In reading the past week's posts and noting the requests for help with homework and the links to Homework Help, I found myself looking at Homework Help and the topics, and wondering about them. Please understand -- I've loved JA since I was thirteen, and DON'T ask how long ago that was. Suffice to say, I'm not in need of a thesis topic. Anyway, why the relevance? In the recent past Hollywood, et al., have graced us with a number of period pieces, inspired by classics, including The Crucible, The Scarlet Letter, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, etc., but Jane Austen has clearly been the most successful of the "classic authors." Why, and why now? She has always been wonderfully clever and satirical, which carries over and is as relevant today as it was when she wrote it. But the same was true twenty years ago. Did it take an especially good adaptation of her work (P & P2) with a particularly sexy star for her to be popular with the masses, or what? Comments?
