-
My Appreciation of
Jane Austen
Author: Liu
Qian
(Coll
ege of
Ori
ental
Sci
ence
& Technol
ogy
,
H
unan A
gri
cul
tural
U
ni
v
ersi
ty
,)
Abstract:
This
paper
attempts
to
discuss
the
British
famous
novelist
—
Jane
Austen.
I
would
like to introduce her from the aspect of her life
and famous work by meticulously selecting
many fresh examples which are my
favorite part too. The author puts forward Jane
Austen is the
most sensitive novelist
around the world. This paper concludes that brief
introduction of Austen,
her famous
work, and my appreciation of her work from the
whole story and character of her work.
This is of great significance to my
deeper understanding and research of the famous
woman in my
mind.
Key words:
Jane Austen
；
Briti
sh
；
Emma
Introduction
Jane
Austen
is a
British female
famous
novelist and
makes the
nature of
modern
novels distinct by describing ordinary
people
in daily
life
first. Social commentaries
and
masterful
uses
of
free
indirect
speech,
burlesque
and
irony
have
earned
her
a
place
as
one
who
has
the
most
widely
readers
and
best-loved
writers
in
English
literature. Jane
Austen was born on 16 December, 1775, at the
rectory in the village of
Steventon,
near
Basingstoke,
in
Hampshire.
Her
novels
inherited
literature
tradition
in18th century
with
her simple and shrewd style,
penetrating
and
ironic
connotation.
Her novels have
a kind of characteristic sensitive nature of
romantic poet with her rich
imagination,
so that we
can
found something
different with popular sentiment before
and Gothic novel through comparison.
She created the climax of the realistic novel.
1
The family of Jane Austen and her
famous work
1. 1
Austen
’
s famous works and
her writing style
Jane
Austen
lived
her
entire
life
as
a
part
of
a
small
and
close-knit
family
located
on
the
lower
fringes
of
English
gentry.
She was
never
lived
apart
from
her
family.
She
had
a
happy
childhood amongst all her brothers and
the other boys who lodged with the family and whom
Mr.
Austen tutored. From her older
sister, Cassandra, she was inseparable. To amuse
themselves, the
children wrote and
performed plays and charades, and even as a little
girl Jane was encouraged to
write. The
reading that she did of the books in her father's
extensive library provided material for
the short satirical sketches she wrote
as a girl. The steadfast support of her family was
critical to
Austen's
development
as
a
professional
writer.
Austen's
artistic
apprenticeship
lasted
from
her
teenage
years until she was about thirty-five years old.
During
this
period, she
wrote
three
major
novels
and
began
a
fourth.
In
her
early
twenties
Jane
Austen
wrote
the
novels
that
were
later
to
be
re-worked
and
published
as
Sense
and
Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and
Northanger Abbey. She also began a novel called
The Watsons
which was never completed.
From 1811 to 1815, with the release of Sense and
Sensibility (1811),
Pride and Prejudice
(1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815), she
achieved success as a
published
writer.
She
wrote
two
additional
novels,
Northanger
Abbey
and
Persuasion,
both
published
after
her
death
in
1817,
and
began
a
third, which was
eventually
titled
Sanditon,
but
died before completing it.
Jane Austen’s brilliantly witty and
elegantly structured satirical fiction marks the
transition
in
English
literature from 18th century neo-classicism to
19th century romanticism. Fundamentally,
the plots of her works highlight the
dependence of women on marriage to secure social
standing
and
economic
security.
Like
those
of
Samuel
Johnson,
one
of
the
strongest
influences
on
her
writing, her works are concerned with
moral issues.
1. 2
Austen
’
s impacts on writing
During
her
lifetime,
Austen's works
brought
her
little
fame
and
only
a
few
positive
reviews.
Through the mid-nineteenth century, her
novels were admired only by literary elite.
However, the
publication of her
nephew's A
Memoir of Jane Austen in
1869 introduced her life and works to a
wider public. By the 1940s, Austen was
firmly ensconced in academia as a
and
the
second
half
of
the
twentieth
century
saw
a
proliferation
of
Austen
scholarship
that
explored
many
aspects
of
her
novels:
artistic,
ideological,
and
historical.
In
popular
culture,
a
Janeite fan culture has developed and
centered on Austen's life, her works, and the
various films
and television
adaptations of them.
1. 3
Austen
’
s own life
As a young woman Jane enjoyed dancing
(an activity which features frequently in her
novels)
and she attended in many balls
of the great houses of the neighborhoods. She
loved the country,
enjoyed long country
walks, and had many Hampshire friends. It
therefore came as a considerable
shock
when
her
parents
suddenly
announced
in
1801
that
her family
would
be
moving
away
to
Bath. She did not like
the life in Bath since her life in low water. She
is so missed her Steventon
life. After
her father's death in 1805, his widow and
daughters also suffered financial difficulties
and were forced to rely on the charity
of the Austen’s sons. It was also at this time
that, while on
holiday in the West
Country, Jane fell
in love, and when
the young man died, she was deeply upset.
Later
she
accepted
a
proposal
of
marriage
from
Harris
Bigg-Wither,
a
wealthy
landowner
and
brother to some of her closest friends,
but she changed her mind the next morning and was
greatly
upset by the whole episode.
After the death
of Mr. Austen, the Austen ladies moved to
Southampton to share the home of
Jane's
naval brother Frank and his wife Mary. There were
occasional visits to London, where Jane
stayed with her favorite brother Henry,
at that time a prosperous banker, and where she
enjoyed
visits
to
the
theatre
and
art
exhibitions.
However, she wrote
little
in
Bath
and
nothing
at
all
in
Southampton.
Then, in July, 1809, on her
brother Edward offering his mother and sisters a
permanent home on
his Chawton estate,
the Austen ladies moved back to their beloved
Hampshire countryside. It was
a small
but comfortable house, with a pretty garden, and
most importantly it provided the settled
home which Jane Austen needed in order
to write. In the seven and a half years, she lived
in this
house, she revised Sense and
Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice and published
them (in 1811 and
1813) and then
embarked on a period of intense productivity.
Mansfield Park came out in 1814,
followed
by
Emma
in
1816
and
she
completed
Persuasion
(which was
published
together with
Northanger Abbey in 1818, the year
after her death). None of the books published in
her life time
had her name on them
—
they were described as
being written
she started Sanditon, but
illness prevented its completion.
Jane
Austen
had
contracted
Addisons
Disease,
a
tubercular
disease
of
the
kidneys
(see Jane
Austen's
Illness
by
Sir
Zachary
Cope,
British
Medical
Journal,
18
July
1964
and
Australian
Addisons Disease Assoc.). Until she was
not able to walk far, her little donkey carriage
which she
used to driven out can still
be seen at the Jane Austen Museum at Chawton. By
May 1817 she was
so ill that she and
Cassandra moved to Winchester be near Jane's
physician. Tragically, there was
no
cure and Jane Austen died in her sister's arms in
the early hours of 18 July, 1817. She was 41
years old. She is buried in Winchester
Cathedral.
2
The
story and characters of her work in my
view
I
have read
several
books
of
her
and seen
films
adapted
from
them.
Prejudice
and Pride
and
Emma
are
my
favorite
books,
since
the
hero
and
heroine
of
the
story
and
the
storyline.
The
important characters are almost
perfect, but they still have some shortcomings
like everyone in the
world,
especially
the
two
heroines
—
Elizabeth
Bennet
and
Emma
Woodhouse. The
novels were
written in a
graphic and psychological activities of those
characters which are reflected in details
like people’s talking, attitude,
appearance, act and so on. So that we
ha
ve found that Austen is a
sensitive woman who observed people
around her carefully. These have shown Austen’s
talents in
writing. Last but not least
there always are happy endings in Austen’s novels;
the actress and actor
get together
happily.
2. 1
Mr
.Darcy in Prejudice and Pride
In the Pride and Prejudice,
my favorite character is the leading actor, Mr.
Darcy
. In my point of
view,
Mr.
Darcy
bear
patiently,
magnanimous,
tolerant
and
to
love
consistent
and constant.
He
gives an impression of mature and
responsible.
Mr. Darcy is an
extremely wealthy nobleman, as far as I see. He is
so proud, arrogant and has a
conception
of class difference at first.
What he
does show his strong sense of honor and virtue.
Intelligent and forthright were his
traits.
Elizabeth's rebukes help him to
recognize his faults of pride and social prejudice
after his first
proposal to her. In
fact, it is precisely because Elizabeth is not so
awed by his high social status as
to be
afraid to criticize his character that he is
attracted to her. The self-knowledge acquired from
Elizabeth's
rebukes
and
the
desire
to win
Elizabeth's
love
spur
him
to
change
and
judge
people
more
by their character than by their social class.
Intelligent and forthright,
he too has a tendency to judge too hastily and
harshly, and his high
birth
and
wealth
make
him
overly
proud
and
overly
conscious
of
his
social
status.
Indeed,
his
haughtiness makes him initially bungle
his courtship.
2.
2 Jane
Austen’
s Emma in my view
Let us take EMMA
as an
example which was named by the actress whose full
name is EMMA
WOODHOUSE.
She
is
a
handsome,
clever
and
rich,
with
a
comfortable
home
and
happy