MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT, JANE AUSTEN AND PROTOFEMINISM

Protofeminism is a concept that anticipates modern feminism in eras when the feminist concept as such was still unknown. So we can correctly say that Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen were protofeminist writers.

READ AND WATCH: JANE AUSTEN'S SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Introduction

Sense and Sensibility was the first published of Jane Austen's novels. Composition was begun perhaps as early as 1795 (some authorities suggest a year or two later). What is certain is that the novel was published in November 1811, on commission (that is, the author paying for the production costs, in return for a larger  share of profit) by the London publisher Thomas Egerton. Austen began negotiations with Egerton (with her brother Henry as her intermediary) in 1810. While the manuscript was still in her hands, she made some updating references (to Scott's being a popular poet, for example). The first edition of Sense and Sensibility was obviously successful, a second edition appearing in November 1813.

VIDEO LESSONS ON JANE AUSTEN AND HER NOVELS

Professor John Mullan - Proposals and Marriage in Jane Austen

FRANKENSTEIN AT 200 - 5 VERY IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW + VIDEO & WORKSHEET

Elle Fanning as Mary Shelley (2018)

1.  THE OVERREACHER 

Victor Frankenstein is defined "The Modern Prometheus" in the subtitle of the novel. As Prometheus defied Zeus stealing the fire from him to bring it back to Mankind, the Swiss scientist protagonist of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel defies any natural law and God himself for his great ambition: to create, not to generate, life. To give life to an inanimate body.

Both Prometheus and Dr. Frankenstein are OVERREACHERS, special  types of rebels who

 - try to go beyond the limits imposed to Mankind by God or Nature
-  are moved by great ambition
 - are usually punished with death (not Prometheus, since he was a Titan, a semi-god)

MODULE 2. PARENTS & CHILDREN: MR AND MRS BENNET IN JANE AUSTEN'S PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Mr and Mrs Bennet - Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Mr. Bennet

Mr. Bennet is the patriarch of the Bennet household—the husband of Mrs. Bennet and the father of Jane, Elizabeth, Lydia, Kitty, and Mary. He is a man driven to exasperation by his ridiculous wife and difficult daughters. He reacts by withdrawing from his family and assuming a detached attitude punctuated by bursts of sarcastic humor. He is closest to Elizabeth because they are the two most intelligent Bennets. Initially, his dry wit and self-possession in the face of his wife’s hysteria make him a sympathetic figure, but, though he remains likable throughout, the reader gradually loses respect for him as it becomes clear that the price of his detachment is considerable. Detached from his family, he is a weak father and, at critical moments, fails his family. In particular, his foolish indulgence of Lydia’s immature behavior nearly leads to general disgrace when she elopes with Wickham. Further, upon her disappearance, he proves largely ineffective. It is left to Mr. Gardiner and Darcy to track Lydia down and rectify the situation. Ultimately, Mr. Bennet would rather withdraw from the world than cope with it.

The 5 Bennet sisters: Jane, Mary, Lydia, Elizabeth, Kitty

Mr Darcy  and Mr Bingley - Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Mrs Bennet

Mrs. Bennet is definitely a comic character. Noisy and foolish, she is a woman consumed by the desire to see her daughters married and seems to care for nothing else in the world. Ironically, her single-minded pursuit of this goal tends to backfire, as her lack of social graces alienates the very people (Darcy and Bingley) whom she tries desperately to attract. Austen uses her continually to highlight the necessity of marriage for young women. Mrs. Bennet

READING, WATCHING, DISCUSSING JANE AUSTEN'S EMMA

Emma was written between January 1814 and March 1815. The setting of the narrative's action would appear to be recent: 1813-14. By this period, Austen was a known and successful writer. Like Sense and Sensibility, the work was published on commission by the distinguished house of John Murray. It was published ('by the author of Pride and Prejudice, etc.') in December 1815 (dated 1816 on the title page). The novel was dedicated to the Prince Regent, at the request of the Carlton House Librarian, the Revd James Stanier Clarke.

When , in January 1815, Jane Austen began to write her fifth novel, EMMA, she stated that she was working at creating a heroine that nobody but herself would be able to like ("I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like.")

The Heroine

Emma Woodhouse is beautiful, clever and wealthy (the only Austen heroine to own all these “virtues”) but also spoilt and a bit snob. Readers, especially Austen’s contemporary readers, shouldn’t like her much since Emma definitely lacks the common sense, balance and measure of other heroines. Yet, even with her faults and her mistakes, the character of Emma is drawn to get sympathy and understanding; the reader tends to forgive her and to side with her in a totally irrational way. Emma’s defects, constantly underlined in the text, make her the perfect anti-heroine: she is not particularly accomplished, she has been educated by too an indulgent father and too a friendly governess, she has great self-esteem and tends to misinterpret reality according to her wishes. In a few words, she is not “by the book”, if we think of the 18th century “conduct - books” about the education of girls belonging to high society. But , of course, Jane Austen, is mocking those clichés, so her Emma is not only beautiful and intelligent but , above all, free. It is Mr Knightley himself to acknowledge that Emma is perfect with all her imperfections. 

MY STUDENTS GIVE THEIR LESSONS: PERSUASION BY JANE AUSTEN

The book Elena, Eleonora, Elisabetta, Emi e Valentina read last summer was Persuasion  so they prepared their lesson on Jane Austen's last novel , introducing also The Novel of Manners as a genre . They carefully chose information, videos and pictures to report to the rest of the class with the help of a power point presentation.

They carefully analysed the characters and the themes in the story, proposed their favourite scenes from the 2007 adaptation of the book and introduced to their mates the woman question referring to authors like Mary Wollstonecraft and Margaret Fuller to finally discuss the fact if Jane Austen can be considered a feminist writer.

 You'll find their work in a folder in the widget_box on the right sidebar. 

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE - PART II

In Pride and Prejudice Part I we stopped at the the unexpected turning point that is Mr Darcy's marriage proposal to Elizabeth Bennet. 

1. What happened? 

2. How did Elizabeth react? Why?

3. Did Mr Darcy expect her refusal? 

JANE AUSTEN & THE NOVEL OF MANNERS: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE - PART I

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”.

This is the widely popular sentence opening the widely popular story of the five Bennet sisters  written by Jane Austen between October 1796 and August 1797. Its original title was FIRST IMPRESSIONS but it was published only in 1813 with the title, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.

The opening scene is set in Hertfordshire, a county that nowadays has practically become part of Greater London, as suburban development stretches even further northwards. In the late 18th century, however, it was still well-wooded countryside.

The story opens early in September, when Jane Austen takes us straight into Longbourn House to listen to the Bennets’ conversation after dinner. Mrs Bennet is making plans for husband –hunting on her daughters’ behalf. Five daughters and an estate worth £2,000 a year were not an easy situation to cope with, especially if your husband (Mr Bennet) is not very good at saving. The urgent need for husbands is also due to the fact that the estate of Longbourn is “entailed” – a legal arrangement whereby the property could descend only to a male heir.

PERSUASION BY JANE AUSTEN - NOTES & LINKS FOR 5scB GROUP WORK

Persuasion was Jane Austen's last completed novel, written between summer 1815 and summer 1816. In 1816 the author fell into the lingering illness which eventually killed her, in July 1817. 

Austen herself may have suspected the plot lacked her normal sparkle, since she thought the original ending was 'tame and flat', and rewrote it (the revised ending has a number of hanging threads which, perversely, leave a piquant taste). In March 1817 she told her niece Fanny Knight that she had another novel ready for publication, but added: 'You will not like it, so you need not be impatient. You may perhaps like the Heroine, as she is almost too good for me.' Discriminating critics have, more often, found it her most mature—if least funny—work. The novel was published posthumously in a four-volume bundle along with  Northanger Abbey (her least mature work), by John Murray, in December 1817 (dated 1818 on the title page), together with an informative 'Biographical Notice of the Author' written by Jane's brother (and sometime unofficial literary agent) Henry Austen. The novel's action can be precisely placed (thanks to the Baronetage entry on the first page) as being over nine months,summer 1814 to spring 1815. 

Study questions - Reflect on the following  points

1. Is Anne a frail or a strong woman? What do you most like in her? What, instead, do you like the least? 

2. What about Captain Wentworth? Is he too proud, too austere, too resentful toward Anne? What do you most admire in his character? Is there anything you don't like?

Stanford Researchers: Reading Jane Austen “A Truly Valuable Exercise of People's Brains”

Read this interesting article  

Stanford Researchers: Reading Jane Austen “A Truly Valuable Exercise of People's Brains" 

AN OVERVIEW OF LATE 18th - EARLY 19th CENTURY FICTION

The last three decades of the 18th century saw a great amount of new fiction written and published in England. The novel had risen at the beginning of the  century to respond to the needs of culture and education of the new ascending social class: the bourgeoisie. A new sensibility was now spreading and , though the audience was still made up of upper and middle-class readers, the novelists offered a great variety of new genres rooted in and indebted to the previous production of Richardson, Fielding or Sterne but different and original in many ways

If you have a look at the chart below, you’ll immediately realize that the major representatives of the three main kinds of novel wrote or published more or less in the same years.

JANE AUSTEN AND THE NOVEL OF MANNERS - POWER POINT PRESENTATION

Download the Power Point Presentation about Jane Austen and Novel of Manners from the Widget_Box on the right