Persuasions; The Jane Austen Journal最新文献

{"title":"Cartesian Dualism, Real and Literary Madness in the Regency, and the Mind and Madness in Austen’s Novels","authors":"Karenleigh A. Overmann","doi":"10.31235/osf.io/zeh5n","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/zeh5n","url":null,"abstract":"Austen’s ability to represent psychologically plausible characters poses the question of what she would have known about the mind and its disorders. An answer requires insight into the ways the mentally afflicted were treated during the Regency and mind and madness understood by some of Austen’s literary influences (William Shakespeare, James Boswell, and Elizabeth Hamilton). Austen’s depiction of mind and madness in her novels contrasts with what she knew and wrote about medicine and medical practices for physical illnesses and injuries. The tenor of the times and the circumspect treatment of mind and madness in her novels, in turn, suggest that whatever firsthand knowledge she would have had from witnessing mental impairment in two family members was scrupulously hidden.","PeriodicalId":228387,"journal":{"name":"Persuasions; The Jane Austen Journal","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115233507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Darcy and Emma: Austen's Ironic Meditation on Gender","authors":"Karenleigh A. Overmann","doi":"10.31235/osf.io/c9wkx","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/c9wkx","url":null,"abstract":"The central characters and plot lines of Emma are essentially those of Pride and Prejudice, retold from Darcy’s point of view with the genders of the characters reversed (men become women, women men). This whimsical antecedent accounts for why Emma may strike contemporary readers as uncommonly modern for an Austen heroine: She takes a lot of male privilege to herself, something that would have made her anomalous in her own day. The works of four writers and the reasons they likely influenced this gendered topsy-turvy are examined: Richardson, Fielding, Shakespeare, and the Reverend Fordyce.","PeriodicalId":228387,"journal":{"name":"Persuasions; The Jane Austen Journal","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133522327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Jane Austen's Short Lexicon of Fine Names","authors":"Margie Burns","doi":"10.13016/M2NUPD-MUIN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13016/M2NUPD-MUIN","url":null,"abstract":"LIKE MR. WESTON AND EMMA, Jane Austen plays games with first names. She plays an especially tricky game with given names in Sense and Sensibility. of the five most prominent male characters, three are named John without the reader's feeling the sameness, and to heighten the challenge, the three are the men mentioned most often throughout the text--John Dashwood, Sir John Middleton, and Willoughby. The reader does not register that these characters are mentioned more often than the successful romantic leads, Edward Ferrars and Colonel Brandon, or that the name John is used on more than one hundred pages; no one reels away from Sense and Sensibility overwhelmed by all the Johns. Austen seems to have challenged herself to see how many times she could assign the same first name to different characters without its becoming obtrusive, or to see how effectively she could prevent the multiplied name from becoming obtrusive, in a game played against herself, for herself, and probably for family, since neither Austen's father nor any of her six brothers was named John. Authorial technique overcomes uniformity every time; the commonest, dullest, most threadbare sameness may be rendered interesting by the skill of the author. Delicate tricks camouflage the sameness. One authorial tactic is to differentiate the name when introducing the character; when the Dashwood sisters' half-brother appears, on the third page of Sense and Sensibility, his first name is coupled with his last--\"Mr. John Dashwood had not the strong feelings of the rest of the family\" (5). A reinforcing tactic is to repeat the name thus introduced, early and often enough so that the tag sticks: \"But Mrs. John Dashwood was a strong caricature of himself;--more narrow-minded and selfish\" (5). \"John Dashwood\" is repeated five times in four consecutive introductory paragraphs, interchangeably with either Mr. or Mrs., a repetitious coupling that hints at some traits of the couple as characters, while also distinguishing Fanny from the elder Mrs. Dashwood. Edward is often Edward, as well as Edward Ferrars; Robert is \"Robert\" as well as Robert Ferrars; but their brother-in-law is never \"John, always \"John Dashwood. The combined name that distances him from, and uncomfortably yokes him with, his half-sisters, also distances him from the other Johns in the novel, who receive different appellations. When Mrs. Dashwood's relative John Middleton is introduced, by letter, he is referred to as either \"Sir John or Sir John Middleton, given name always preceded by the title. \"Sir John\" is then repeated in all the introductory references, and a further sixty or so reiterations in the book still leave him invariably \"Sir John.\" The two characters' having the same first name does not distract the reader, even with extensive reiteration, because the name sounds different--especially with \"Mrs. John Dashwood\" thrown into the mix. The duplicitous John Willoughby is camouflaged with a vengeance; we do not even lear","PeriodicalId":228387,"journal":{"name":"Persuasions; The Jane Austen Journal","volume":"1799 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129645616","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"George and Georgiana: Symmetries and Antitheses in Pride and Prejudice","authors":"Margie Burns","doi":"10.13016/M2UIX7-GIJN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13016/M2UIX7-GIJN","url":null,"abstract":"EVEN AFTER MULTIPLE RE-READINGS OF Pride and Prejudice, the character of George Wickham repays close detection. He does not \"unfold\"--even multiple re-readings do not deepen him into a character for the reader to relate to--but close pursuit of this shakiest of snakes through the narrative timeline discovers an awesome amount of leftover material in him. Flaubert or Tolstoy or even Thackeray would have indulged fuller development to a character anything like Wickham, and actor Hugh Grant extends himself in the more superficial role of rival to Darcy in the two Bridget Jones films. Austen, in contrast, sketches Wickham rather thinly, more by inference than through direct dialogue and action, and ultimately passes him along to Lydia Bennet like a bolt of leftover fabric. Nonetheless, Wickham is key to development, in more than one sense, in the novel. Pride and Prejudice is partly a detective story of emotional development, like Emma--which Sinclair Lewis called one of the five greatest detective novels ever written--and any work of detection depends on timeline. First, without being presented as a conscious observer like Elizabeth, Wickham is present when Darcy and Elizabeth re-encounter on the street, with others, after their visit of several days in Netherfield Hall. The narrative focus in the scene is entirely on Elizabeth's observation of the mysterious exchange between Wickham and Darcy: Mr. Darcy ... was beginning to determine not to fix his eyes on Elizabeth, when they were suddenly arrested by the sight of the stranger, and Elizabeth happening to see the countenance of both as they looked at each other, was all astonishment at the effect of the meeting. Both changed colour, one looked white, the other red. Mr. Wickham, after a few moments, touched his hat--a salutation which Mr. Darcy just deigned to return. What could be the meaning of it?--It was impossible to imagine; it was impossible not to long to know. (72-73) The focus on Elizabeth's observation, and curiosity, is so powerful here that it makes the observation seem one-directional. But Wickham, motivated by envy, has obviously been an astute and close observer of Darcy--handsome, clever, and rich--throughout their formative years. He knows Darcy well, probably better than Bingley does. He must be preternaturally alert to any emotional exchange involving Darcy and well able to perceive Darcy's interest in Elizabeth, better than Elizabeth does. Against the backstory, the benevolence and affection of Darcy's late father toward Wickham, the novel repeatedly suggests that Wickham knows how to provoke Darcy. From the moment Wickham joins the regiment at Meryton, furthermore, he is well positioned to catch up on local gossip. If handsome young men, as well as plain, must have something to live on, they must have fodder for gossip, and Wickham is an adventurer alertly looking for a rich wife. Wickham's acquaintance with tire Bennet family is furthered in this first meeting, when Denny and ","PeriodicalId":228387,"journal":{"name":"Persuasions; The Jane Austen Journal","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131570323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The 1816 Philadelphia Emma: A Forgotten Edition and Its Readers","authors":"J. Wells","doi":"10.13016/M2W950N5N","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13016/M2W950N5N","url":null,"abstract":"2016 MARKS THE BICENTENNIAL of not one but two noteworthy first editions of Jane Austen's novel Emma. 1816 appears on the title pages of both John Murray's London Emma, which was actually released in late December 1815, and a Philadelphia edition published by \"M. CAREY.\" Known today chiefly to book historians and serious literary collectors, the 1816 Philadelphia Emma was the first Austen novel published in America and the only one printed in the United States during her lifetime (1775-1817). This earliest American edition of an Austen novel made little impact in its own time. Far from inaugurating Austen's transatlantic fame, the reprinted Emma did not inspire any contemporary U.S. publisher to issue further American editions of her novels to compete with expensive imported English editions. Indeed, the 1816 Philadelphia Emma remained the only American printing of Austen's works until a complete set of her novels was issued in 1832--1833, again in Philadelphia, by the firm of Carey & Lea. (1) What's more, the very existence of this earliest American publication of Austen failed to be remembered. Geoffrey Keynes's Jane Austen: A Bibliography (1,929), the first catalogue of historic editions of Austen's novels, included no mention of the 1816' Philadelphia Emma. David Gilson's A Bibliography of Jane Austen (1982) restored this first American edition to the historical record, together with descriptions of the very few copies known to survive---just four, by the time of his 2002 \"Jane Austen's 'Emma' in America.\" In that article, Gilson compared in some detail the text of the first London and Philadelphia editions. Yet he left unanswered many crucial questions about the latter's origins and reception. I have identified two copies of the 1816 Philadelphia Emma unknown to Gilson, bringing the total of confirmed copies to six. (For a descriptive list--what book historians call a census--see the Appendix.) Five copies are held in American college, university, research, or private membership libraries: at Goucher, Yale, the New York Society Library, Dartmouth, and Winterthur. One is in England, at King's College, Cambridge. In numerical terms, this first American edition of Emma is significantly more rare than either Shakespeare's first Folio, of which there are 235 known copies and counting (Smith), or the Hay Psalm Book, the first book printed in the American colonies, of which eleven copies remain (\"Census\"). Notably, the 1816 Philadelphia Emma is not in the collections of the most distinguished libraries in the English-speaking world, including the Library of Congress and Oxford's Bodleian. Why have so few copies of this first American printing of Austen survived? Why, how, and exactly when in 1816 did the Philadelphia Emma come to be? How many copies of it were printed? What did its first readers think of it? Pursuing these questions has taken me to libraries and archives on both sides of the Atlantic.' (2) Through studying the copies themselves, th","PeriodicalId":228387,"journal":{"name":"Persuasions; The Jane Austen Journal","volume":"420 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116083350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}