A 250 Year Old Icon

On December 16th it was Jane Austen's birthday! She was born in 1775, making it her 250th birthday and there were many celebrations happening across the globe. If you went to any events, or maybe read one of her books, or watched an adaptation, I'd love to know what you did to celebrate! And if you missed the day it's never too late to crack open that good ol' Pride & Prejudice, or perhaps Persuasion if you're feeling more melancholic, or maybe Emma if you're looking for a good laugh.

I went to a panel where a few Austen scholars discussed... well Austen and her work. There were a few notes that I took and wanted to share here.

Add It To The Reading List!

First, I thought I'd share some Austen-related texts that I thought sounded interesting and will definitely be looking into in the future.

Austen's Oughts: Judgement after Locke and Shaftesbury by Karen Valihora

This book touched on a major topic of the night which is the morality and ethics that Jane Austen engages with in all of her books. The idea is that her characters are always wondering what they "ought" to do.

Jane Austen and The War of Ideas by Marilyn Butler

Now, I will say the panelist who brought this up was actually kind of disagreeing with some of the points that Butler supposedly makes in this book but I am still interested in reading it. As you may be able to garner from my hate-reading some of the Brontë's work... I love to hate read!

Jane Austen at Sixty by Virginia Woolf?!?!? Apparently Virginia Woolf wrote a lot about Austen. In the summer I read To The Lighthouse for the first time and mentioned in an article I wrote that she mentions Austen in that too. I will be reading more of Woolf as I just was gifted a massive book of her works, so I'm interested in seeing more Austen cameo's perhaps?

General Thoughts and Feelings

As mentioned above there was a lot of talk about morality within Austen's work. Which is something I've noticed as I've been reading editions that are annotated but not something that I necessarily picked up on myself, I don't think.

The other biggest aspect of Austen and her work that was talked about was her style and her voice that comes through in all of her works. This is what is probably the most unique about her and the reason she is still so extremely relevant today (I mean there are two major adaptations of Pride & Prejudice in production this year alone)! She is, perhaps, one of the most well-known writers who uses free indirect discourse (something I was just having a conversation with someone about... and you'll see why soon). Free indirect discourse is where the story is written in third person but first person emotions and thoughts kind of pop through every now and then.

Another thing about her voice that was talked about was how she writes to be read... let me explain. One of the panelists edited an edition of Mansfield Park, and was explaining how in the second edition of MP Austen added a lot of dashes and italics in order for the reader to better understand the tone of what is being said by characters.

The panelists mentioned her life-like characters that we can either relate to or think of someone we know who are like those silly Mr and Mrs Bennet! This was something I was thinking a bit about earlier this year when I went to a lecture on Sense & Sensibility and the lecturer said that maybe younger generations can't relate to Elinor... more of my thoughts on that here.

There was also a lot of talk about her Juvenilia! The panelists overwhelmingly agreed that this is the new area of study within Austen scholarship. I have not read much of her younger work other than Lady Susan but I am excited to read more, especially after it was described as "manic anti-authoritarianism but by a savant."

I could've listened to people discussing Jane Austen all day long but unfortunately it did have to come to an end, just as this piece does. It was particularly interesting because these people knew a lot about Austen and topics surrounding her, and don't you always find it great when people who know such intricate things talk about them! Which could also be applicable to Austen, I guess, because as one panelist said: "She knew a lot about a lot."