Prospect and Refuge in the Landscape of Jane Austen

Barbara Britton Wenner analyses Austen’s use of nature in her novels and Juvenilia. Nature and culture, female and male, and submissive and oppressive elements are juxtaposed in order to show how the heroines’ relation to nature enhances their experience and gradual self-recognition.

Thankfully the author doesn’t attempt to prove that Austen had one and only proper model either of nature, picturesque or estate, but rather moves above the usual discourse, demonstrating instead how freely and confidently Austen used the late 18^th century concepts of landscape in order to show danger or refuge, and desirable or dreaded situations and characters. It’ll help you to better understand both the idea of picturesque and Austen’s novels.

The book is expensive, but likely available from your library. However, if you can afford it, it’s well worth having. Check it either at Amazon UK or Amazon US.

Highly recommended!

Elinor About Love

Some time ago I wrote that Elizabeth’s love for Darcy could not bloom before she was assured of his feelings as well as that her wishes and hopes would be rewarded by a proposal.

Elinor expresses similar sentiments when she answers Marianne’s queries about Edward:

New Theme?

I don’t have much time lately, but I thought that while I’m dealing with RL issues you might help me decide on a theme. I quite like the one I used to have, but I thought that for various reasons this one might be better.

To help you compare them, you can still see the old one at the Repository. If I change this one I’ll change the other too, but for now they differ.

Vote here:

ETA: Thank you all for your votes. There was a tie, so I returned to the old theme.

Loveless Marriage

At the beginning of the 18th century arranged marriages were the norm, but by the end of it they fell out of favour with nearly everyone, the upper class excepted. Family’s interest stood in opposition to Christian morality. Marriage should be for love, because it’s instituted by God, and not by any civil contract. Anglican marriage is a lesser sacrament, and its only condition is the mutual vow of love. One can lie and sign any papers, but one cannot possibly cheat God or hope that God would bless what is an abuse of the sacrament He instituted.

In fact the romantic notion of love and marriage revived because people became more concerned with religion than they were in the 17th century. Yet, it doesn’t mean that they ceased to care about the prudential aspect of it. Parents took care that their daughters met only those gentlemen they could marry without degradation. In other words they were free to fall in love with the men they knew, but the group of the men they were allowed to meet was limited in advance.

Creative Spaces | Victoria and Albert Museum

If you like researching artefacts an account at Creative Spaces is a thing for you.

Creative Spaces connects you with nine UK national museums and galleries, allowing you to explore and comment on collections, upload your own content, and build and share collections with others.

Creative Spaces | Home | Victoria and Albert Museum.

Due to its being a new beta feature I managed to register there with my real name: Sylwia

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My English Country Garden Blog

My English Country Garden Blog is a wonderful place to sneak into the English countryside.

The blog’s author says:

Here I’ll be sharing my thoughts of other gardens, old recipes and garden writers with you, from William Lawson via Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte to Nancy Mitford.

Landscape gardens were one of the major features of Jane Austen’s England. It was more than a nice place to stroll. It was a philosophy of the 18th century life.

Mary Wollstonecraft « Regency Writings Repository

Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie

Mary Wollstonecraft, an eighteenth-century writer, philosopher, and feminist, hardly needs introductions. The Regency Writings Repository is now enriched of her political pamphlet A Vindication of the Rights of Men, in a Letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke; Occasioned by His Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) in which she argues against aristocracy and in favour of republicanism. She invokes an emerging middle-class ethos in opposition to the vice-ridden aristocratic code of manners.

Godmersham House

Some time ago I wrote a post about Chevening Park being considered the model for Rosings Park. Now I came across another JASNA article by Joan Austen-Leigh, claiming that it was Godmersham Park. I absolutely love all the speculations, even though I assume that Austen would be creative enough to build a house in her own imagination rather than copy an existing one. If you ask me Rosings would be more showy.

Godmersham House

However, it’s always interesting to see the old houses, since they provide examples of the norm back then. For more information and pictures from Godmersham House see Chris Coyle’s article in Jane Austen’s Regency World.

C. E. Brock in Olde Fashioned’s Rendition

There is something uniquely elegant about old illustrations. Charles Edmund Brock should be familiar to many an Austen lover. The editions of Austen’s six novels illustrated by him are now in the public domain, and that gives us new treats.

Olde Fashioned is a young, talented artist who breathed new life in his drawings, turning them into beautiful wallpapers and icons.

The famous letters of Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wentworth were reproduced by her in the Jane Austen font and combined with relevant Brock’s illustrations, in order to create exquisite wallpapers to Janeites’ heart content.

Will You Do Me the Honour...

He Placed It Before Anne...

Hannah Cowley in Austen’s The Three Sisters

The Three Sisters is one of the frankest portrayals of “marriage as prostitution” (as Mary Wollstonecraft described marrying for material reasons) within all of Austen’s writings.

Miss Stanhope takes no pains to conceal her motives while negotiating her price:

“You must build me an elegant Greenhouse and stock it with plants. You must let me spend every Winter in Bath, every Spring in Town, Every Summer in taking some Tour, and every Autumn at a Watering Place, and if we are at home the rest of the year (Sophy and I laughed) You must do nothing but give Balls and Masquerades. You must build a room on purpose and a Theatre to act Plays in. The first Play we have shall be Which is the Man, and I will do Lady Bell Bloomer.”

Which is the Man is a play by Hannah Cowley about a fascinating widow who cannot make up her mind among several admirers.

In 1787 Austen’s family considered performing it at Steventon. Although other plays ended up being performed then, Austen was well familiar with Cowley’s plays, and quoted lines from them in her letters.

You can read it in Austenette’s Repository. Follow the link Which is the Man

Easter in Pride and Prejudice

Austen chose Easter for the most significant turn in Pride and Prejudice.

Darcy comes to Rosings around Palm Sunday (likely Monday, since Darcy, unlike Mr. Elliot, wouldn’t travel on Sunday), that commemorates the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the days before his Passion.

My Netvibes

There are quite many views of this blog now. For some time the number has oscillated between 300-500 views a week. It’s nice to see it grow, and it’s nice to see that there are at least 40 views daily, and sometimes even over 100. Nonetheless, it’s sad not to know who’s reading. The numbers always seem virtual when not linked to a nick or name.

I thought I can be guilty of the same. There are quite many blogs I follow regularly but don’t always comment on them. Or rather, I’m the kind of person who posts mostly to disagree about some tiny detail, while forgetting to compliment on the whole, or even worse – to post anything when I agree with the entire post.

Although I’m not sure I can change my nature, and as a Pole I’m in general not a very apprising person (famously, Poles speak only to complain), I thought I could redeem myself at least a bit by posting links to my Netvibes.

These are the blogs related to Jane Austen and to the Regency era I follow faithfully.

Thank you all for your great work! Your blogs never cease to entertain and provide food for thought.

Quote of Georgiana Darcy

I love the WordPress option that allows me to see what people who found my blog were looking for. What I read today made me smile. Someone searched for “quote of Georgiana Darcy”.

It happens that there’s none. Georgiana never utters a single word throughout the entire novel. Similarly to Anne de Bourgh.

Read more about the two girls: Anne de Bourgh and Georgiana Darcy.

Elizabeth’s Love for Darcy: Holy Matrimony

When talking of love it is important to define the word. Is it emotion, feeling, decision or all of the elements? According to some Christians i.e. Anglicans and Catholics four kinds of love must be present for the Holy Matrimony to be valid and complete. I’ll try to explain, on their example, Elizabeth’s growing love for Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.

Woman in Love

There is a lot of confusion as to when and why Elizabeth Bennet fell in love. (See this post at Austenprose and subsequent comments for example, but it’s only one of many such opinions.) This post is to show that the reason of it does not come from any imperfection of Lizzy’s affection or Austen’s writing, but rather our modern notions that downplay the significance of love.