Jane austen (1775 - 1817)

JANE AUSTEN (1775 - 1817)

Jane Austen wrote her novels in the romantic perioud, but she isn't at all romantic, in fact her concepts are more associated to classicism. In particular she deals with love in a very classical way, without romance, in opposition to gothic she uses a simple language and the characters are round characters, while in gothic they were flat. As reguards contents she takes inspiration by Fielding and Richardson. In particular from Tom Jones she takes the intricacy of the plot, in fact there are also various subplots, while from Richardson she takes the dominant female role of the novel and the epistolary form.

Tecniques: Pride and Prejudice is narrated by a third person omniscient narrator, even if the narrator often identifies with Elizabeth's point of view or he shares the point of view of the people of the village like in the scene of the ball.

The settings of episodes are often house interiors or a domestic outdoor spaces like parks or gardens and the story takes place in a countryside district in the England of the XIX century. The novel deals with the life of a family and in particular of love or properly of marriage. The first title First Impressions underlines that first impressions are often wrong and must be corrected by experience. In fact Elizabeth has the fault of basing only on her judgement, without comparing it with that of the others, instead Darcy's fault consists in an extreme conformity to the values and thoughts of his social class. The plots develops as a metaphor of knowledge, starting from error and reaching recognition.

Property, decency and decorum are words that frequently appear in Jane Austen's novels and which aren't used by the other romantic writers.

The most important themes she deals are: marriage, which mustn't be based only on sexual attraction (Mr and Mrs Bennet), but should be based on the maturity of the two lovers and on the recognition of their initial error, so that marriage is something conquered and not only a spontaneally union (Jane and Bingly). Other themes are the relationship between individual and society, the ordinary life.

The style is characterized by the presence of dialog, the use of humor and the balance and the apparently simplicity of her phrasing, which recollects Jane Austen's novels to the tradition of Augustan literature.