Jane Austen - This isnt even really her image. They changed her softened her to look more feminine for her readers. Weve never actually seen her face.

My good friend Meg North (an astounding writer btw) contemplated recently about the difference in writing history as a woman in 2011 compared to the Brontes and Austen who wrote it as contemporary fiction. The history that grounds an author in his/her world matters. Meg jokes that she doesn t mind looking under corsets while for Austen or Bronte this would have been courageous (or career-halting!) to the extreme. Who they were where they stood in history politics life mattered. It so influenced their work. It must have.

Wow I respect Austen. Because she was one of the first woman writers to be published and valued as a writer in the formation of a new form of literature in her day: the novel. I mistakenly believed until recently that she was the first to write under her own byline. But she wasn t. Her novels were signed By the author of Pride and Prejudice.

Can you imagine that? Writing but never getting to share your name?

I strongly believe in knowing the writers as we read their work. This is unpopular I know. Many will say that the work must stand on its own it doesn t matter who wrote it.

I have much to learn about literature. But for me knowing the author is so valuable. It grounds me in the history in the personal struggle or just in that place in history the place from which a novel was written.

Last year I didn t care for Austen when I first tried her. Her novels were about a lot of women gossiping and going to dances. Who cares?

Now that I know her a bit better through Tomalin s biography I understand her plight as a woman and writer. I understand that the world of gossip and dances was her world and that is incredibly important in history. How lucky we are to see that life through the eyes of a woman who lived it and had the hardiness to laugh at it and the strength to respect it for its manners (something I d love to see more of in 2011).

When I first read Pride and Prejudice I was annoyed/perplexed that Austen could live in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars and all that rich British history and not mention it!

But think about who she was: a lady raised on matters of etiquette (a genteel woman s calling!) whose occupation was embroidery (and whose closeted occupation was writing) who got up and left the room when dinner was over so the men could talk politics over cigars while the ladies genteelly sipped tea.

Women didn t talk politics.

It would have been highly inappropriate. So of course so prominent a topic doesn t infiltrate her novels. And would we want it to? She captures female life as it really was. How absurd to embroider through a series of history-thundering wars but that is exactly what she and countless other women did in her era. Her novels are a photograph of that world.

Meg can look back on history as a woman from 2011 and see it from all corners. But in those days the view was much narrower. To read Austen without knowing Austen offers as limited a view not that the work isn t excellent on its own. But to realize why she omits wars though she had several brothers in the wars shades the narrative with truth. She wrote with hands tided at a desk in the middle of the public room without knowing 1840 1850 1890 1950 womens lib burning bras Virginia Woolf or beyond.

Who would she have been if she had written in 2011?

I m about a third of the way through Jane Austen s Persuasion right now my second Austen. With its poetic passages and hardy author it is quickly becoming a favorite.

I feel so honored suddenly to have the opportunity to read this world through the mind of one of my (fore-mothers?) I dont know if Id have been friends with Austen if wed ever met. I have a feeling Id have found all her manners and sardonic quips a bit cold in person and that shed have found me silly lacking etiquette and something worthy of an ironic dressing down.

Oh but I respect her. How many back then looked at her world (the parlor the library the confines) and publically laughed?

Also fun fact:

Persuasion plays out in the same era as War and Peace.

My progress this week:

April 23 2011 at 3:48 pm

Hm. I did not realize Persuasion and War and Peace were set in the same era. Of course I havent yet read War and Peace so I will use that as my excuse! Although I am one of those who doesnt feel it necessary to know the author specifically I think it can be valuable to know the era and possibly how the work itself fits into the history of literature. I only had the opportunity to take two semesters of literature in college both taught by the same professor (who was great) and for the historical fiction semester she always introduced each work with a little bit of the historical background of the era and sometimes the work in question. Some reading plans actually advocate reading a list of works in the order in which they were written to better understand how literature has changed over time. (Personally I would never be able to stick to such a plan!) That isnt to say that I feel this is absolutely necessary to know before beginning a great story but on the other hand I find that the history I encounter in novels sometimes leads to a bit of research of the topic at hand&

One of the things fascinating to me in comparing historical fiction and (old) fiction that is set in the (past) era in which it was written is that no matter how perfectly researched the later novel can never have 100% complete authenticity to the era. Austen may not have included politics or wars but her setting is completely authentic because it is the world she knew. In contrast a modern day author writing about the Regency still has to overcome all of the changes in culture and society and history and technology that have occurred since the Regency era. Both novels have their place both may be equally valuable but they arent quite the same.

April 23 2011 at 7:34 pm

I found it really interesting in How to Read a Book that the authors recommended reading items such as science or philosophy in chronological orders (which makes sense as they typically build on or respond to each other) but didnt seem to think it was necessary for fiction. I dont really think its necessary per se but I think it could be a neat way to read through books at least through a group. I am actually considering reading some of Austens influences before I reread her novels.

April 23 2011 at 7:36 pm

Yes me too eventually. Frances Burney Samuel Richardson etc. For me itll probably be after Austen.

April 23 2011 at 6:07 pm

An author of historical fiction saw this post linked on my Facebook page and left a comment there. I dont want to name her without her permission but would like to record her comments here for my journal.

If she comes upon this preferring to have her quote attributed to her name please say so.

I think its inaccurate to assume that because she doesnt mention the war in her novels that she didnt know about it or talk about it. Or that other women of her era were equally shielded from it. Austens sister-in-laws first husband& had been guillotined during the French Revolutionits impossible that she wouldnt have been aware of the horrors of that period. Equally her brothers would have written home of life in the Royal Navy and written especially of any prizes they took. Her novelistic treatment of the navy is discussed at legnth in Young Nelsons a book about the boys going to sea during the period which mentions her brothers specifically.

& [T]heres also a surprising body of anti-war poetry published during the period and much of it written by women. I think its possibly a case of her mot wishing to air her familys linen in &public and/or editorial restraint on her partwould a discussion of the war over dinner (other than in Persuasion) add to the plot or would it only serve as a diversion? may have been one question she had to ask herself&

April 23 2011 at 6:10 pm

For my purposes I never meant to suggest she wouldnt know about the war. I did know about her relative (I thought it was her first cousin Elizas husband?) being guillotined in France. My point was only that it wouldnt have been casually discussed and that she might have considered it unladylike to included such politics (or as the commenter suggests dirty laundry) in so public a thing as a novel.

But this is only my second Austen. Its entirely possible I have no idea what Im talking about.

April 24 2011 at 1:55 pm

Great post. Im not so much of the school that we need to know about an authors life to understand or appreciate his or her work but I do find that when I love an author I want to know as much about him as possible. The way you write about their lives and the time periods informing their works makes a lot of sense to me; I think that I tend to avoid thinking too much about the authors lives because of people who try to draw direct connections between a life and a work of fiction. The way you write about it here (ie about having a better understanding of what the average womans life was like during Austens time what women were talking about) makes sense to me in a way that makes me want to learn a little more of the history behind certain works. And sometimes of course its nearly impossible to understand a work of fiction without knowing some of the history behind it.

April 25 2011 at 12:36 pm

I think that I tend to avoid thinking too much about the author s lives because of people who try to draw direct connections between a life and a work of fiction.

As a new reader I do think I have that tendency. My challenge is to find a balance. (Thanks for pointing it out.) Im curious about the life of the writer but youre so right: fiction is fiction and might have nothing to do with that life. Itd be a real shame to blur the two and misunderstand a piece of great literature.

One day I hope to have better knowledge about how to read.

(And here I thought knowing my ABCs was enough!)

Thanks Ellen.

April 25 2011 at 9:37 am

I think that is why I like Austen. We dont have to worry about the political era or what not. And because she doesnt talk about all that it becomes somehow much more universal. I love it.

Persuasion was not a favorite of mine but I read it at a bad time. Must revisit some day. Maybe next year.

April 25 2011 at 12:33 pm

I think that is why I like Austen. We don t have to worry about the political era or what not. And because she doesn t talk about all that it becomes somehow much more universal.

Oh! A lightbulb moment for me! Maybe she purposely left it out to make her work more timeless? Ive been assuming it was improper to speak of war. But the comment on Facebook yesterday had me thinking it was a purposeful ommission for plot and I couldnt imagine why.

Your idea makes complete sense though and youre right: ommitting the outside world makes her novels portable to any century and place! Thinking on this & thanks!

April 26 2011 at 7:57 pm

Great post. I never really understand the criticism of Austen not including wars in her novels. She was not a political writer she wrote about human nature presumably what she saw and what she observed. I quite like the satire but yes it can be cutting!

I'm a lit student and English tutor who (as of January 2010) had never read classic literature. I've decided to get a clue and read a bunch of classic children's non-fiction and super classic literature (the Greeks) as well as the obvious Austen and Hemingway Shakespeare Dickens etc. The big question: Will I teach myself Calculus and Physics too? The answer: No. No I will not.

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What a piece of work is man! How noble in Reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel!

- William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

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"America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(Fiendishly impractical and prone to crying fits.)

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