Jane Austen's Heroines

[french frank]

I started Sense and Sensibility last night, but I think I will give JA a break for a while. I've read Mansfield, Persuasion, Northumberland Abbey and Pride and Prejudice in the last 6 months and Jane and I need a break in our romance. I'm sure that absence will make my heart grow fonder.

D----n you, rf - so you've abandoned me just as I'm at the start of the journey!

I'm nearly through Persuasion and am disappointed. This was posthumously published and, Richard Church says, unrevised in JA's normal thorough fashion: he sees signs of her ailing health. It's likely to be at the bottom with Northanger Abbey (v. funny but without the meat) in terms of my preferences, though I can't remember Sense and Sensibility. At the top it's likely to be a tussle between Mansfield Park and Emma, with P&P and S&S as yet undecided.

[vinteuil]

I'm nearly through Persuasion and am disappointed. .

I am very sorry to learn that 'Persuasion' was a disappointment for you : I think it's my favourite ( I am one of LPS's band of 'mild and melancholy admirers' ... )

I trust the edition you were using gave you the opportunity to read the 'original' chapters 10 and 11 of the Second Volume, as well as her later version.

[french frank]

I am very sorry to learn that 'Persuasion' was a disappointment for you : I think it's my favourite ( I am one of LPS's band of 'mild and melancholy admirers' ... )

Church's comment was that it had a 'dying fall' and bearing in mind the 'happy ending' lies up ahead, it has to me a wistfulness about it which may be LPS's melancholy.

Since we are on the subject of the heroines, Anne Elliot seems less fully drawn than others, and certainly has not the spiritedness and vivacity that some people seem to feel necessary in a heroine (not that I do)

I trust the edition you were using gave you the opportunity to read the 'original' chapters 10 and 11 of the Second Volume, as well as her later version.

I fear not, nor is there any critical apparatus. It merely says that it is based on RW Chapman's 'definitive text'. I am currently only about to begin chapter 6 of vol. 2.

[vinteuil]

based on RW Chapman's 'definitive text'. .

... if anyone is looking for a good edition of Jane Austen, RW Chapman's six volume set ("The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen", hardback) is a complete joy, a really handsome production - magisterial scholarship, generous background material, including notes on vocabulary and grammar, and on obsolete words and things, with appendixes on modes of address, carriages, travel, etc - , pleasingly illustrated with early nineteenth-century plates, and beautifully typeset, retaining the punctuation and spelling of the originals. They're fairly easily available second hand, and often reasonably priced - I got my set, in perfect condition, for less than £30.

[Sir Velo]

Since we are on the subject of the heroines, Anne Elliot seems less fully drawn than others, and certainly has not the spiritedness and vivacity that some people seem to feel necessary in a heroine (not that I do)

Of whom could you be thinking?

[french frank]

Of whom could you be thinking?

What's more, I don't think that AE 'grows'. She's sad when it begins and happy when it ends as a result of circumstances. But I can't see any personal 'growth'.

My feelings about the similarity with Fanny Price merely grew. They are not the same character, and I'm not suggesting that.

She is undervalued by others.

She has a strong sense of duty: '"... if I mistake not, a strong sense of duty is no bad part of a woman's portion." (AE to FW)

She has strong principles: 'he (FW) had learnt to distinguish between the steadines of principle and the obstinacy of self will...'

But Anne starts off with more advantages than Fanny (and is older/more mature anyway). Both have to keep their feelings to themselves in the face of the (apparent) attachment of the man they love to someone else.

By the time Anne is able to ignore the 'persuasion' of her friend/father, their resistance is no longer there because they have come to know FW - and know that he is rich.

I have some criticisms of the novel itself but withhold them because they may spoil others' enjoyment

[richardfinegold]

D----n you, rf - so you've abandoned me just as I'm at the start of the journey!

I'm nearly through Persuasion and am disappointed. This was posthumously published and, Richard Church says, unrevised in JA's normal thorough fashion: he sees signs of her ailing health. It's likely to be at the bottom with Northanger Abbey (v. funny but without the meat) in terms of my preferences, though I can't remember Sense and Sensibility. At the top it's likely to be a tussle between Mansfield Park and Emma, with P&P and S&S as yet undecided.

You sure know how to make someone feel guilty, FF. Were you perhaps a Jewish mother in an earlier life?
I really enjoyed Persuasion. I don't think it is her greatest work but rank it about Mansfield and Northumberland. Persuasion for me is like Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, a great piece of art somewhat overshadowed by even greater works from the same artist.
Anne Elliot doesn't "grow" as much as Emma Woodhouse does, but I would argue to does gain more in wisdom than Fanny Price, whom as I have stated before, is a fairly static character.
The characters around Fanny undergo an evolution as they appreciate her virtues and her constancy. To some extent this is true in Persuasion as well as Lady Russell and Anne's beau revise their opinions of Anne somewhat as they deepen their appreciation of Anne's qualities. I agree that Anne Elliot is not as fully developed a character as some of Austen's other heroines and I would point out that Persuasion is roughly half the length of her other novels.
I haven't found another suitable book at the moment, so in response to your guilting, I will give Sense and Sensibility another try. You should read Emma next, if you haven't recently, for she is my favorite J.A. character and it is my favorite of her books.

[french frank]

You sure know how to make someone feel guilty, FF. Were you perhaps a Jewish mother in an earlier life?.

I have no inkling as to an earlier life ...

What I would say about Persuasion is that it begins very well and the ending is very skilfully and touchingly managed. But I do think there are weaknesses in the middle. But it was an amiable read. I would say AE is 'admirable' rather than likeable, and interesting in being intelligent and somewhat bookish.

[richardfinegold]

I am about halfway through Sense and Sensibility. What a cad Willoughby is! Although Jane seems to have one of these types in all of her books. i don't know much about Jane's life; was she ruined by one of these Aristocratic sods?