Sense and Sensibility

1. Sense and Sensibility By Jane Austen

2. Jane Austen December 16, 1775 –July 18, 1817 Born in Steventon village in Hampshire, England Not quite landed gentry, but upper middle class – father was a rector, but also farmed and taught neighborhood boys for added income

3. Sense and Sensibility • Published 1811 • Austen’s darkest and most satirical novel • Original drafts date from 1790s, entitled “Elinor and Marianne” • Originally conceived as a didactic novel pitting two character beliefs against each other to see which is better. Elinor = sense; Marianne = sensibility. • The novel does not end up following this form. After all, “sense” is literally part of the world “sensibility.”

4. Literary Contexts: The Cult of Sensibility • The novel of sensibility was popular in the early 1700s • Emphasize the tearful distress of the virtuous (over the sorrows of others or their own) and show sensitivity of characters to beauty and the natural world • Sensibility: a capacity for human sympathy and responsiveness to art/beauty/“sense impressions” • Our emotional responses reveal morality/truth – knowledge about world is subjective rather than objective • Precede Austen’s work and lead into Romanticism, the literary movement taking place at the time she wrote

5. A Man of FeelingJoseph Wright of Derby, Sir Brooke Boothby, 1781

6. Literary Contexts:Romanticism • Late 18th century (1775 – 1830) movement • a reaction against the rationality (Sense) created by the Enlightenment and Industrialism • preference for subjectivity, imagination, emotion, and inspiration as modes of knowledge about the self, others, and the world • Especial preference for the beauty of nature and art • Characters who are solitary, prefer the awe/terror of the Sublime • …How is this different from the novel of sensibility? • MORE DIRECTLY RELATED TO GENRE OF PROSE ROMANCE

7. Genre: Prose Romance • Romantic literature is part of broader genre of prose romance, based in chivalric legends of Medieval period • Characters are sharply discriminated as heroes or villains; masters or victims • Hero as idealistic, often solitary, and individualistic • Remote/enchanted/fantastical setting that suspends reader expectations; action that is often nonrealistic or melodramatic • Plot is an adventure, a quest for an ideal, or pursuit of an enemy; Romantic art thus concerns movement - journeys and pilgrimages in search of something (self-knowledge, freedom, a lost home, etc.) • Close attention to individual psychology and emotion, the projection of desires, hopes, terrors of the human mind into the events of the novel

8. …Another Man of FeelingEugène Delacroix, Louis-Auguste Schwiter,1826–30

9. Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog, 1818

10. Genre: Realism • Late 19th century (latter 1800s) mode of writing that: • (1) focuses on accuracy of description of the real world to create the world of the text – aims at verisimilitude: likeness or truth to life • (2) rejects idealization and escapism of classic romance – reactions against sentimentalism; melodrama often satirized • Ordinary characters rooted in class (usually lower) who are complex with mixed motives (not evil vs. good archetypes) • Setting is an actual place or a fictional place modeled after one • Unremarkable, or at least plausible, everyday circumstances are the focus of the novel • Close attention to details of setting and social life, or the objective realities of the world

11. Realist LandscapeEilifPeterssen,The salmon fisher, 1889

12. Romantic LandscapeWilliam Turner, The Fighting Temeraire tuggedto her last Berth to be broken up, 1838, 1839

13. The Beginning of the Novel • Social realism • The first two chapters focus extensively on issues of inheritance, social status, and family affairs • Perhaps necessitates the novel’s later flight into romance and fantasy

14. Contexts: Inheritance • Jane Austen’s world operated on primogeniture – by law, the entire estate was passed down to the firstborn son • Other sons could be provided for monetarily by the will, but would usually have to seek a profession • Daughters do NOT inherit estates – this can create a huge problem if there is not enough money to leave daughters a large sum • If you are left very little money, are not supposed to work, and do not receive an inheritance, then your entire subsistence depends on finding a marriage partner. • UNJUST PROPERTY SYSTEM AS BASIS FOR ROMANTIC LOVE

15. Contexts: The Landed Gentry • As in typical prose Romances and Austen’s social class, we have movement between different communities: NorlandBarton Cottage exile • But all of these communities are made up of the landed gentry – the upper class of English society who own estates – and those who remain closely associated with them. • Norland worth around 80,000 pounds = about 16 million modern U.S. dollars!! • Characters constantly threatened with being exiled to the professional class (or below) – loss of money/land/social status

16. Contexts: Gender Relations • Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) was highly influential feminist text • Wollstonecraft criticized men for encouraging women to be excessively emotional (or to cultivate their sensibility) rather than working towards education that would make them fit companions instead of domestic ornaments • S&S methodically examines sexual relations men and women pursue through marriage and outside it • who is/what makes a good companion? • how do we know? (problems of epistemology) • how does each community repress, or enable the individual to act on, desire?

17. Romanticism and Realism • Overall, in terms of genre: novel moves away from strict late 18thc. Romanticism and towards 19thc. Realism • At the start of the novel: moves from realism towards fantasy (perhaps mixing romance and realism) • To what degree might the novel blend these genres in our main characters? • sense (realism) • sensibility (romanticism) • Which viewpoint (sense vs. sensibility/ realism vs. romance) will the novel ultimately espouse?