A comprehensive look at the academic criticism of Jane Austen from her time down to the present.
Among the most important English novelists, Jane Austen is unusual because she is esteemed not only by academics but by the reading public. Her novels continue to sell well, and films adapted from her works enjoy strong box-officesuccess. The trajectory of Austen criticism is intriguing, especially when one compares it to that of other nineteenth-century English writers. At least partly because she was a woman in the early nineteenth century, she was longneglected by critics, hardly considered a major figure in English literature until well into the twentieth century, a hundred years after her death. Yet consequently she did not suffer from the reaction against Victorianism thatdid so much to hurt the reputation of Dickens, Tennyson, Arnold, and others. How she rose to prominence among academic critics – and has retained her position through the constant shifting of academic and critical trends – is a story worth telling, as it suggests not only something about Austen’s artistry but also about how changes in critical perspective can radically alter a writer’s reputation.
Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University, Reading, Pennsylvania.
Table of Content
Introduction
Becoming England’s Jane, 1811-1917
Modernist, Humanist, and New Critical Approaches, 1918-1948
The Zenith of Formalist and Humanist Criticism, 1949-1974
The Austen Bicentenary, 1975 (and Beyond)
The Feminist Revolution in Austen Studies, 1976-1990
Austen among the Theorists, 1976-1990
Traditional Criticism, 1976-1990
Theory-Based Criticism of Austen, 1991-2008
Traditional Approaches to Austen, 1991-2008
Speculations on the Future
Works by Jane Austen
Chronological List of Works Cited
Index
About the author
LAURENCE W. MAZZENO is President Emeritus of Alvernia University.
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