George Crabbe & The Prince Regent: Different yet Similar
In Jane Austen's Letter 93 dated in late 1813, we read the following famous passage, which pertains to George Crabbe, the then famous English author/poet who today is largely...
View ArticleJimmy Carter Would Have Been Jane Austen's True Christian Hero
Jane Austen wrote the following passage about the death of Sir John Moore serving in a campaign by the English army in a letter to her sister written in early 1809: "We were very glad to know Aunt...
View ArticleKitty's Indiscreet Coughing in P&P: A Better Explanation
Nearly a year and a half ago, I wrote a post about Kitty Bennet's coughing in Chapter 2 of P&P, in which I provided an explanation for her coughing other than a physical...
View ArticleFanny Price's Poetic Soul: Her Two Misquotations of Scott's Lay of the Last...
The other day, I began looking into the allusions to Sir Walter Scott's famous and wildly successful 1805 poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, in Chapter 9 of Mansfield Park, when the heroine Fanny...
View ArticleNabokov's true love for Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and its allusive subtexts
I have previously written here on several occasions about my firm belief that Vladimir Nabokov, while he may have projected to the world—including friends and colleagues--a superficial dislike of Jane...
View ArticleA man "endued with one article more than commonly falls to the lot of man"...
Apropos the wonderfully alliterative phrase "want of a wife" in the famous first sentence of Pride & Prejudice, it just occurred to me for the very first time (after reading that sentence a...
View ArticleDarcy's "We neither of us perform to strangers": a Radical New Interpretation
To celebrate this bicentennial of Pride & Prejudice, I have a special post, one which goes to the heart of what I call the "shadow story"...
View ArticleLetter 94 and Emma: Miss Milles, Miss Bates, and Miss (Jane) Austen: All (Not...
During our group read of Jane Austen’s letters in Austen L and Janeites, Diana Birchall made the following observation the other day about a passage in Letter 94:Diana: "Mrs. Milles was a very elderly...
View ArticleFOLLOWING the c(l)ues to the Lesbian Vibe Between Mary Crawford and Fanny...
In the realm of sexuality, as depicted in Austen film adaptations, two depictions have drawn the lion's share of controversy during the past few decades, in terms of debates over faithfulness, or lack...
View ArticleJane Austen's Letter 95: Mr. Floor's Good Friend, Mr. Ogle, the Constant...
In our ongoing group read of Jane Austen's letters in Janeites and Austen L, Diana Birchall wrote the following about a passage in Letter 95 written in late 1813: "Now comes Jane Austen's "Sweet Mr....
View ArticleMary Crawford re Fanny Price: Is she queer? Is she out? Am I serious (enough?)
In Austen-L, Ellen Moody wrote the following in response to my recent post... http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2013/02/following-clues-to-lesbian-vibe-between.html...about the lesbian dynamic...
View ArticleThe Simplest Explanation for Charlotte Lucas's Choice to Marry Mr. Collins:...
I just read, this morning, an excellent piece in a blog at the New Yorker, in which Joshua Rothman, analyzes Charlotte Lucas's puzzling choice to marry Mr. Collins in Pride &...
View ArticleP.S. re the Lesbian Vibe Between Mary Crawford and Fanny Price in Mansfield...
Following up on my two recent posts about the lesbian subtext of Mansfield Park.......
View ArticleWho are you all out there????????
During 2012 and the first part of 2013, the readership of this blog has increased significantly, according to the blog statistics which I monitor regularly with great fascination.I know that there are...
View ArticleThe Complex Hidden Allusion to Shakespeare’s As You Like It in Jane Austen’s...
In May 2007-- in only my fourth post ever in this blog---I revealed publicly for the first time a word game Jane Austen had played in Emma which had never previously been noticed by any Janeite for 191...
View ArticleLionel Trilling’s Massive Trojan Horse Moment about Emma and As You Like It
Shortly after posting my latest demonstration of the deep and powerful presence of Shakespeare in Jane Austen’s...
View ArticleWhat's wrong with a great deal of contemporary literary criticism
I am repeatedly asked a very sensible question whenever I speak or write about my discovering significant thematic and textual meanings in the novels of Jane Austen, which somehow remained...
View ArticleJane Austen, Tom Lefroy, and Judge Fletcher's Wife in Letter 95
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/02/15/was-pride-and-prejudice-inspired-by-jane-austens-first-love/?mod=google_news_blogThe above is a link to a great article just published in the WSJ by Linda...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Valentine ‘s Day & An Inadvertent Quibble on The Bard of Paradise
By a lucky bit of serendipity, I now have a true story to tell that unites Valentine's Day (a holiday which of course famously played a key part in the romantic plot of Jane Austen’s Emma), a great...
View ArticlePuns and Paradise
My friend Deb Barnum brought forward today in Austen-L a link to an article about an 1860 English pictogram puzzle:...
View Article