Cursus

A short course on Jane Austen

Many people enjoy reading Jane Austen's novels but what exactly is it that makes her novels still enjoyable and rewarding to read today? In this course we will take a closer look at her characters, style, imagery, themes and her wit. The focus will be on the novels Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield park, using extracts of key passages to discover and illustrate her techniques. We will also look at the historical background and compare her novels to others written in the time in which she lived.

The first lesson is a talk in which I will look at certain aspects of her life, her works and the historical, literary and personal context that might explain her continuing appeal. I will give some information on the regency period and specifically the position of women in that society but also the authors who inspired her and her educational background.In lesson 2-4 we will discuss the following novels respectively:

• Pride and Prejudice. Her most well-known and most popular novel. We will look at certain dialogues to discover Austen's use of irony and humour. Important themes such as the position of women in society and the themes of pride and prejudice are also a main point for discussion.
• Sense and Sensibility. We will look at the historical background of romanticism and the cult of sensibility and we will try to answer the question: how romantic is this novel? Some main themes: money and marriage, secrecy and concealment. What is Austen's social vision?
• Mansfield Park. We will look at landscape, the theatre and letters as symbols and as an aid to our understanding of the novel's moral message. In what way is this novel different to the other two, bearing in mind that it was written much later by a more mature Jane?