Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English author who wrote during the romantic period. Today, she is viewed as one of the most respected authors in the romance genre whose novels are considered pure classics. Her six novels include Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Mansfield Park. These novels shared common plots involving the marriages of young women and the realities of their lives. The social class structure in England was also a prominent theme in her works. The admired females in Austen’s books “are independent women who share ideals in a male-dominated society. In her novels she expresses the feminist feelings of her time. Therefore, Austen makes connections with choice in marriage and the logical female thoughts. Austen’s heroines are unique women who try to stand up for themselves in a society which is an ideal of feminism” (Güney 4). Her support for feminism is obvious as it is an embedded theme in all of her works, yet she often used the women in her novels as a target for Satire. Marianne Dashwood, a hopeless romantic in Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility, behaved in ways that we in the twenty-first century view as ridiculous, childish, and even annoying and comical. It is quite possible that Austen herself, though an obviously strong and passionate feminist, disagreed with the way that women acted and carried themselves during this particular era in order to obtain their goals of marriage.

It is thought that Austen might have adopted some of the same principles as Aristotle, though it cannot be determind for sure. Like Aristotle, Austen clearly portrayed "marriage as the foundation of society and, for most, the source of meaning and purpose in life; social barriers such as class often present themselves as unjust obstacles to romantic desire" (Garbitelli 1). Jane Austen is even sometimes viewed “as a partisan of Aristotelian rationalism against the dominant principles of modernity…to celebrate classical friendship as the core of romantic love” (Garbitelli 1).

Also portrayed in the novel Sense and Sensibility is the love for art that Austen obtained. Matt Fisher states, "In the early chapters of Sense and Sensibility, as we become acquainted with Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, we find frequent references to art. Elinor and Marianne are both creative girls—Elinor draws; Marianne plays music" (Fisher 1). This is obviously accurate, as we saw the unique artist in each girl reveal itself through the course of the movie. Art plays a great role in Austen's other novels as well, solitifying even more that she had a great appreciation for the subject.

It is no surprise that Jane Austen is one of the most well respected novelists not only of her time, but of all time. Her name and novels are not only discussed as topics of classroom education, but amongst readers and romantics everywhere. There is even discussion of a period being named after her. However, the "difficulty may have something to do, like the mythical phases of the moon, with a desire to comprehend the phenomena of girlhood, womanhood, and spinsterhood…at recurrent moments, Austen has caused trouble for literary history" through her "problematic femaleness … compounded by spinsterhood and childlessness" (Favret 2).

To me, Jane Austen is one of the best writers of all time. Not only do I admire the pure and desirable romance that she implants into her novels, (because what girls doesn't?) but I also respect how she reveals the truth about peoples' values and about the society during the Romantic Period. I do not think that it would be too far fetched to claim that most other romantics and readers would agree.

Works Cited

Favret, Mary A. "Jane Austen's Periods." Novel: A Forum on Fiction 42.3 (2009): 373-379. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.

Fisher, Matt. "'Love' and 'Connoisseurship' in Jane Austen's SENSE AND SENSIBILITY." Explicator 68.4 (2010): 216-218. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.

Garbitelli, Mary Beth, and Douglas Kries. "Virtue and Romance: Allan Bloom on Jane Austen and Aristotelian Ethics." Modern Age 52.1 (2010): 25-36. World History Collection. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.

Güney, Ajda, and Mehmet Ertuğ Yavuz. "THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE AND FEMINIST MOTIVES IN JANE AUSTEN'S NOVELS." e-Journal of New World Sciences Academy (NWSA) 3.3 (2008): 523-531. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.