Thursday, January 10th
Course Introduction: Virginia Woolf and Margaret Doody on Jane Austen
The Jane Austen Society of North America
Film Adaptation site on IMDB and JASNA’s Jane Austen on Screen
Jane Austen merchandise: On Etsy and Cafe Press
Jane Austen biography (from JASNA)
Tuesday, January 15th
Reading:
Excerpts from Contexts section of the Norton Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility. In Mansfield Park read the excerpts from Gregory, Wollstonecraft, Gisborne, and More (391-405) and from Sense and Sensibility read excerpts from Wollstonecraft and More (Norton 284-290 and 296-300)
PDF of excerpts from: Sense and Sensibility, from 284-290 296-300
PDF of excerpts from: Mansfield Park, from 391-405
Read the following short pieces from Jane Austen’s Manuscript Works: “Frederic and Elfrida,” “Jack and Alice,” “Henry and Eliza a novel,” “The Beautifull Cassandra” and “The Visit: a comedy in 2 acts”
“The History of England from the reign of Henry the 4th to the death of Charles the 1st.” Available as an online text: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/austen/austen.html
“Love and Freindship” (Jane Austen’s Manuscript Works)
On Sensibility
Raymond Williams, “Sensibility“ (Sense and Sensibility 333-336)
Please come to class having thought about who the young woman of Austen’s day was supposed to be. In reading, please be sensitive to differences of opinion between the writers (Gregory, Gisborne, Wollstonecraft and More).
In-Class Writing: What were the expectations for a young woman of the day according to at least two of the authors you read for today? (i.e. Gregory, Gisborne, Wollstonecraft, and More). In what ways does Austen’s juvenile works challenge those expectations? Do they reinforce any?
Viewing:
Watch the first few minutes of Mansfield Park. Directed by Patricia Rozema, performances by Frances O’Connor, Jonny Lee Miller, and Harold Pinter, Focus Films, 1999.
Thursday, January 17th
Reading:
“Catharine, or the Bower” (Jane Austen’s Manuscript Works)
Lady Susan (Jane Austen’s Manuscript Works)
An “epistolary novel” is “a novel whose plot is entirely developed through letters, whether through an exchange of letters between multiple characters or through the correspondence of only one character. The form has been employed for the immediacy it lends the narrative (that is, events are recounted just after — and occasionally even during — the moment of their occurrence) as well as the opportunity it provides to reveal the intimate, private thought s of characters” (The Bedford Glossary of Literary Terms 110)
Viewing:
Watch clips from Love and Friendship. Directed by Whit Stillman, performances by Kate Beckinsale, Chloë Sevigny, Xavier Samuel, Westerly Films, 2016.
**
Tuesday, January 22nd
Reading:
Northanger Abbey (Volume I)
In-Class Writing: What connections can you make between Northanger Abbey and the juvenilia read last week? Please focus on Lady Susan or “Catharine; or, the Bower” in your response.
In order to receive a “check+”, your response must have at least 1-2 pieces of direct evidence from the text supporting your interpretation. A “check” indicates that your insight is a good one but lacks specific textual evidence. A “check-” indicates an incomplete response to the prompt and a n/c is earned when you haven’t done the reading.
Viewing:
Watch approximately the first 10 minutes of two adaptations:
Northanger Abbey. Directed by Giles Foster, performances by Katharine Schlesinger, Peter Firth, and Robert Hardy, British Broadcasting Company, 1987. (1 hour and 28 minutes)
Northanger Abbey. Directed by Jon Jones, screenplay by Andrew Davies, performances by Felicity Jones, JJ Feild, and Carey Mulligan, Granada Television and ITV Productions, 2007. (2 hours)
Extra Credit Opportunity: Dr. Donelle Ruwe will be speaking on “Mediocrity: aesthetics and music for girls in the long eighteenth century” at 4:30pm in Park Hall 265. You are also invited to the reception afterwards.
You may receive up to 2 extra point on your semester exam by attending this talk. Please pay close and respectful attention during the presentation. After the talk, submit a 2-paragraph response. Your response should go beyond mere summary, making connections to literature you have studied or read, ideally in this class, but everything you’ve read is fair game.
Link to department website: http://english.uga.edu/events/content/2018/small-things-eighteenth-century-atlantic-world-dr-chloe-wigston-smith
Thursday, January 24th
Reading:
Northanger Abbey (Volume II)
Reading
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, “Shut Up in Prose: Gender and Genre in Austen’s Juvenilia” (Norton Critical 277-293). This excerpt is from The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century (Yale University Press, 1979)
Claudia L. Johnson, “The Juvenilia and Northanger Abbey: The Authority of Men and Books” (Norton Critical 306-325). This excerpt is drawn from Johnson’s Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel (University of Chicago Press, 1988)
Recommended Reading: Joseph Litvak, “The Most Charming Young Man in the World” (Norton Critical 348-357). This excerpt is drawn from Litvak’s book Strange Gourmets: Sophistication, Theory, and the Novel (Duke UP, 1997)
**
Tuesday, January 29th
Reading:
Briefly return to Northanger Abbey and assigned criticism from January 24th
While it is the case that Elinor and Marianne are the two protagonists of Sense and Sensibility, there are many secondary characters. What role do secondary characters play in this novel?
Sense and Sensibility (Volume I)
“A Note on Money in Austen’s Novels” (Mansfield Park xiii-xvi)
Definitions of Sense and Sensibility: sense_sensibility
Free Indirect Discourse: “the way, in many narratives, that the reports of what a character says and thinks shift in pronouns, adverbs, tense, and grammatical mode, as we move — or sometimes hover — between the direct narrated reproductions of these events as they occur to the character and the indirect representation of such events by the narrator” (from Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms)
“Discourse that is represented, rather than directly related, to the reader . . . in which the thoughts, statements, and even dialogues engaged in by the characters are recounted to the reader” (The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms)
Thursday, January 31st
Reading:
Sense and Sensibility (Volume II)
In-Class Writing: In 2 parts
- What is the difference between a heroine and a protagonist?
- Do we have a “heroine” in Sense and Sensibility or two protagonists?
Support your assertions with evidence from the text. For this response, I don’t necessarily expect exact citations from the novel if you have a strong argument otherwise.
Deborah Kaplan, “Mass Marketing Jane Austen: Men, Women, and Courtship in Two Film Adaptations” (Norton)
Viewing:
Sense and Sensibility. Directed by Ang Lee, screenplay by Emma Thompson, performances by Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Greg Wise, and Alan Rickman, Columbia Pictures, 1995.
Sense and Sensibility. Directed by John Alexander, screenplay by Andrew Davies, performances by Hattie Morahan, Charity Wakefield, Janet McTeer, and Dan Stevens, British Broadcasting Company, 2008. (2 hours and 54 minutes)