Art and artifact in Austen / edited by Anna Battigelli.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Battigelli, Anna, 1960- editor.

Series:

Victorian Literature and Culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Arts in literature.

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

Austen, Jane.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 267 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Newark : University of Delaware Press, 2020.

Summary:

Jane Austen distinguished herself with genius in literature, but she was immersed in all of the arts. Austen loved dancing, played the piano proficiently, meticulously transcribed piano scores, attended concerts and art exhibits, read broadly, wrote poems, sat for portraits by her sister Cassandra, and performed in theatricals. For her, art functioned as a social bond, solidifying her engagement with community and offering order. And yet Austen's hold on readers' imaginations owes a debt to the omnipresent threat of disorder that often stems--ironically--from her characters' socially disruptive artistic sensibilities and skill. Drawing from a wealth of recent historicist and materialist Austen scholarship, this timely work explores Austen's ironic use of art and artifact to probe selfhood, alienation, isolation, and community in ways that defy simple labels and acknowledge the complexity of Austen's thought.

Contents:

Introduction : the intimate ironies of Jane Austen's arts and artifacts

Portraiture as misrepresentation in the novels and early writings of Jane Austen / Peter Sabor

Jane Austen's "artless" heroines : Catherine Morland and Fanny Price / Elaine Bander

Legal arts and artifacts in Jane Austen's Persuasion / Nancy E. Johnson

Jane Austen and the theater? Perhaps not so much / Deborah C. Payne

Everything is beautiful : Jane Austen at the ballet / Cheryl A. Wilson

Jane Austen, marginalia, and book culture / Marilyn Francus

Gender and things in Austen and Pope / Barbara M. Benedict

"A very pretty amber cross" : material sources of elegance in Mansfield Park / Natasha Duquette

Religious views : English abbeys in Austen's Northanger Abbey and Emma / Tonya J. Moutray

Intimate portraiture and the accomplished woman artist in Emma / Juliette Wells

"Is she musical?" players and nonplayers in Austen's fiction / Linda Zionkowski and Miriam Hart

What Jane saw-in Henrietta Street / Jocelyn Harris.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-64453-176-3

OCLC:

1155087331