Biography of Jane Austen, her works and features
Jane Austen is one of the great writers and authors of cultured, ironic and harsh novels. Her greatness is difficult to catch. She is contemporary to Wordsworth and Coleridge. She got little encouragement from her own generation still what she did for English novels is incomparable. She refined and simplified it, making it a true reflection of English life. As Wordsworth began with the deliberate purpose of making poetry natural and truthful, so Miss Austen appears to have begun writing with the idea of presenting the life of English contrary to society as it was.
Austen was born on December 16, 1775, at the rectory in the village of Steventon, in Hampshire, England. She was the seventh child and second daughter of Reverend George Austen and his wife Cassandra Austen. Jane Austen had a happy childhood with her sibling and was almost inseparable from her elder sister, Cassandra. When she grew up a young woman, still living with her parents, Austen helped her parents, especially her mother and sister in domestic activities and also engaged in social tasks in which women of her own age were involved. She attends church regularly and socialized frequently with friends.
Austen's children were encouraged to pursue literary and other creative pastimes. They often wrote and performed plays and charades and engaged in discussions on various topics. Jane Austen was educated at home by her father and brothers, Henry and James. She read extensively from her father's library. Her education at home not only compensated for the absence of formal education but also gave her much inspiration for the short satirical sketches that she wrote. Park Honan, a biographer of Austen, said she had an open, amused, easy intellectual atmosphere.
Jane's passion for words and worlds of stories, therefore, began quite early. In the 1790s, during adolescence, she started writing her own novels. Around 1789, Austen decided to become a professional writer and decided to write for profit. In 1793 she began to write Lady Susan a short epistolary novel, published as Northanger Abbey by her brother Henery after her death. From 1796 to 1797, she was occupied with the writing of First Impressions, its first draft was completed in 1797 in the summer. Later it was published as Pride and Prejudice. Her second most famous book was Sense and Sensibility another epistolary novel that began written in 1796 but finished in mid of 1798.
When her father retired in 1801 he moved to Bath along with his family, However, four years later he died after a short illness consequently Austen women found themselves caught in a strained financial situation that forced them to move from one place to another for sustenance and survival. Finally, in 1809, they settled into a stable situation at Jane's brother Edward's cottage in Chawton.
At the age of forty-one in 1816, Austen become ill. However, her enthusiasm kept her writing and editing old works. Later her deteriorated condition forced her to stop writing. She died on July 18, 1817.
It is possible only after her death that her identity was revealed to the public and she transformed into the greatest writer of English history. Though, her works had fame and financial success when she was alive. In 1920, her works got scholarly attention and were recognized as brilliant masterpieces and revelling commentaries on the society of her own time. Today her works are parts of the English curriculum and also adopted in television. Emma, Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility are television adaptions.
Her Works:-
- Her first novel is Pride and Prejudice (1796-97) published in 1813. The style is smooth and unobtrusive.
- Sense and Sensibility second novel (1797-98, Published 1811)
- Northanger Abbey (1798, Published posthumously 1818)
- Mansfield Park (1811-13, published 1814)
- Emma (1815, published 1816)
- Persuasion (1815-16, published 1818).
Feature of her works:-
Her plots are skillfully constructed and severely unromantic. Her first work began as a burlesque of the horrible in fiction and finishes by being an excellent example. Life in her novel is governed by an easy decorum, and movement of fierce passion, or even deep emotion.
Her characters are ordinary people developed with minuteness and accuracy. She is fond of introducing clergymen. Her method of portrayal is based upon acute observation but incisive irony. Her male characters have a certain softness of thew and temper but her female characters are almost unexceptionable in perfection and finish.
Her place in the history of fiction is remarkable.
History of English Literature by Edward Albert
English Literature by W. J. Long
Novel: Sense and Sensibility