Hello and welcome to a new blog series which I’m calling “Clutching My Pearls.”
Enlightened thinking: La lecture chez Diderot I have thoughts. And a lot of those thoughts have to do with disagreeing with the proposition that Jane Austen was a fierce social and political critic of the times she lived in.
Austen was a child of the Enlightenment, a flowering of thought whose importance to human progress cannot be understated. The long 18th century also saw the dawn of the Romantic period, the time of Byron and Beethoven and Sir Walter Scott. For most of Austen's life, England was at war and the government was deeply in debt as a result. Though they were humble members of the middling class, the Austens had connections to the wider world. Two of her brothers travelled the globe as officers in the British Navy. Another brother hobnobbed with nobility in London.
And yet, in the midst of all the upheaval, change, cruelty, racism and poverty of the era, Austen's genteel characters talk pleasantly and drink tea and go for walks in the shrubbery. Austen doesn’t write about battles or social unrest (with one notable exception). She seldom alludes to public events, and then only in passing. She focusses on people’s private conduct, their wishes, their mistakes, their follies. In her wry examination of human nature, fans and critics have found plenty to enjoy, re-read, think about, and write about.
So, is there anything more to her books? Is there yet another layer beyond the personal, the individual relations of her characters? Did she intend anything more?...
Austen was a child of the Enlightenment, a flowering of thought whose importance to human progress cannot be understated. The long 18th century also saw the dawn of the Romantic period, the time of Byron and Beethoven and Sir Walter Scott. For most of Austen's life, England was at war and the government was deeply in debt as a result. Though they were humble members of the middling class, the Austens had connections to the wider world. Two of her brothers travelled the globe as officers in the British Navy. Another brother hobnobbed with nobility in London.
And yet, in the midst of all the upheaval, change, cruelty, racism and poverty of the era, Austen's genteel characters talk pleasantly and drink tea and go for walks in the shrubbery. Austen doesn’t write about battles or social unrest (with one notable exception). She seldom alludes to public events, and then only in passing. She focusses on people’s private conduct, their wishes, their mistakes, their follies. In her wry examination of human nature, fans and critics have found plenty to enjoy, re-read, think about, and write about.
So, is there anything more to her books? Is there yet another layer beyond the personal, the individual relations of her characters? Did she intend anything more?...
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