Jane Austen

Jane Austen (December 16th 1775, Steventon, Hampshire - July 18th 1817, Winchester) is a English Woman of letters .

Biography

Born in the village from Steventon, in the Hampshire, Jane Austen is the penultimate one and second girl of a phratry of eight children. His/her father, George Austen, are Pasteur; his/her mother, Cassandra Austen born Leigh, account among its ancestors to sir Thomas Leigh who was Lord Mayor at the time of the queen Elisabeth. The incomes of the Austen family are modest but comfortable; their house of two floors, Rectory, is surrounded by trees, grass as well as barn.

Education

Of the young person Jane Austen one knows that like the majority of heroins of its novels, it could sometimes prefer to beat the countryside or to roll itself in grass top of a slope; there in company of her Henry brother (one year his elder) or of his Cassandra sister she lived less suitable activities for a young girl of the time than to sew, to play of the piano, or to sing.

The education of Jane does not differ from that given to any young girl of the Great Britain of the XVIIIe century; it consists of artistic and domestic, essential occupations it to prepare with its future, the marriage. In fact, she learns French and Italian, the song (without enthusiasm), the drawing, the seam and the embroidery, the piano and the dance. Obviously, of all these activities, its preferred is the reading by far. Small Austen also had as a passion the theater; the barn, the summer, was used to them as scene.

In 1782, Cassandra and Jane (which consequently were not left any more theirs life) were sent to the school, initially with Oxford, then with Southampton, finally in Abbey School of Reading. The studies left them much spare time, since the young girls had only one or two work hours each morning. Of return to Rectory, the two sisters supplemented their education thanks to the family conversations and with the paternal library which was remarkably provided and to which they seem to have had an access without restrictions.

The writing

The Austen family is fond of delicacies novels, which appear at that time per hundreds. Moreover, everyone has as a leisure the writing: Mr. Austen writes his sermons, his wife, of the worms; brothers, all former students of Oxford, the tests for the student newspapers of the university; all touch with the play. Jane Austen very early starts to write, encouraged by the family example. It is directed towards the account, taking as a starting point the sentimental novels which constitute the funds of the libraries. The early works which were kept, copied in hand in three books entitled Volume I, II and III, were undoubtedly written between the twelfth and the seventeenth year of the author.

First novels

In 1795, Jane Austen begins a novel entitled Elinor and Marianne , first version of what was going to be Raison and feelings . In the tread, she writes First Impressions , which will become Orgueil and prejudged . Finally in 1798, it writes Northanger Abbey , under the first title of Susan . These three major novels are written between twenty and twenty-five years. His/her father tries to make publish First Impressions , without success. Works of Jane Austen do not leave the family circle for the moment.

In 1800, Mr. Austen decides to leave Hampshire to withdraw himself with Bath with his family. Jane, which so much it life in the countryside liked, did not like to be confined in this city. She writes little at this period of her life, undertakes in 1805 a novel which she gives up in the course of road, The Watsons , but in spite of that, Bath plays a big role in its work. Two of its novels are held mainly in Bath, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion and the city, as much as the practices of its inhabitants and residents of passage (because Bath is famous for its thermal baths), are depicted there with precision.

The January 21st 1805, the death of Mr. Austen puts the women of the family in a not very comfortable situation. As often at the XIXe British century, they will have to depend on the generosity of the Austen brothers. And it is necessary for Cassandra and Jane to give up any hope of marriage, and to know the frequent destiny of many women of the time: to be old maids. Dear Aunt Jane deals thus with its many nephews and nieces, distracting them and educating them on the occasion.

In 1808, the three women leave Bath and settle, after passages to Southampton and Clifton, in the village of Chawton, between Salisbury and Winchester. It is there that the work of Jane Austen such as it is known was written.

The first successes

In 1809, Jane Austen manages to repurchase the manuscript of Susan , formerly sold with the Crosby editor. Then two years later, Reason and feelings is accepted by the London editor Thomas Egerton. The first edition, of a little less than thousand specimens, is past in twenty month, and Jane can count on new incomes, unhoped-for somebody accustomed to live very modestly. As it is of use for the female authors, the work appears anonymously. Back-to-back, Jane puts at the revision Orgueil and prejudged and at the writing of Mansfield Park . Orgueil and prejudged had at its exit a success even larger.

Emma is the second written work with Chawton, and will be drawn in first edition with 2000 specimens. From now on, the author can allow a greater financial independence while at the same time the businesses of his/her Henry brother périclitent. Emma accepted an excellent reception once again and was worth in Jane Austen an admiror of first rank in the person to sir Walter Scott. Moreover, the prince regent, with whom Emma was dedicated, made him ask whether it would agree to write a historical novel on the house of Coburg, affiliated the girl of the prince regent; the author declined the offer.

The disease

The August 8th 1815, Jane begins the writing of Persuasion , which she will not see not published of alive sound. Indeed, before the completion of its last novel, it contracts the Maladie of Addison, a chronic degradation of the glands suprarenals, still not identified at that time (1855 will have to be waited until) and often caused by tuberculosis. In 1817, to approach its doctor, Doctor Lyford, it settles with Winchester in a street close to the cathedral. It is there that she dies, the July 18th 1817, at the 41 years age, leaving an unfinished novel, Sanditon .
It is buried in the cathedral of Winchester.

The author

One knows relatively few things of it, especially all that is external with its career of novelist. There are only two portraits of it, both drawn by his Cassandra sister, and one of both is a sight of back! Like only description of it, there is a sentence of a family friend describing it like " beautiful, small and enough élégante".

Jane and Cassandra

The two sisters remained all their life lasting extremely close, this reinforced by the fact that neither one nor the other married. It is by their correspondence that one finds the greatest information source on Jane Austen; but these letters inform us only over the periods when the sisters were separate, which was rather rare. Moreover, with the despair of the admirors of the author, Cassandra, which survived to him, destroyed part of this correspondence, wanting to avoid exposing the intimacy of his/her sister whose celebrity was growing. Thus much of mystery remains as for the love life of that which had fun so much to describe the agitations incipient from a Elisabeth Bennet (Orgueil and prejudged) or from Marianne Dashwood (Raison and feelings) in the pre-victorienne British countryside. It is known that it accepted a proposal for a marriage of a rich person owner of the name of Harris Bigg-Wither, brother of one of his friends. But she announced the next morning that she had changed opinion, and left with Cassandra to join one their brothers with Steventon without giving more explanations.

Context

Jane Austen belongs to the provincial minor nobility of the the United Kingdom of the beginning of the XIXe century. It is the framework which it gives to its novels. Far from frantic passions of works of the Brontë, its work depicts the relations between young misses and applicants, finely analyzes the hesitations, prejudices and other dashes of the heart until the birth of the feeling in love. The day before the industrial revolutions and economic which will upset the landscape, and whereas the echoes of Waterloo and Trafalgar announce the rise to power of a British empire, the world of Jane Austen belongs already to another century. It is a company which strongly influences the individuals by the social conventions, in particular by the marriage. The woman cannot inherit her father or her husband, and many fields pass to the hands of a remote cousin, male fault of heir. Only the marriage puts safe from such reverses of fortune. The social life of the villages and small towns of province is organized around the balls. It is besides one of the only occasions for young people of this social class to meet; it is also, as one sees it in Northanger Abbey or Orgueil and prejudged , the place of all the matrimonial hopes.

Works

  • Early works.

    • Lady Susan
    • The Watsons
    • Henry and Eliza
    • The Three Sisters
    • Coils off and Friendship
    • The History England
    • Catharine, gold the Bower

  • Romance stopped by the death of the author.

    • Sanditon

Critical works

  • Allan Bloom, Coils and Friendship (tr.fr. the love and the friendship , Livre Pocket. Biblio-tests, 2003). This work, which contains comments followed by works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Plato and Shakespeare contains also a suggestive chapter on the work of J. Austen .

Adaptations

  • Cinema
    • " Jane" of Julian Jarrold (original title: " Becoming Jane")
With Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy, James Cromwell. American film. Duration 1:58 min. Year of production: 2007. A portrait of the famous British writer Jane Austen, through its history of love lived, at the dawn of its twenty years, with Tom Lefroy…
    • " Pride and préjugés" of Joe Wright (original title " Pride and prejudice")
With Keira Knightley, Matthew MacFayden, Judi Dench. American film. 2:00 duration Year of production: 2005
    • "Reason and sentiments" of Ang Lee (original title: " Judicious and sensibility")
With Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman. Duration: 2:16 Year of production 1995
    • " Love at first sight with Bollywood" of Gurinder Chadha (original title: " Attach and Préjudice")
With Aishwaria Spoke, Martin Henderson, Naveen Andrews, Alexi Bledel. Adaptation of " Pride and préjugés" British film. 1:21 duration Year of production 2004

  • All works also were the subject of several adaptations for British television and the Indian cinema of Bollywood.

  • Literature
    • " Harms and jour" , the second novel of Virginia WOOLF, in all its invoice, style, characters, screen of the history, is largely inspired by Jane Austen. Virginia Woolf admires Jane Austen deeply and speaks about it regularly in its newspaper.
    • " The newspaper of Bridget Jones" of Helen Fielding (original title " Bridget Jones' S Diary")
Multiple homage to " Pride and Préjugés" this novel was adapted to the cinema in 2001.

External bonds

  • Works of Jane Austen
  • Of the comments of reading of almost all the novels of Jane Austen

Simple: Jane Austen Zh-min-nan: Jane Austen Zh-yue: 珍奧斯汀

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