you are. I would also like to thank my family who have always encouraged me to challenge myself and reach for my wildest dreams—even when they seem unobtainable.
    [Show full text]
  • Catherine Morland's Imagination
    “A surmise of such horror”: y y Catherine Morland’s Imagination JULIET McMASTER Juliet McMaster, JASNA’s 2010 North American Scholar, is the author of books on Austen and others, editor- illustrator of The Beautifull Cassandra, co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen , and founder of the Juvenilia Press. She is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta. C J , a critic I admire immensely, has pondered the di fference between Janeite s—readers and admirers of Austen’s work, from all walks of lif e—and professional critics. Janeites, she says, concentrate first and foremost on “character,” and they have no qualms in talking about Austen’s characters “as if they were real people.” The academics, on the other hand, pay most at - tention to plot , in this case the courtship plot , and they consider the Janeite habit of loving and hating the characters inappropriate and amateurish (235). I certainly count myself an academic, and I know the orthodoxy about recognizing the di fference between the real world and a fictional construct and about maintaining a strict academic distance from characters in novels. Nevertheless, just as I choose to suspend my disbelief of fictional events, so also I like to respond to certain characters as if they were really alive . Kathryn Sutherland is on my side of the issue. “Though now unfashionable as a profes - sional protocol for reading,” she writes, “‘caring for’ or identifying with fic - tional characters remains highly important when it comes to explaining why we read novels for pleasure ” (220-21).
    [Show full text]
  • Jane Austen Camp
    ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830 Volume 9 Issue 1 Special Issue: Eighteenth-Century Camp Article 5 2019 Jane Austen Camp Devoney Looser Arizona State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/abo Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Looser, Devoney (2019) "Jane Austen Camp," ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830: Vol. 9 : Iss. 1 , Article 5. https://www.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.5038/2157-7129.9.1.1172 Available at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/abo/vol9/iss1/5 This Scholarship is brought to you for free and open access by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830 by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Jane Austen Camp Abstract Austen camp has become prevalent, even omnipresent, today, in visions and versions of her and her fiction, using them as a canvas for zombies, porn, or roller derby. Some of it may be kitsch, but it’s arguably camp. Investigating Austen as camp is a valuable way to understand her humor and her social criticism, as we now understand camp as a positive literary and social practice. But rather than asking if and when camp is “there,” for Austen or for her past readers, we might instead investigate what aspects or elements of her reputation or her writing we notice differently when we elect to see her as campy.
    [Show full text]
  • Brotherly and Sisterly Dedications in Jane Austen's Juvenilia
    y y Brotherly and Sisterly Dedications in Jane Austen’s : u : Juvenilia PETER SABOR Peter Sabor is Canada Research Chair in Eighteenth- Century Studies and Director of the Burney Centre at McGill University. His publications on Jane Austen include the Cambridge University Press edition of the Juvenilia (2006), and Juvenilia Press editions of Evelyn (1999) and Frederic and Elfrida (2002). J A the writings of her childhood and youth in three manuscript notebooks, to which she gave the mock-solemn titles of “Volume the First,” “Volume the Second ,” and “Volume the Third,” as though collectively they formed a three-volume novel. All four of the novels that she published during her lifetime, from Sense and Sensibility in 1811 to Emma in 1815, ap - peared in just such a format. Despite this ostensible resemblance to her pub - lished works, however, Austen’s juvenilia, written between about 1787 and 1793, di ffer from her full-length fiction in some obvious ways. First, the total length of the twenty-seven items in the three notebooks, some 74,000 words, is less than half that of either of her two longest novels, Mansfield Park and Emma , and considerably less than either Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice , although close to that of the two posthumously published novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion . Second, unlike the numbered chapters that comprise the volumes of each of the novels, the various items in the notebooks are unnumbered and di ffer markedly in length: there are sixteen short pieces in “Volume the First,” nine in “Volume the Second,” including such substantial ones as “Love and Freindship” and “Lesley Castle,” and only two in “Volume the Third ,” “Evelyn” and “Catharine, or the Bower.” Another feature that distinguishes the juvenilia from five of the pub - lished novels is the presence of dedications to family members and close friends, strewn throughout the three manuscript volumes.
    [Show full text]
  • Jane Austen Juvenilia
    Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82420-0 - Jane Austen: Juvenilia Edited by Peter Sabor Frontmatter More information the cambridge edition of the works of JANE AUSTEN juvenilia © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82420-0 - Jane Austen: Juvenilia Edited by Peter Sabor Frontmatter More information Cambridge University Press and the General Editor Janet Todd wish to express their gratitude to the University of Glasgow and the University of Aberdeen for providing funding towards the creation of this edition. Their generosity made possible the employment of Antje Blank as research assistant throughout the project. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82420-0 - Jane Austen: Juvenilia Edited by Peter Sabor Frontmatter More information the cambridge edition of the works of JANE AUSTEN general editor: Janet Todd, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge editorial board Marilyn Butler, University of Oxford Alistair Duckworth, University of Florida Isobel Grundy, University of Alberta Claudia Johnson, Princeton University Jerome McGann, University of Virginia Deirdre Le Faye, independent scholar Linda Bree, Cambridge University Press volumes in this series: Juvenilia edited by Peter Sabor Northanger Abbey edited by Barbara Benedict and Deirdre Le Faye Sense and Sensibility edited by Edward Copeland Pride and Prejudice edited by Pat Rogers Mansfield Park edited by John Wiltshire Emma edited by Richard Cronin and Dorothy McMillan Persuasion edited by Janet Todd and Antje Blank Later Manuscripts edited by Janet Todd and Linda Bree © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82420-0 - Jane Austen: Juvenilia Edited by Peter Sabor Frontmatter More information Frontispiece: Page from the Marriage Register of St Nicholas Church, Steventon, reproduced by permission of the Hampshire Record Office.
    [Show full text]
  • The Reflections of Mary Wollstonecraft's A
    The Reflections of Mary Wollstonecraft’s a Vindication of the Rights of Woman on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudıce* Atıf Can BAYRAM1 Assist. Prof. Dr. Esma Tezcan2 Abstract Feminism, the idea that supports the equality between men and women, occured in the beginning of the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century, in other words the Victorian Period, is considered as the period of conflicts especially for women and their position, as it can be seen in the works of that era. On the one hand, there are women who are oppressed by patriarchy, but on the other hand there is a group of women who raise their voices against it. Without doubt Mary Wollstonecraft is one of the pioneers of those women who are against patriarchy and her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is considered as one of the first recorded books of feminism. In later years Jane Austen, who is one of the distinguished female writers of English Literature, joins in that group of women by mirroring the women’s issues in her works. This writing evaluates the reflections ofA Vindication of the Rights of Woman on Pride an Prejudice by Jane Austen through giving information about the status of women in the Victorian Period. Keywords: Women, the Victorian Period, Marriage, Education, Patriarchy, Women’s Rights, Wollstonecraft, Austen 1 Istanbul Aydin University, [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0112-3294 2 Istanbul Aydın University, [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5781-9119 * Research Article - Submit Date: 07.04.2019, Acceptance Date: 05.05.2020 Doi Num: 10.17932/IAU.IJMCL.2015.014/ijmcl_v06i1003 International Journal of Media Culture and Literature Year 6 Issue 1 - June 2020 (39-57) 39 The Reflections of Mary Wollstonecraft’s a Vindication of the Rights of Woman on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice Mary Wollstonecraft’ın A vindication of the Rights of Woman adlı Eserinin jane Austen’ın Pride and Prejudice Adlı Eserine Yansımaları Öz Kadınlar ve erkekler arasındaki eşitliği savunan Feminizm düşüncesi ondokuzuncu yüzyılın başlarında ortaya çıkmıştır.
    [Show full text]
  • Jane Austen Works and Studies -.
    Jane Austen Works and Studies Arranged by PAIRICIA LATKIN t994 Aiken, Joan. Eliza's Daughter, NY Sr. Martin's press, 1994,316p.London, Gollancz, 1994, 316p. Cloth. Austen, Jane.The Complete Noveis. Chapman text. plus Catharine, Lady Susan,The Watsons, Sanditon. NY, Oxford U. Press, 1994, 1552p.paper. Jane Austen: Great Classic Library. Stamford, Longmeadow press, 1994. Paper. Northanger Abbey. Aberdeen, U. of Aberdeen, 1994. new edition. Introduc- tion by Elizabeth Mahoney. The Novels of Jane Austen. London, Routledgefhoemmes press, 1994. Facsimile of the original texts, ed. by Louise Ross. Introductions by David Gilson. with the first edition of rhe Memoir and Lord Braboume's edition of the Letters. 19 volumes. Special edition, limited to 75 numbered sets, signed by the editors, in a special binding. P ersuasion. London, Everyman Paperback Classics, 1994, 31gp. Introduc- tion by Pat Rogers. Paper. Pride and Prejudice. (Illusrrated Classics Collection 5), Belmont (CA), Lake Publ. Co., 1994, 64p. Juvenile. Paper, available with or without cassette. -. Pride and Prejudice. London, Wordsworth Classics Ltd., 1994, 2+279p. Illustrations by George Allen, according to title page. (This is incorrect. The drawings are actually poor b/w reproductions of drawings by Hugh Thomson..l Hardbound. Pride and Prejudice. London, Wordsworth Classics Ltd., 1994,299p.paper. Pride and Prejudice. London, Penguin paper Classics Series, 1994. 299p. -. Includes 2p unsigned introduction. paper. Pride and Prejudice. Courage Classics. philadelphia, Running press pub_ lications, 1994,367p. With essays. "Jane Ausren,,, Virginia Wool f , 1925, p351-59 . "Additional voice and the Tonal Perspective in pride and prejudice," excerpted from "Necessary conjunctionsl Pride and prejudice," fromJane Austen's Noiels: Social Change and Literary Form, Julia prewitt Brown, 1979, p36O_67.
    [Show full text]
  • Summer Reading Issue, with Expanded Book Reviews, Classics You Might Have Missed Or May Enjoy Revisiting, and a Short Look at Forthcoming Austen-Related Offerings
    Summer Reading IsIssue- “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” Northanger Abbey (1817) Ask almost any JASNA member what he or she is currently reading and you’ll likely be greeted with a long and varied list of titles, often kept in a stack by a nightstand or on one of many bookcases or piles near a treasured reading nook. Unlike Emma Woodhouse and her famed list of 100 titles she intends to read— but never gets around to—Janeites share a year-round passion for diving headlong into a good book. Summertime evokes memories of time off from school, when your “assigned” reading became purely a matter of your own choice and taste. Or late nights under the covers with a book you absolutely could not put down. Or leisurely days under an umbrella at the beach, with a juicy page-turner in your hands. In that spirit, JASNA News introduces our first summer reading issue, with expanded book reviews, classics you might have missed or may enjoy revisiting, and a short look at forthcoming Austen-related offerings. May your summer be filled with happy hours relaxing and reading in your favorite locale, with an abundance of great reading material by your side. Dining with Jane Austen (2017) by Julienne Gehrer AUSTEN FOR FOODIES Includes 75 recipe adaptations recreating foods From Emma’s Box Hill picnic to the white soup served at the associated with Austen’s life, letters, and novels. Netherfield ball, Austen’s novels are filled with references to food.
    [Show full text]
  • October 2018 Newsletter
    Jane Austen Society of North America, Southwest Region October 2018 Newsletter Registration Coming Soon for Winter 2018 Meeting at Sony Join us at Sony Pictures Studio in Culver City for a very special Winter 2018 Regional Meeting. Jane Austen in Hollywood Saturday, December 8 Tickets Members, $85 Guests and Nonmembers, $100 Students, $50 Free parking Actual cost of the event, $120 (The rest is being underwritten by JASNA Southwest as a thank you to our members for our successful 2017 Annual General Meeting in Huntington Beach.) Member registration begins in mid-October. General public registration will begin late October/early November. NOTE: Members will be able to sign up guests during the member registration period, but must pay the nonmember rate for guests. Featured Speakers: Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield (editors of Jane Austen in Hollywood) The Unfilmable Jane Austen: The Case of Northanger Abbey Northanger Abbey is hard to put successfully on film because it concerns itself with temporal change, both personal and cultural: It captures people and culture on the move. It requires, unlike Jane Austen's other novels, a sense of how British culture evolves over time. Any modern potential film audience will be so aware of the split between our present and Austen's world as the past that it becomes difficult to portray on screen Austen's concern with defining modernity in Northanger Abbey. In this novel, Jane is Janus, looking forward and backward, serving as goddess of a doorway through time. One cannot pass through the same doorway twice, however, and any period film of that novel will have an impossible time recapturing modernity that is 200 years old.
    [Show full text]
  • Editing Jane: Austen's Juvenilia in the Classroom Tobi Kozakewich, Kirsten Macleod and Juliet Mcmaster
    Document generated on 09/28/2021 7:57 p.m. Lumen Selected Proceedings from the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Travaux choisis de la Société canadienne d'étude du dix-huitième siècle Editing Jane: Austen's Juvenilia in the Classroom Tobi Kozakewich, Kirsten Macleod and Juliet Mcmaster Material Productions & Cultural Construction Culture matérielle & Constructions discursives Volume 19, 2000 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1012324ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1012324ar See table of contents Publisher(s) Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies / Société canadienne d'étude du dix-huitième siècle ISSN 1209-3696 (print) 1927-8284 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Kozakewich, T., Macleod, K. & Mcmaster, J. (2000). Editing Jane: Austen's Juvenilia in the Classroom. Lumen, 19, 187–201. https://doi.org/10.7202/1012324ar Copyright © Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies / Société This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit canadienne d'étude du dix-huitième siècle, 2000 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ 13. Editing Jane: Austen's Juvenilia in the Classroom Treasured objects in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the British Library, materials that have been carefully preserved from that century to this, are the manuscripts from the hand of the teenage Jane Austen, written during the 1790s: she called them, in humorous imitation of the three-decker novels she was used to reading, Volume the First, Volume the Second, and Volume the Third.
    [Show full text]
  • The Illustrations Are All Simple Black-And-White Ink Drawings, Which Lessen the Weight of Scholarly Presence
    The illustrations are all simple black-and-white ink drawings, which lessen the weight of scholarly presence. Sometimes they veer on caricature, but they pick up on the playful aspect that most of these texts share. They also make these texts accessible to even the very young reader; children would enjoy some of these works, such as White's Pockets Full of Stars. Indeed, juvenilia primarily belong to the young. I like the way the Juvenilia Press is committed to developing each project from the classroom, and I see no reason why such projects could not be guided by high-school teachers. They could, as Juliet McMaster suggests, bridge the "generation gap" between the writer/teacher and the reader, and break down the resist- ance young readers often have towards Literature with a capital L, for they can more easily identify with a teenage George Eliot than the mature creator of Daniel Deronda ("Teaching" 136). High school students would enjoy studying Norna — and presenting it. Whether for high school and university students, or armchair readers, these works are accessible examples of literary tradition. Reading Norna, for example, is a good introduction to the gothic conventions of the baggy mon- sters of Ann Radcliffe. With a little imagination, these works could fit into both children's and "adult's" literature courses. They could go far in dispel- ling condescending attitudes towards the young and their writing. The chief reason to read and teach juvenilia, however, is that they are often very good. Best of all, these "embryo words" can give young writers hope that their own juvenilia will survive and that, one day, they could be the next Atwood.
    [Show full text]
  • SHORT SUMMARY (Synopsis)
    Appendix 1 SHORT SUMMARY (Synopsis) Pride and Prejudice is the story of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and their five unmarried daughters. They live in the estate of Longbourn in Hertfordshire, a rural district about thirty miles from London. The family is not rich. Their property is ‘entailed’ to pass to the nearest male heir in the family, in this case to Mr. Collins. The main concern of Mrs. Bennet’s life is to see that all her daughters are married, preferably to men with large fortunes. She sees an opportunity for her eldest daughter Jane when Mr. Charles Bingley, a wealthy gentlemen from the city, occupies the nearby estate of Netherfield Park. In her excitement, she urges her husband to visit Mr. Bingley on the very first day of his arrival, before any of the other neighbors. Mr. Bennet complies to his wife’s request and visits Mr. Bingley, but withholds information about his visit from the family. At the next social gathering in Meryton, Bingley brings along his two sisters, Caroline Bingley and Louisa Hurst. But more importantly, he brings his closest friend, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Bingley, who is charming and social, is immediately attracted to the modest and gentle Jane Bennet. Darcy, in contrast to Bingley, is proud, rude, and disagreeable. When Bingley suggests that Darcy dance with Elizabeth Bennet, he refuses and negatively comments on her looks. Elizabeth overhears the comment and develops a strong prejudice against Darcy. At the next ball in Netherfield, Darcy feels an attraction for Elizabeth and asks her for a dance. She refuses to dance with him, thereby avenging the earlier insults.
    [Show full text]