Another defense of Jane
Al at Synaptic Blue also has noticed the backlash against Jane Austen recently, and makes an eloquent defense against critics who say, for instance, that she didn’t write about the Napoleonic wars.
But for the critics who lament the absence of war, do they not realize that with every war, hundreds of years go by, and few people really care about the outcome, or can remember what it was all about. But the truths about human nature and society in the novels of Austen and others are even more relevant today than at the time they first knew publication. Characters and story lines never lose their complexity, and well written and well formulated humor and pathos will always be exactly what they are; funny and dramatic.
[. . .]
In my mind, Austen was not writing about misplaced and irrelevant issues, she was just simply very shrewd in her choice of subject. True, her novels were largely only about romantic love and family life. Interestingly, two of the few things that haven’t, to any great degree, really changed since she was alive. Both of these snippets of human experience still absorb us in equal measure. If Jane Austen had written detailed accounts of the Napoleonic Wars, I’m confident a large number of people would have never read her books.
Yep. The novels are about human nature, not so much period pieces. That’s why we’re still reading them 200 years later.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
What gets me about that sort of criticism is that it is so very — well, I won’t say misogynist, but certainly anti-female.
Why is it that wars, which have historically been the province of men, matter, but things that occur in a drawing-room don’t?
Is it because life and death hang in the balance in wars? But, I’m pretty certain, Lydia’s life and death hang in the balance in Pride and Prejudice, or at least her quality of life.
Is it because wars involve more people? But why does that matter? Most people can’t have enough friends to fight a war — don’t have thousands of names in their address book — and frankly don’t care very much about people they don’t know. I’m sad if a British soldier dies, because no one should die; but I won’t cry over it, because I don’t know any British soldiers.
War novels do not, and probably will never, reflect my experience of the world as a woman. They might, if I went into the army, I suppose. But going into the army is still very hard for a woman; I don’t think I will. So that leaves us with a critic judging Jane Austen for — what? Not writing about something that’s important to men? What about writing about something that’s important to women?
June 14th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Critics, by their very nature, lack a sense of humor or a global perspective on things. They are hired to, well, critique, which means that they feel they must demonstrate their superiority in some sense.
Since the dawn of man, the British Isles and mainland Europe have been joined in one conflict or another. Are Chaucer’s tales any less real because he did not dwell on the hundred year war, the peasant’s revolts, or the end of the Plantagenet dynasty? Chaucer might have touched upon them, but these events do not comprise the gist of his wondrous tales. Is Fielding’s Tom Jones any less funny or insightful or true to the life of a country squire because the author did not bother to emphasize the amassing of the armies in Spain, the Netherlands, France, and England for the next jolly male killing go-round? Of course not.
I agree with Madeline. Our Jane is being picked upon because she is a girl. She doesn’t mention that tiny gnat Napoleon in her novels because she wrote about what she knew. Any writer worth their salt follows that rule.
Unlike these critics.
June 15th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Oh come on, Jane does not need defence against attacks like this—especially coming from a tart desperately trying to sell her own books. It is not worth the effort, and most certainly one instance when she does not deserve the compliment of rational opposition.
June 24th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
The fact is, she engages hugely (particularly in Emma and MP) with the philosophical and political subjects of her time. Just because she doesn’t hit you over the head with the politics doesn’t mean it’s absent, or she didn’t care about it.