Jane Austen and the Arts

Elegance, Propriety, and Harmony

Contributions by Jessica Brown, Diane N. Capitani, Christine Colón, Alice Davenport, Deborah Kennedy, Kathryn L. Libin, Kelly McDonald, Belisa Monteiro, Jeffrey Nigro, J. Russell Perkin, Erin J. Smith, Vivasvan Soni, Melora G. Vandersluis, Frederick A. Duquette Edited by Natasha Duquette, Elisabeth Lenckos

Not available to order

Publication date:

04 December 2013

Length of book:

272 pages

Publisher

Lehigh University Press

The essays collected in Jane Austen and the Arts; Elegance, Propriety, and Harmony examine Austen’s understanding of the arts, her aesthetic philosophy, and her role as artist. Together, they explore Austen’s connections with Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Madame de Staël, Joanna Baillie, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, and other writers engaged in debates on the sensuous experience and the intellectual judgment of art. Our contributors look at Austen’s engagement with diverse art forms, painting, ballet, drama, poetry, and music, investigating our topic within historically grounded and theoretically nuanced essays. They represent Austen as a writer-thinker reflecting on the nature and practice of artistic creation and considering the social, moral, psychological, and theological functions of art in her fiction. We suggest that Austen knew, modified, and transformed the dominant aesthetic discourses of her era, at times ironically, to her own artistic ends. As a result, a new, and compelling image of Austen emerges, a “portrait of a lady artist” confidently promoting her own distinctly post-enlightenment aesthetic system.

Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface: Jane Austen’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgment by Vivasvan Soni
Introduction by Natasha Duquette and Elisabeth Lenckos
I. The Fine Arts in Austen’s World: Music, Dance, and Portraiture
"Daily Practice, Musical Accomplishment, and the Example of Jane Austen”
Kathryn Libin
Chapter 2 – "A ‘Reputation for Accomplishment’: Marianne Dashwood and Emma Woodhouse as Artistic Performers" by Kelly McDonald
Chapter 3 – "Miss Bingley’s Walk: The Aesthetics of Movement in Pride and Prejudice" by Erin Smith
Chapter 4 – "The Sister Artist: Cassandra Austen’s Portraits of Jane Austen in Art-Historical Context" by Jeffrey Nigro
II. Austen and Romanticism: Female Genius, Gothicism, and Sublimity
Chapter 5 – "Portrait of a Lady (Artist): Jane Austen’s Anne Elliot, Madame de Staël’s Corrine, and the Woman of Genius Novel" by Elisabeth Lenckos
Chapter 6 – "Jane Austen’s Comic Heroines and the Controversial Pleasures of Wit" by Belisa Monteiro
Chapter 7 – "An Adaptable Aesthetic: Eighteenth-Century Landscapes, Ann Radcliffe, and Jane Austen” by Alice Davenport
Chapter 8 – "Exploring the Transformative Power of Literature: Joanna Baillie, Jane Austen and the Aesthetics of Moral Reform" by Christine Colón
Chapter 9 – "Jane Austen’s Influence on Stephenie Meyer" by Deborah Kennedy
III. Austen in Political, Social, and Theological Context
Chapter 10 – "Aesthetics, Politics, and the Interpretation of Mansfield Park" by Russell Perkin
Chapter 11 – "Reflections on Mirrors: Austen, Rousseau, and Socio-Politics" by Melora Vandersluis
Chapter 12 – "‘So much novelty and beauty!’: Spacious Reception through an Aesthetic of Restraint in Persuasion" by Jessica Brown
Chapter 13 –"Augustinian Aesthetics in Jane Austen’s World: God as Artist" by Diane Capitani
Chapter 14 –"‘Delicacy of Taste’ Redeemed: The Aesthetic Judgments of Austen’s Clergymen Heroes" by Fred and Natasha Duquette