alone in the world...
Posted by P. Bingham on January 28, 1998 at 22:12:20:
In response to Couldn't agree more!, written by Caroline on January 28, 1998 at 19:16:38
I think Jane Austen was/is alone in the world. There was no author before her like her, and no author that followed with anything in common. She defied and defies every school of thought. Perhaps that's why she has had such harsh critics. And though she was clearly a women of her day, she was wizened beyond her time, and she wrote of her own as if through a looking glass, allowing us to see through to all the idiosychracies of that everyday life. She was a genious in her own right.
You mention Mozart. Even in his own day his music was not considered substantial, not complicated enough, and he had more than his fair share of critics. Partly out of jealousy (how could a work written in a matter of days, from one single draft, be taken seriously?) and partly out of the belief that what sounds to be simple must therefore be simple. It was not until much later that he was considered to be the master he is well known for today. Now we can see that his simplicity was not simplicity at all, only a complicated genius made so beautifully and so pleasing to the senses.
Oddly enough, the two have much in common if you look at it that way.
] And , as it's come up, does anyone want to discuss what Lionel Trilling said about her and her work?
Oh yes.
Patricia
(writing too much again!)
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