Jane Austen Revisited

6. March 2009 by Marie Pinschmidt.

Happy March to all art and literature lovers.

Recovering last evening from a wicked virus, a DVD of Jane Austin’s Pride & Prejudice was just what the doctor ordered. The beautiful scenery, in itself, was a calming balm to my battered body.  Considered one of the greatest love stories of all time, the new adaptation nominated for four Academy Awards, did not disappoint. I paid particular attention to the story since one of my readers commented that my writing reminded her of Austen’s style. Don’t I wish I had that talent.

 But what do we really know of this amazing writer?    

She was born in Hampshire, England in 1775. Best known for her novels about young women yearning to marry, including Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813), Jane never married. However, she did fall in love as a young woman, but the man she loved had no money. Later, she received a proposal from an older wealthy gentleman. She accepted his proposal, but then found herself unable to sleep that night. When morning came, she did something unheard of at that time. She told her fiance that she had changed her mind because she did not love him.

Austen didn’t appear to mind being a single woman.  In her letters, she often wrote about the many women she knew suffering from and often dying from childbirth. She wrote of her niece, who had become pregnant for the second time, “Poor animal, she will be worn out before she’s thirty.”  In another letter, she wrote “Mrs. Hall was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she expected, owing to a fright - I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband.”

Jane spent the better part of her life relatively poor and dependent on her older brothers. She decided to try publishing fiction in order to earn some money. She wrote on a table in the family drawing room, and asked that a squeak not be taken out of the swinging door because it warned her to hide her notebooks before someone entered the room.  Her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility (1811), became a great success. Her later novels, include Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816).

Today, Jane Austen is the only English-language novelist published before Charles Dickens whose books continue to sell thousands of copies every year. All of her novels have been made into movies at least once in the last twenty years.

This writer should be an inspiration to everyone who believe they have a story to tell. What I find amazing is how she or other writers of her time, could publish a book almost yearly without the modern technology we enjoy today. Would the writer of today have the courage to even attempt such an endeavor with the only aids being a pen or pencil, some paper, and limited solitude. In Jane’s case, she apparently had no one to encourage her, no thesaurus, no spell-check, and only her imagination to spur her on.  But perhaps that’s the secret; a quieter way of life, time to dream, and the desire to improve her humble life. Apparently, she also had a great sense of humor as evident in her writing.

Jane Austen is still alive and well in her writing. Would she ever have dreamed of where her words would take her?

As artists, writers, sculptors, we must not judge our talents in their infancy. We also must not be discouraged from persuing the desires of our heart, no matter the circumstances of the life we now live.  This hour, this day, we can make a start. The trip and the final destination is for the universe to decide. 

May the March winds blow happy thoughts, exciting ideas, and lots of love your way.    ********  Comments are welcome.

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