Jane Austen and the Culture of Romanticism

ENL 6246
Fall 2004
Instructor: Dr. Judith Page, Department of English, Turlington 4339, 392-6650, ext. 293
email: jwp@english.ufl.edu
Office hours: Tuesdays 11-12:30 and by appointment

The principle object . . . was to chuse incidents and situations from common life, and . . .to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way . . .--William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800)

Also read again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and sentiment, is denied to me.--Sir Walter Scott (journal entry, March 14,1826)

You are very, very kind in your hints as to the sort of Composition which might recommend me at present, & I am fully sensible that an Historical Romance . . . might be much more to the purpose of Profit or Popularity, than such pictures of domestic Life in the Country Villages as I deal in--but I could no more write a Romance than an Epic Poem.-- I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my Life; & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first Chapter.--Jane Austen (letter to James Stanier Clarke, April 1,1816)

Do not be angry with me for beginning another Letter to you. I have read the Corsair, mended my petticoat, & have nothing else to do.--Jane Austen (letter to Cassandra Austen, March 5, 1814)

Course description

Jane Austen lived from 1775 until 1817, but her critics and readers have not always placed her at home during these revolutionary times. Nor have they always recognized the powerful ways that she engages her world as she creates her own version of "ordinary life." This course will focus on Austen's writing (including juvenilia, letters, published novels, and uncompleted texts) in the context of the literature, culture, and politics of Romanticism. We will study Austen's relationship to other women writers of the period, including Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Smith, Maria Edgeworth, and Mary Wollstonecraft, as well as parallels to such contemporaries as William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge, and Lord Byron. We will also discuss several recent film adaptations of Austen's fiction, considering the ways that such films re-imagine the past (including the vision of the English countryside) that Austen's novels represent. In addition to selections from critics and theorists on Austen and Romanticism, we will read selected contemporary film criticism of the Austen adaptations.

Required texts (available at Goerings, 1717 NW 1st Ave):

• Tomalin, Jane Austen: A Life (Vintage)
• Catherine and Other Writings (Oxford)
• Northanger Abbey (Broadview)
• Sense and Sensibility (Broadview)
• Pride and Prejudice (Broadview)
• Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon (Penguin)
• Mansfield Park (Norton)
• Emma (Broadview)
• Persuasion (Norton)

Highly recommended

• Romantic Circles: http://www.rc.umd.edu (includes many wonderful links to various cites on Romanticism, including Gothic pages as well as the Jane Austen Information Page and links to full text version of poems)

Course Requirements

Regular class attendance and participation are required. All students are responsible for material covered in class and for any changes made to the syllabus when announced in class.

Mothers of the Novel (with apologies to Dale Spender) -- Report and presentation on Romantic novelist

Each student will be required to read and write a 2-3 page report on a novel by a Romantic woman novelist. In this report, briefly summarize the novel and then analyze the effectiveness of its narrative, style, and thematic and historical dimension. How best might you place this novel--gothic, domestic fiction, utopian, etc.? Please make copies of your report for each member of the class.

Seminar paper

You will be required to write a 20-page paper on any aspect of Austen that you find fascinating. All students will also present their preliminary research to the seminar as part of a mock conference panel. In addition, you will submit a prospectus (or proposal) for the paper one month before the final paper is due. (Your prospectus will count as one of the response papers.) In this prospectus, you should address the issues that you will consider in your paper. Some questions your prospectus should address include: What is the scope of this study? What are the main questions or issues that have drawn you to the topic? What is your working argument? How does your proposed work fit into the ongoing scholarly debate about the subject or related subjects? How do you envision organizing your paper? What problems or challenges do you anticipate?

Grading

• Report: 10%
• Participation: 20%
• Seminar paper: 70%

Schedule of Readings and Assignments

August 26

Introduction: Jane Austen and Romanticism; her career and juvenilia

Sept 2

Northanger Abbey, including all supplementary material, reviews, etc. Chapter 8 of The Romance of the Forest has been regarded as a source for Austen (particularly chap. 5, vol. 2). In what ways does Austen seem indebted to Radcliffe? What is Austen's attitude toward the gothic? Why is there such a strong focus on novels and reading in Northanger Abbey? Read Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads for a critique of the gothic:

For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies. To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of our country have conformed themselves. The invaluable works of our elder writers, I had almost said the works of Shakespeare and Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse.--When I think upon this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation I am almost ashamed to have spoken of the feeble effort with which I have endeavored to counteract it . . .

Sept 9

Read Sense and Sensibility. Viewing of Ang Lee's film Sense and Sensibility. I will be giving a paper at NASSR and will not be in class, but please carry on with the film and discussion, particularly of the way that Ang Lee imagines the English landscape and the past in this film.

Sept 16 Rosh Hashanah: NO CLASS

Use the time to complete reading your novel for class presentation.

Sept 23

Discussion of Sense and Sensibility (including reviews and other information from appendices on sensibility and the picturesque). Also read Wordsworth's "The Ruined Cottage" in conjunction with questions of sensibility and the picturesque.

Sept 30

Presentations and discussion in class on Romantic women novelists.

Oct 7

Discussion of Pride and Prejudice, including appendices. We will view a few scenes from the BBC version in class. Recommended reading: Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey."

Oct 14

Discussion of Lady Susan and The Watsons. Also read Lover's Vows in the Mansfield Park text. Read at least half of Mansfield Park.

Oct 21

Complete Mansfield Park, including supplementary material and critical essays by Trilling, Duckworth, Auerbach, Litvak, Said, and Lew. View film of Mansfield Park before coming to class. Recommended reading: Anna Barbauld's Eighteen Hundred and Eleven.

Oct 28

Complete Emma, including all supplementary materials and appendices. Recommended reading: Coleridge's "Kubla Khan."

Nov 4

Read Persuasion and Sanditon. Read Claudia Johnson's essay in Persuasion text. Recommended reading: Keats's "Ode on Melancholy" and "To Autumn" and Byron's The Giour or The Corsair.

Nov 11 Conference paper presentations

Nov 18 Conference paper presentations

Nov 25 Thanksgiving

Dec 2

Austen and film. View Clueless and either recent film version of Emma before coming to class. Read selections (TBA) from Jane Austen in Hollywood and Jane Austen and Co.

Complete 20-page papers due in class.