Understanding Austen: Key Concepts in the Six Novels

by Maggie Lane

From an acclaimed Austen expert, a study of the author's use of language, for the Austen fan and general reader
 
The acclaimed author of many Jane Austen books turns her attention to the fascinating nuances of Austen's language, and the way it embodies her most profound beliefs about human conduct and character. This book enhances understanding of Austen's moral values through the discussion of key words, investigates changes of meaning, and explains words which may confuse modern readers. It also affords Austen fans who cannot get enough of her writing the pleasure of encountering familiar passages in new contexts. No other author uses abstract nouns as extensively as Jane Austen. Three of her six novels even draw on such words for their titles: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion. Terms like "elegance," "gentility," and "propriety" seem to define her well-ordered, judgemental world. In making the fine moral, psychological, and social discriminations on which her plots depend, Jane Austen draws on the vocabulary of her age, which is both more abstract and more fixed than that of today. But as this study shows, she was capable of subtlety and even ambiguity in her deployment of such key concepts. 

Genres: Nonfiction

257 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 30, 2012

Reviews

[Abigail Bok · Rating 4 out of 5]

Understanding Austen doesn’t attempt any sweeping interpretations of Austen’s novels. Instead, it zeroes in on a number of individual words she uses throughout her work to illuminate her characters’ fundamental natures—words like delicacy, sensibility, elegance, liberality, fortitude, temper. Lane admirably clarifies what each word meant in Austen’s day and demonstrates how Austen deployed these terms via extensive quotation.

The precision of Lane’s own language makes this a valuable book. It’s easy for a reader today to misconstrue Austen by assuming the meaning of these words was in her day the same as it is now. Cando(u)r is the classic example: now meaning a rather extreme frankness, in Austen’s day it alluded to a tendency to see the best in others, almost to the point of self-delusion. Lane also has valuable insights into how the more interdependent, less individualistic society Austen inhabited colored her values.

Ultimately, the book is all about how Austen characters establish their worth (or worthlessness) through their behavior toward others. Lane is an able guide to Austen’s value system and to the fine distinctions she conveys through her word choices. After more than a half-century of immersion in all things Austen I found few revelations here, but that doesn’t detract from the value of this hard-to-find book. It’s worth the effort to search for it.

[Girl with her Head in a Book · Rating 5 out of 5]

For my full review: http://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/2...

Having already read What Matters in Jane Austen, I was not sure whether this book could have much in the way of fresh material to bring to the table. However, rather than being an analysis of issues and literary puzzles, Maggie Lane has instead created an intricate and illuminating explanation of Austen’s use of language; Understanding Austen is both interesting and highly insightful – rather than retreading old material, Lane’s gives the reader a fresh perspective and a deeper understanding of the deeper meaning of Austen’s words and what they reveal of the author’s thought processes.

In seventeen chapters, Lane dissects the meanings of words which are frequently bandied about by Austen’s characters and discusses not only their true definition, but also what they seem to have meant to the characters who spoke them. Her first point centres on ‘Genius, Wit and Taste’, culminating in a final chapter on ‘A Nice Distinction’ contemplating the uses both proper and improper of the word itself; along the way, a whole chapter is devoted to ‘Elegance’, others to ‘Gentility’, ‘Delicacy’, ‘Temper’, ‘Spirit’ – no term is released by Lane until it has been shorn of any ambiguity. As consultant-editor of Jane Austen’s Regency World and author of over thirty books related to Jane Austen, Ms Lane is a highly qualified commentator but she never wears her authority very heavily and Understanding Austen seems bound to assist the reader in doing just that – coming to a better understanding and appreciation of Jane Austen.

maggie laneThere is no real crossover with What Matters in Jane Austen, and indeed Lane’s general tone is quite different to that of John Mullan. While Mullan was concentrating on Austen’s techniques as an artist, Lane is considering her as a linguist and indeed how her own attitudes and personality fed into her work. In the chapter on ‘Genius, Wit and Taste’, Lane comments that in Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth comes to see the danger of wit; her adored father has encouraged her to take a mocking and even cruel view of her mother but by the end of the novel, Elizabeth is mortified when her father reads out Mr Collins’ letter and sniggers at the idea of Mr Darcy ever being interested in her for ‘never had his wit been directed in a manner so little agreeable.’ Henry Tilney is another too who has to watch his tongue and Emma Woodhouse is mortified when she realises how her wit has hurt Miss Bates’ feelings. Lane explains that Austen herself is on the record as having composed two prayers for help in watching her words – as a woman of wit, she was well aware of the risk of hurting people’s feelings.

The vague abstract words such as ‘elegance’, ‘air and address’ are analysed here in greater depth and to great effect. Of the Bennet sisters, only Jane and Elizabeth can pretend to elegance, with their next down sister being too priggish and the others too wild and stupid. Elizabeth tearing about the countryside and muddying her petticoats disgusted Miss Bingley however due to the total lack of elegance displayed. Mr Collins believes that he is composing ‘little elegant compliments’ for Lady Catherine and indeed for his fair cousin Elizabeth but the reader – and anyone who ever meets him – knows better. He believes that Elizabeth is refusing him to be elegant but she protests that she has no pretension to such a quality if it means making a mockery of a respectable man.

ElizabethIn Persuasion, Sir Walter and Miss Elliot believe that they have a duty and a right to elegance even if they cannot support it while the younger Musgroves attempt to inject some elegance into Uppercross by buying a harp. Emma Woodhouse tries to improve Harriet by instructing her in elegance and she discourages her from marrying Robert Martin since he lacks ‘air’ or ‘elegance’ – yet Emma is jealous of Jane Fairfax whose elegance is innate. In Sense and Sensibility, the Steele sisters are seen as pretty but noted as being lacking in any elegance, in contrast to the Dashwood sisters. This takes us back to the original debate on the meaning of accomplishment in Pride and Prejudice where Miss Bingley claims that a woman needs something special in her air or manner of walking to truly deserve the word.

austen womenDelicacy is another word whose meaning may have gotten lost down the centuries from when Austen first deployed it. When I hear it, I imagine ladies wincing over a cup of tea (finest porcelain, of course) over some frightful faux-pas. Jane Austen’s work herself is dismissed by her detractors as overly delicate. However, as Lane describes it, delicacy means a scrupulousness for the feelings of others, along with a sense of social honour. Harriet Smith may be lacking in birth or certain finer points of manners but she has delicacy of character. Catherine Moreland gets herself into all kinds of scrapes but remains a lady of great delicacy in that she always tries to do the right thing. By contrast, Mrs Norris tells the older Mrs Rushworth very proudly that Maria Bertram has a great delicacy of character – the reader knows that nothing could be further from the truth. The smitten Edmund Bertram is certain that Mary Crawford mirrors Fanny’s delicacy of taste. Sir Thomas remarks that Fanny’s social position within Mansfield Park is a matter of ‘great delicacy’, while Edmund frets about the play Lovers’ Vows since the recently engaged Maria is in a ‘delicate’ situation.

However, in Sense and Sensibility, Elinor Dashwood (and through her, both Austen and the reader) are frustrated by Mrs Dashwood’s apparent ‘delicacy’ in refusing to ask Marianne whether she has entered into an engagement with Willoughby since this is more like negligence. Mr Collins is ridiculed again by supposing that Elizabeth’s apparent ‘delicacy’ precludes her from immediately accepting his proposal while Lady Catherine de Bourgh bombasts that Elizabeth must be lacking in ‘delicacy’ if she presumes to marry Mr Darcy. As Lane concludes, true delicacy seems to be that modelled by Mr Knightley, a concern for the feelings of others, rather than cold ‘over-refined false modesty imposed on women by fools such as Mr Collins or Lady Catherine de Bourgh.’

Lane is not afraid to critique Austen, remarking in her chapter ‘Reason and Feeling’ on the cruelty behind some of the more barbed wit. In Pride and Prejudice, so much of the ridicule is directed at the characters behaving irrationally – poor Mary Bennet’s observation are not inaccurate in and of themselves, but the humour comes from how inappropriately she deploys her ‘wisdom’, while Caroline Bingley claims that conversation rather than dancing would make a ball more ‘rational’ but her brother acknowledges the truth of it while pointing out that that would make it rather unlike a ball. We are aghast at Charlotte Lucas’ calculated and highly rational decision to marry Mr Collins simply because the positives outweigh the negative. When the ever optimistic Jane Bennet hopes that the Wickhams will settle in a ‘rational manner’, we know that there is not a shred of a chance of that. ‘Rational happiness’ is within the reach of only the Bingleys and the Darcys.

Yet, by the time that Austen wrote Persuasion, her opinions seem to have changed. Anne Elliot is entirely rational in her decision to call off her engagement to Captain Wentworth, but ‘learnt romance’ as she grew older. Jane Austen seems to have softened slightly as she herself grew older – but not enough, as Lane points out, to stop herself from ridiculing poor Mrs Musgrove for being fat and sad about the death of her worthless son Dick Musgrove. I sensed Lane’s pursed lips in that section and as a reader slightly cringed at the implied telling off for Austen. At other junctures in the novels, the reader is told that various men, such as Charles Musgrove and John Dashwood, might have been more rational had they been wiser in their choice of wife. Similarly, there are hopeful signs of improvement in Henry Crawford’s character as he attempts to win Fanny’s heart – but alas for him that he is unable to sustain them. Austen always prizes characters who are able to behave with a greater degree of sense and rationality but although it is this which has caught the ire of her more vocal critics, Lane emphasises that it is not about having the feelings, but rather about how one responds to them. Marianne Dashwood believes that her ‘openness’ is a virtue but she is mirroring the behaviour of the heroines of popular novels who Lane explains ‘feel everything more acutely than those around them: their appreciation of nature, their loves, joys and sorrows, are all more highly developed than in other people’. Much of the humour of Austen’s writings in Love and Freindship comes from her spirited mockery of such ludicrous behaviour but in Sense and Sensibility, she takes this to its logical conclusion – that Marianne’s behaviour can actually lead to her becoming seriously ill. Further explorations of terminology such as ‘fortitude’ and ‘spirit’ made me think that Austen would have applauded the words of that great lady Nora Ephron – be the hero of your life story, not the victim.

[Anne (In Search of Wonder) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so interesting, although I think it's mistitled. It's not really an exploration of concepts as much as it is of vocabulary. You could apply the knowledge learned in this book to any written in English during the same time periods as Austen. This book would be of particular interest to authors, especially those who write Regency or Austenesque novels. And for mere readers like myself, it's fascinating to see how our language has evolved over the past couple centuries.

[Warmisunqu Austen · Rating 4 out of 5]

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Análisis del lenguaje de Jane Austen

Un libro imprescindible para los interesados en conocer mejor el lenguaje utilizado por Jane Austen en sus novelas, Maggie Lane explica los vocablos y giros usados con sus ejemplos dentro de un contexto que se observan en cada uno de los pasajes de los seis libros de Austen.

Términos que sin un contexto pueden significar algo distinto en el tiempo actual, pero Austen le daba su propio significado contextualizado en su tiempo. Términos como: "Genius", "Wit", "Taste", "Elegance", etc. en version original, pero en el tiempo de Jane Austen tienen todo un repertorio de interpretaciones. Por algo Jane Austen no es una autora visual como lo puede ser otros autores como Dickens, sino que nos evoca a que nuestra mente vague por el mundo de nuestras propias interpretaciones y prueba de ellos son los cineastas que lo hacen por las mentes menos imaginativas. Como fuere, ese es el poder de Jane Austen, que cada lector le dé su propia interpretación. Pero no se queda allí ¿qué le hace traspasar más allá de lectores simples a académicos más exigentes?

El propósito de la autora era poner en manifiesto el significado de Jane Austen, que a través del paso de tiempo puede haberse difuminado parcialmente, y este es su aporte, a modo de poner en relieve el abanico de valores que atribuye a importantes nombres abstractos. La filosofía y profundidad de convicciones, según Lane, están integrados en el grupo de palabras que ha elegido y las ha obtenido de los libros de Austen.

Ver a Jane Austen como una escritora didáctica que no solo entretiene sino que muestra en el campo de acción las características de sus personajes y recomienda valores que había absorbido de su tradición cristiana y de la ilustración, es aleccionador. Ese equilibrio entre la razón y el sentimiento, entre el exceso y la insuficiencia: "...like all other qualities of the mind, it should have its proportions and limits." (Al igual que las demás cualidades de la mente, debe disponer de sus proporciones y límites), Anne Elliot lo revela como un caso de firmeza de carácter.

De los términos analizados en el libro lo valioso de esta obra es cómo nos lleva a los disntitos pasajes de sus libros con sus distintos personajes cumpliendo esas características que Lane analiza. Tanto en personajes 'héroes' como en los malvados. Habla de la importancia de lograr un equilibrio. Un término tiene cuatro caras: toma tantas citas y personajes para ejemplificar dicho término con sus cuatro lados.

El análisis de la autora no sólo toma ejemplos de las obras de Jane sino que las contextualiza en esa realidad y cómo influye en su literatura. No solo el contexto sino su interacción con otros autores que influyen en sus escritos y de qué manera. Así salen a relucir nombres como Shakespeare, Frances Burney...

En el último capítulo la autora hace una destacada distinción de cada obra de Austen sobre el carácter de sus personajes y las situaciones en las que se les pone a prueba, destaca la descripción de los atributos de sus caracteres. Cuando Austen es más generosa en sus descripciones de dichos atributos de un personaje es que desea que conectemos antes y mejor con él.

Un análisis profundo y divertido que debe estar en nuestro repertorio de lectura si deseamos disfrutar y entender mejor las obras de Jane Austen.

[Ci · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the surface, Jane Austen's books seem to be entirely anachronistic to our modern age. We have new ways to transport, communicate, as well as entirely different social norm and codes of civility. The gentlemen and gentle-ladies of her world seems to be another species entirely. We need a guide like Ms Lane to show us how to listen and observe them. In turn, we also may come to appreciate the artistry of English language itself.

In those drawing room drama, young men and women conduct themselves with gestures and languages so alien to our modern age that anthropological analysis is required to decode. I used to label Austen’s world as “oppressed and repressed”; but how I have misunderstood that by eliminating the big events, loud voices, and clash colors, she can train our eyes and ears to the works of our own hearts and minds. Her writing enables us to catch the nearly invisible and inaudible.

But why bother?

We are living in the age of Facebook and Twitter. With cellphones, we talk, chat, blog and tweet, about anything, to anyone, at anytime. Nothing is beyond comments polite or rude. We simply need to be simple, clear and hopefully catchy.

Modern education such as MBA has formalized a “to-the-point” way of communication: clear, succinct with certain padding phrases as stand-ins for subtlety such as “With due respect …” or “I may be wrong but …”. Emotions have reduced to emoticons: smiley face for happiness, LOL for a hearty laughter. Arguably, our daily life can get by with texting and tweeting alone. Or can we?

Yet, there are small sliver of our lives that we must use different language to communicate with ourselves and others. Such is the time when heart and soul are at risk of being too obscure, misunderstood, or ill conveyed. No MBA language is going to help out to get to the finer corners of our hearts.

In Jane Austen, she has achieved the impossible: using English to depict and express the state and the dynamics of psychological and emotional experiences. The story line is largely a plot device to give the outer shape of the real light and sparkler of her art: to say the impossible to say, to give flesh to the fleeting thoughts and feelings of daily life.

As a superb guidebook, Ms. Lane has made the reading experience of Jane Austen's novels much more pleasurable.

[Damaskcat · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author looks at Jane Austen’s use of language in this fascinating book – fascinating that is for anyone who enjoys Jane Austen’s writing. She illustrates Austen’s use of words by plentiful quotations from the texts of the novels. What I found most useful was the information about how the meanings of words have changed since the early nineteenth century.

Some of the words examined are, Sense, Sensibility and Sentiment; Gentility; Propriety and Decorum as well as Air and Address and Reason and Feeling. The author, in the process of looking at Jane Austen’s language also looks at some of the main characters in the novels and gave me food for thought over some of the characters.

What I’ve always liked about Jane Austen’s novels is that however many times you read them you can still see something new every time you read them. Reading books like this which examine the novels in details also helps me to see things in the novels from a different perspective. There is also a useful bibliography at the end of the book.

[Natira · Rating 5 out of 5]

faszinierende Lektüre, auch wenn ich an meine Grenzen kam (Feinheiten bei Bedeutung von Worten bzw. die Nähe der Bedeutungen verschiedener Worte).
Und das Buch macht mir Lust, die sechs Romane wieder mal zu lesen. :)

[NiNi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elaborates upon 12 abstract nouns in all of Jane Austen's major works. It gives up deeper insight into human understanding in relation to these books.

The book is well written and clear to understand.