Word: austen
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Written in the year before her death, Persuasion is Jane Austen's darkest novel. The plot is similar to those of Emma and Pride and Prejudice. A sensible and intelligent woman overcomes her own character flaws and the interference of her family and friends to marry the only man who is her equal...
...this literary obsession with the inner lives of characters. "I've become very interested in where this inner life came from--as defined by Henry James, I guess. You don't see it at the very beginning. You don't see it in Defoe or Fielding. Was it Jane Austen? George Eliot? J.B.S. Haldane [the English scientist and writer] concluded after some period of introspection he didn't know why he did anything. I'm a lot more interested in religion and spirituality, interests you share with age, and"--he laughs--"the inevitable interest in the future...
...JANE AUSTEN MAY HAVE BEEN A lesbian [PEOPLE, Aug. 14]. As a dedicated Austenite, my reaction is, Who cares? The practice of psychoanalyzing historical characters is interesting but suspect, since the people involved can no longer speak for themselves. Another questionable practice is the attempt to interpret the love language of women in another era. Jane's sister Cassandra herself expurgated Austen's letters; it is obvious she found nothing "homoerotic" about what was left. We know this about Jane Austen: she wrote six great novels and several tantalizing fragments. We also know that she remained unattached throughout her life...
...ITEM ABOUT THE SEXUAL ORIENTATION of Jane Austen, I am said to be "miffed" at the public response to the thesis--supposedly bruited by me--that Austen might have been gay. In an essay on Austen in the London Review of Books, I discussed Austen's profound emotional bond with her sister, but I did not say that I thought she was homosexual in any self-conscious or active way or that she had sex with her sister. My remarks have been sensationalized by the British press, and I am afraid you have simply followed suit. TERRY CASTLE, Professor Department...
...JANE AUSTEN gay? This question, posed by the normally staid London Review of Books, was the headline for an essay by Stanford professor Terry Castle that subtly explored the "unconscious homoerotic dimension" of Austen's letters to her sister Cassandra. The implication has caused quite a kerfuffle among Austenites. "I think it's about as likely that Jane Austen was gay as that she was found out to be a man," was one of the more temperate responses. Says Castle, miffed: "For the readers of the LRB, I didn't really expect this to be such a stunning revelation...