Romancing Jane Austen : narrative, realism, and the possibility of a happy ending / Ashley Tauchert.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tauchert, Ashley.

Series:

Language, discourse, society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817--Criticism and interpretation.

Austen, Jane.

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817.

Women and literature--England--History--19th century.

Women and literature.

Closure (Rhetoric).

History.

Criticism and interpretation.

England.

Narration (Rhetoric)--History--19th century.

Narration (Rhetoric).

Romance fiction, English--History and criticism.

Romance fiction, English.

Closure (Rhetoric)--History--19th century.

Happiness in literature.

Realism in literature.

Physical Description:

xv, 192 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke [England] ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Summary:

We acknowledge and celebrate Jane Austen as the mother of the English realist novel, but have you ever wondered why she insists on giving her mature heroines the 'perfect happiness' that can only be realised in the Romance? Romancing Jane Austen asks the reader to consider Austen's happy endings as a 'prophetic' rather than a merely 'illusory' answer to the contradiction that feminine subjectivity represents for history. Austen is still the most popular, enduring, and respected female writer in the English tradition. Her narrative formulas persist in various forms of adaptation and recirculation under the quite different representational conditions of contemporary literary and visual cultures. This admittedly romantic analysis claims that the six narratives we know and love have still more delightful surprises to yield to the open-minded reader. A happy ending for the feminine subject? Surely not - that would be against all the empirical odds...

Contents:

Introduction: The Persistence of Jane Austen's Romance 1

1 Northanger Abbey: 'hastening together to perfect felicity' 27

2 Sense and Sensibility: 'her opinions are all romantic' 49

3 Pride and Prejudice: 'Lydia's gape' 73

4 Mansfield Park: 'she does not like to act' 93

5 Emma: 'the operation of the same system in another way' 111

6 Persuasion: 'loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone' 137

Conclusion: 'such an alternative as this had not occurred to her' 156.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [170]-189) and index.

ISBN:

1403997470

OCLC:

60543289

Publisher Number:

9781403997470