Romantic Austen: Sexual Politics and the Literary Canon: 49 (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism, Series Number 49)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 2/28/2002
EAN 9780521808590, ISBN10: 0521808596
Hardcover, 264 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
A full-length scholarly monograph examining Jane Austen's writings within the traditions of Romanticism. It argues that Austen's central position within the literary canon can only be fully understood by locating her work within Romantic cultural traditions. Taking the contemporary Austen revival as its cue, the study presents a series of historically contextualized readings of Austen's juvenilia (Catharine, or The Bower and The History of England), Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park and Austen's posthumously published novel, Sanditon, to examine ways in which Romantic-period definitions of nation, culture and literature continue to function in contemporary readings of Austen and her period. An investigation of the sexual politics of national culture, heritage culture and literary canon-formation informs the study's discussion of the relationship between Romanticism, Austen and the literary canon.
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Note on texts used
Introduction. The 'fall into a quotation'
tracking the canonical, Romantic and post-Romantic Austen
1. Aunt Jane's 'early workings' and 'betweenities'
closet dramas of literary apprenticeship
2. Sensibility, free indirect style and the Romantic technology of discretion
3. Breeding heritage culture
Mansfield Park, Reflections on the Revolution in France and the glorious revolutions of the country house
4. Austen's Romantic fragment
Sanditon and the sexual politics of land speculation
Epilogue
Notes
Select bibliography
Index.