Jane Austen as an Augustan
Posted by Inko on February 05, 1998 at 22:22:02:
In response to Submitted for your approval (Period definitions), written by The Mysterious H.C. on February 04, 1998 at 21:47:31
Thanks for your age definitions, HC. They are very useful, especially in connection with the novel chronologies.
In our lectures at Oxford last summer Helen Wheeler, our lecturer, maintained that, if one had to categorize Austen's writing, it would fit into the Augustan school--that of Samuel Johnson (biographer), Henry Fielding (novelist) and David Hume (philosopher). Their world had an elaborate system of manners and it is a world that is typified by JA's family. Although her time was between Augustan and Romanticism, her roots were in the Augustan, and she was influenced also by Richardson who was a pre-romantic.
I'm trying to make out my sketchy notes on all this--but my one strong impression is that her novels tend to hark back to the 18th Century pre-romantic rather than the Romanticism of the early 19th Century.
- Chronology and Periodization (literary classification of JA) The Mysterious H.C. 01:23:14 2/07/98
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