Jane Austen: Her Enduring Legacy
Based in part on a Smithsonian Associates lecture by author/educator Joseph Luzzi.
The work of Jane Austen (1775-1817), especially six novels for which she’s best known, has only become more popular over time. These include: Sense and Sensibility – 1811, Pride and Prejudice – 1813, Mansfield Park – 1814, and Emma 1816, all published anonymously when a woman author was thought to degrade femininity; Northanger Abbey and Persuasion – both published posthumously in 1818. Sanditon, unfinished in her lifetime, has nonetheless both been published and turned into a television miniseries
Host Joseph Luzzi looks at three main aspects of one of the world’s favorite authors: context/biography, powerful highlights, and the question of why Austen is relevant today. Adapting her novels is a cottage industry. Austen is taught in colleges and remains in print for leisure reading.
Engraving of Steventon Rectory 1871 (Public Domain)
The truth is that we know very little about the woman herself beyond facts. It’s a slippery slope to conjecture how like her characters she might be. Only 61 letters of considerable correspondence survive as her sister Cassandra burned the bulk of them, ostensibly to protect impressionable young family. In 1869, 52 years after her death, Austen’s nephew published A Memoir of Jane Austen, his version of her career and quiet life.
Jane was born in Hampshire, England to the rector of two Anglican churches. George Austen came from a respected, wealthy family that fell to poverty by his adulthood. He supplemented his income farming and tutoring. Wife Cassandra had seven children. Jane was the youngest. Steventon Rectory was a home that fostered intellectual discourse. Jane and her mother’s namesake, sister Cassandra, were privately tutored in Oxford and Southampton, home educated, and briefly attended Reading Abbey Girls’ School. From 1786, Jane only lived at home. Any worldliness came from reading and fashionable visitors.
Jane Austen – Watercolor by her sister Cassandra 1804 (Public Domain)
The Austen children put on theatricals much like Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Jane wrote three short plays at 12, but had already authored poems and stories “full of anarchic fantasies of female power, license, illicit behavior, and great high spirits.” (British academic/author Janet Todd.) At 21, she wrote her first full length novel, Elinor and Marianne, published anonymously (“By a Lady”) as Sense and Sensibility. Reviews were favorable. Money she received offered a modicum of financial and psychological independence.
Her writing focused on challenges facing women in early 19th century England, particularly social dictates and marriage. At the time legal bonding was often more a question of economic survival. “Without marriage and the income or a dowry of one’s own, a woman had very little social mobility. It’s not as f she could leave home and set up in London,” Luzzi tells us. “We live in a conversationally casual environment,” he adds. “Austen did not.” As a creature of the enlightenment, sociability was supposed to be maintained at a certain level of charm and intellect.
Left: Sense and Sensibility title page 1811 (Public Domain) Right : Marianne expecting Willoughby, leaves after Colonel Brandon appears – from a later issue of the book 1899 (Public Domain)
Austen’s women give in to their emotions selectively in a world of decorum. Intelligence saves them from becoming the malleable surface characters of the time’s popular novels. (18th century novels lacked seriousness. 19th century efforts addressed what ‘mattered in life.’) A pioneering timeline might start with writer, philosopher, women’s rights advocate Mary Woolstonecraft who declared women should have as much educational opportunity as men. (Austen wasn’t allowed to attend university.) Woolstonecraft’s daughter Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein), a contemporary of Jane, also struggled to secure a place in literature. It was an era when women writers were discouraged and poetry was considered the more important art form.
Romantic literature promoted “self, nature (that places held special influence), imagination, and the wonder of science,” Luzzi comments. In Sense and Sensibility, Elinor embodies sense, her younger sister Marianne sensibility (feeling). Could the sisters have represented Cassandra and Jane? Tension between is apparent. Towards the end, when Willoughby abandons her, Marianne gives way to despair and self pity as Elinor secretly pines for soulmate Edward. Finally Elinor has enough,” What do you know about my heart – or anything but your own suffering?!” she exclaims. The novel also reflects nature’s influence. Descriptions abound. When the sisters marry, their countryside homes are within sight of one another. Austen is a novelist of the provinces.
Pride and Prejudice “Jane happened to look around and happened to smile” London: George Allen, 1894. (Public domain)
As far as we know, the author herself received a single marriage proposal in 1802. Her suitor was an unattractive stutterer, aggressive and tactless. He did, however, offer practical advantages. Jane initially accepted while at the same time writing as Elinor, “the worst and most irredeemable of all evils (is) a connection for life with an unsuitable man.” She withdrew her promise.
“It’s amazing how often women in Austen novels talk about money. Think about Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility. He’s what I call a `dividend aristocrat,’ not the most exciting investment, but one that will yield steady income over the years. Marianne’s alternative Willoughby is a speculation. If you put your money in, you may never see it again,” Luzzi says. The young woman ends up with Brandon, sedate and unfathomably older at thirty and five. She’s happy.
H.K. Brock tinted line drawing front piece of Mansfield Park 1898 (Public Domain)
First Impressions, credited to “…the author of Sense and Sensibility” was published as Pride and Prejudice shed further light on the economics of marriage. The novel begins “It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Vanity and pride are often used synonymously, but pride may be said to relate to an image of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.
Mansfield Park was disparaged or ignored by critics, but popular with readers. Austen’s earnings grew proportionately. Without her knowledge, works were translated into French to satisfy that country’s appetite for romanticism. Translations were poor. Emma was critically better received. In 1816, Austen became ill but continued to work. She completed the draft of what became Persuasion and started Sanditon whose heroine is described as an “energetic invalid.” Austen made light of her own condition. The author died July, 1817, and is buried at Winchester Cathedral.
Cover and spine of Jane Austen, Her Home and Friends by Constance Hill, 1902. Miniature by William Bennett of the Royal Miniature Society. (Public Domain)
“We talk about the great American novel, that which sums up the plurality of American life. What would the great British novel be? From humble beginnings Jay Gatsby searched for the American dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the colossal vitality of achieving it. A British version would deal with class system,” Luzzi comments. He suggests Charles Dickens or Jane Austen as filling the bill. Both had a natural ear for dialogue, high powers of observation, and insight into human character. Both wrote about striving.
“To appreciate the drama and achievement of Austen, we need to realize how deep was her passion for both reverence and ridicule…She tries to reconcile her satirical bias with her sense of the good.” Joseph Luzzi
Opening- Left: Jane Austen-From a painting in the possession of the Rev. Morland Rice, of Bramber (Public Domain)
Right: Portrait of Jane Austen 1873 (Public Domain. Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.)
