Posted by Lynn on August 06, 1997 at 18:43:14:
In reply to Ten weeks penance at Churchill posted by TracyH on August 06, 1997 at 17:08:51
] Letter 25: Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson
] LS writes that she is looking forward to a little Dissipation as a reward for her ten weeks' penance at Churchill. (Although she's hardly been a good girl while there.) Then in letter 26, Mrs. Johnson advises LS to leave Frederica in the country, to punish her.
] The penguin edition of LS had an introduction that discussed Austen's portrayal of city versus country life and the changes that were going on in English society at the time. Can anyone refer me to anything else on this topic? I haven't read Persuasion (gasp!) yet, but isn't the city/country motif prominent?
________
I haven't been keeping up with the group read, but allow me to jump in here on the city vs country thing in Persuasion. I think there is a comparison. Anne is much more comfortable in the country, the manners seem to be different, more familiar, and in town (in this case Bath) societ seems much more artificial. We know (but I'm not sure where I learned it) that Austen didn't like Bath, but whether she felt the same way about London, I don't know. In the AR/CH version of Persuasion, I thought they did a good job with the differences of how people look and act when in the city and when in the country. The women didn't worry as much about how they did their hair, the men didn't seem as concerned about their clothes.(Wentworth wears some pretty dirty clothes when hunting, and when he goes anywhere else, to dinner, to Lyme, to Bath, he wears his uniform). In Bath, Anne's hair looks a little more formal during the day, not just at dinner (at Uppercross, she did her hair more formally for dinner). I don't know if this helps at all, but thanks for letting me jump in.
Lynn
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