Friday, January 2, 2015

Literary Fridays - Reflections On Jane Austen

If I loved her less, I might be able to talk about her more; Jane Austen is kind of awesome.

I don't say this only because it's the token appreciation post of the author class I took last semester, but because, well, Austen's a bit of a literary goddess. She was a wit and wisdom before her time, a brilliant writer whose failure to marry, I'm convinced, was only because there was no one else who could match her caliber.

I mean, I don't even know where to begin. Should I note that Emma is my favorite of her novels, though it's a rough choice between the six we read? Should I lay out the theses for my two papers (which, by the way, I can't help but think were worth the hours upon hours I mulled over them to make sure every word was perfect)?

No, I think that what needs to be said is this: What I learned from my class on Jane Austen is that Austen as a writer is underrated, romanticized in the most feminine ways, and not what non-Austen readers believe her to be. If I learned anything, I learned that Pride and Prejudice is not, and never should be, the 2005 Kiera Knightley film of the same name. It's not about love. It's about acceptance, compromise, sacrifice, and being able to see another for the person that he is and not who one wishes him to be. And I am grateful to have taken the class, because otherwise I do not know that I would have ever been truly introduced to Austen's radiant, wonderful, world.

So I thank Dr. Wehrs and my classmates for the enlightening experience, and I challenge you to go read some Austen. She has the wit of Wilde and the charm of Conan Doyle, the easy rhythm of Yeats and the poetic spirit of Keats. Jane Austen is awesome.



My Reading List:
Northanger Abbey
Sense & Sensibility
Pride & Prejudice
Mansfield Park
Emma
Persuasion

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