Jane Austen (1775-1817)

Jane Austen(1775-1817) By Zheng boren

她以十分逼真的手法刻画了一些普普通通的、而非出类拔萃的人，他们通过极其普通的谈话和行为举止把自己完全而一致的呈现出来。简奥斯汀的沉静和自制，以及绝妙地用平静的言辞去表达她平静的内容，这些特点，较之于那些热情洋溢、言辞滔滔不绝的伟大作家，同样显示出她的创作天才。她以十分逼真的手法刻画了一些普普通通的、而非出类拔萃的人，他们通过极其普通的谈话和行为举止把自己完全而一致的呈现出来。简奥斯汀的沉静和自制，以及绝妙地用平静的言辞去表达她平静的内容，这些特点，较之于那些热情洋溢、言辞滔滔不绝的伟大作家，同样显示出她的创作天才。 • ---《剑桥英国文学史》

INTRODUCTION • Jane Austen,English novelist, noted for her witty studies of early-19th-century English society. • With detailed descriptions, Austen portrayed the quiet, day-to-day life of members of the upper middle class. Her works combine romantic comedy with social satire and psychological insight.

TwocommonthemesinAusten’s books are the loss of illusions—usually leading characters to a more mature outlook—and the clash between traditional moral ideals and the everyday demands of life. In most of her novels, her characters correct their faults through lessons learned as a result of tribulation. Because of her sensitivity to universal patterns of human behavior, many people regard Austen as one of the greatest novelists of the 19th and 20th centuries.

LIFE • AustenwasborninSteventon, Hampshire, England. • She was the seventh child of eight, and her family was close, affectionate, and lively. She lived most of her life among the same kind of people about whom she wrote. • Her lifelong companion and confidant was her older and only sister, Cassandra.

Dozens of relatives and friends widened Austen’s social experiences beyond her immediate family. • The Austens were devoted readers of novels at a time when reading novels was regarded as a questionable activity. They also provided a delighted audience for Jane’s youthful comic pieces, and later for her novels.

Jane had almost no formal education, but she read extensively and critically. • At age 13 she was already writing amusing and instructive parodies and variations on 18th-century literature—from sentimental novels to serious histories. • Bythetimeshewas23 years old, Austen had written three novels: Elinor and Marianne, First Impressions, and Susan, which were early versions of, respectively, Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Northanger Abbey(1818). A fragment, Lady Susan, which scholars date between 1793 and 1795,most likely also belongs to this period, but it was not published until 1871.

In1801thefamilymoved to the town of Bath. After Jane’s father died in 1805, Jane, Cassandra, and their mother moved several times, eventually settling in 1809 in the village of Chawton, very near Steventon. Austen lived and wrote there for the last eight years of her life. • Living a quiet life in the countryside, she kept her eyes steadily upon the people and incidents about her, and wrote about the small world she lived in.

She herself compared her work to a fine engraving made upon a little piece of ivory only two inches square. The comparison is true. The ivory surface is small enough, but the woman who made drawings of human life on it is a real artist. • AllofAusten’snovels were originally published anonymously. Several of them went through two editions in her lifetime. • Pride and Prejudice was particularly praised, and Emma (1816)received a favorable review from English writer Sir Walter Scott, who was a prominent literary figure of the time.

About Her Works • Jane Austen began writing around the age of twelve. Her works were later published anonymously due to the prejudice again women writers then. • Sense and Sensibility, her first novel, tells a story about two sisters and their love affairs, but Pride and Prejudice, originally drafted as "First Impressions" in 1796, is the most delightful of Jane Austen's works and Northanger Abbey satirizes those popular Gothic romances of the late 18th century. Those are her first three novels in the period from 1795 to 1798, but it took her more than 15 years to find a publisher.

Assessment • Jane Austen has brought the English novel, as an art of form, to its maturity, and she has been regarded by many critics as one of the greatest of all novelists. • The Prince Regent was an admirer and kept a set of Jane Austen's novels in each of his residences. Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson praised her work and Tennyson, T. B Macaulay and Archbishop Whately compared her to Shakespeare.

Assessment • Critics included Charlotte Bronte and Elizabeth Barrett Browning who found her work limited. • Generally speaking, Jane Austen was a writer of the 18th century, though she lived mainly in the nineteenth century. She holds the ideal of the landlord class in politics, religion and her works show clearly her firm in the predominance of reason over passion, the sense of responsibility, good manners and clear-sighted judgment over the romantic tendencies of emotion and individuality.

Reference: • www.allmovie.com • www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/janeinfo.html • www.goucher.edu/library/jausten/jane.htm • www.geocities.com/Athens/8563/ • http://www.webschool.cn/yssx/wxez/03/01.htm • http://www.lnu.edu.cn/englishw/novel/a27.html • http://www.oklink.net/wgwx/novels/lingsan/pride/index.htm

Jane Austen (1775-1817)