Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity
- ISBN-10
- 1421406403
- ISBN-13
- 9781421406404
- Category
- Literary Criticism
- Pages
- 336
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2012-08-20
- Publisher
- JHU Press
- Author
- Janine Barchas
Description
In Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity, Janine Barchas makes the bold assertion that Jane Austen’s novels allude to actual high-profile politicians and contemporary celebrities as well as to famous historical figures and landed estates. Barchas is the first scholar to conduct extensive research into the names and locations in Austen’s fiction by taking full advantage of the explosion of archival materials now available online. According to Barchas, Austen plays confidently with the tension between truth and invention that characterizes the realist novel. Of course, the argument that Austen deployed famous names presupposes an active celebrity culture during the Regency, a phenomenon recently accepted by scholars. The names Austen plucks from history for her protagonists (Dashwood, Wentworth, Woodhouse, Tilney, Fitzwilliam, and many more) were immensely famous in her day. She seems to bank upon this familiarity for interpretive effect, often upending associations with comic intent. Barchas re-situates Austen’s work closer to the historical novels of her contemporary Sir Walter Scott and away from the domestic and biographical perspectives that until recently have dominated Austen studies. This forward-thinking and revealing investigation offers scholars and ardent fans of Jane Austen a wealth of historical facts, while shedding an interpretive light on a new aspect of the beloved writer's work. -- Joseph Roach, Sterling Professor of Theater and English, Yale University, and author of It
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2012-07-15
- 336 pages
- Ebook
- JHU Press
Similar books
-
Jane Austen's Names: Riddles, Persons, Places
By Margaret DoodyR. W. Chapman and J. D. Fleeman with an introduction by Pat Rogers, World's Classics (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 188. 16. Janine Barchas, Matters of Fact in Jane Austen (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University ...
-
What Matters in Jane Austen?: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved
By John MullanWhen Charlotte Lucas sets about luring Mr Collins into a marriage proposal, we are told 'Charlotte's kindness extended further . . . Such was Miss Lucas's scheme' (I. xxii). The first statement seems to take us sympathetically into the ...
-
Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf and Worldly Realism
By Pam MorrisThe transformation of Miss Taylor into Mrs Weston not only introduces change into Hartfield, it also signifies the possibility of movement across divisions of rank, as formerly dependent governess becomes wife of property-owning Mr ...
-
Publishing Northanger Abbey: Jane Austen and the Writing Profession
By Margie BurnsSeeber, Barbara K. General Consent in Jane Austen: A Study of Dialogism. Montreal, Ithaca: McGill-Queen's U Press, 2000. Shakespeare, William. Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare. Samuel Ayscough, ed. London: John Stockdale; Crosby ...
-
Jane Austen's Possessions and Dispossessions: The Significance of Objects
By Sandie ByrneCecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress (1782), ed. Margaret Anne Doody and Peter Sabor. Oxford World's Classics, Oxford University Press, ... The Bristol Heiress, 5 vols. London: Minerva Press, 1809. Smith, Charlotte, The Young Philosopher.
-
Visuality in the Novels of Austen, Radcliffe, Edgeworth and Burney
By Jessica A. VolzTandon's conclusion leads Janine Barchas to reason in Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: Histor), Location and Celebrity (2012) that the overlaps between the worlds of the author and her characters confirm Austen's recourse to polite ...
-
The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After
By Elizabeth KantorAs a matter of fact, Jane Austen's last, unfinished novel is a brilliant parody of the incipient Victorian era.14 She understood very well the dangers of an unhealthy kind of femininity. In Jane Austen's world there are better and worse ...
-
Austen, Actresses and Accessories: Much Ado About Muffs
By L. EngelSee Janine Barchas, 4 Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2012), 169–171, for more on the history/time line for the composition of Sense and Sensibility.
-
Jane Austen and Critical Theory
By Michael Kramp... 110, 111; individual 109; in Mansfield Park 12, 109, 115, 117, 119, 120; pure 116; and subjectivity 110–111; “third” picture concept 109 Baker, Jo: Longbourn 220, 228 Barchas, Janine: Matters of Fact in Jane Austen 51n1 Barthes, ...
-
The Lost Books of Jane Austen
By Janine BarchasThoroughly innovative and occasionally irreverent, this book will appeal in equal measure to book historians, Austen fans, and scholars of literary celebrity.