Jane Austen: Writing, Society, Politics

by Tom Keymer

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. So runs one of the most famous opening lines in English literature. Setting the scene in Pride and Prejudice , it deftly introduces the novel's core themes of marriage, money, and social convention, themes that continue to resonate with readers over 200 years later.

Jane Austen wrote six of the best-loved novels in the English language, as well as a smaller corpus of unpublished works. Her books pioneered new techniques for representing voices, minds, and hearts in narrative prose, and, despite some accusations of a blinkered domestic and romantic focus, they represent the world of their characters with unsparing clarity. Here, Tom Keymer explores the major themes throughout Austen's novels, setting them in the literary, social, and political backgrounds from which they emerge, and showing how they engage with social tensions in an era dominated by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. The Jane Austen who emerges is a writer shaped by the literary experiments and socio-political debates of her time, increasingly drawn to a fundamentally conservative vision of social harmony, yet forever complicating this vision through her disruptive ironies and satirical energy.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Literary Criticism

192 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 2020

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This slim volume is just the thing to have when you are reading or re-visiting a Jane Austen novel. There is a lot going on beneath the surface of all of Austen's writing, and this book discusses major themes in each novel as well as in the early and unfinished works. Keymer writes that "In their varying ways, all the novels focus on the interpretative efforts of characters whose experience confronts them with uncertainties, contradictions, or mixed messages: the experience of reading the novels requires comparable efforts."

He draws on many sources to make his points, from contemporary critics to modern scholars, and most of the resulting chapters are very engaging. One small quibble is that the number of unusual or archaic words used sometimes distracted me (dissevered, rackrent, asyndeton, anapaestic). Despite that, this is a worthwhile addition to Austen commentaries, shedding light on her milieu with the literature she herself read, the social structures and political times, all of which provides context for understanding the many layers of her writing.

Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advance copy.

[Abigail Bok · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a miniature gem of Austen criticism. Geared to the Austen fan taking first steps into literary analysis, it lucidly introduces readers to the central ideas embodied in each novel, avoiding scholarly excesses of jargon or interpretation.

One chapter is devoted to each of the published novels, prefaced by a shrewd survey of her juvenilia titled “Jane Austen Practising.” I regret that he did not address Lady Susan, The Watsons, or Sanditon in their own chapters, though each gets passing mention.

Keymer is well read in eighteenth-century literature—fiction, poetry, and nonfiction—and provides useful context to the novels as well as tantalizing hints of obscure works that might have provided an inspiration or springboard for Austen. There is little biography here, the focus is almost entirely on texts.

He is equally well versed in Austen criticism, from her lifetime to the present, and draws thoughtfully from the more mainstream critics up to 2018, without wasting the readers’ time on the outré. There are backnotes to the chapters for those who want to explore further, and a very selective bibliography.

My one knock on the book is not the author’s responsibility: the glossy, white paper and lightly leaded type made it exhausting for me to read, my eyes growing heavy about every ten pages. The small-scale hardcover edition is charming to look at but rather tiring to force open. And the occasional illustrations were not clear or striking enough to warrant the choice of glossy paper.

Tom Keymer’s Jane Austen: Writing, Society, Politics will take a place of honor next to John Mullan’s What Matters in Jane Austen: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved as my favorite works of accessible Austen criticism to recommend.

[Yeemay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took the opportunity of rereading all Austen’s novels alongside this book and found it an invigorating and insightful commentary. It didn’t change my mind entirely about some of her novels (Emma is still a trial to read although admittedly funnier than I remembered it) but it broadened my understanding about the historical circumstances of others such as the references to the slave trade in Mansfield Park. An excellent companion to the novels.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was written by a university professor and it reads like it. I had to keep my online dictionary close at hand, especially for the literary terminology. Despite that, I found it an interesting analysis of Jane Austen's writing, even if I didn't agree with all of his interpretations of Jane's underlying motivations and subtle gibes at society.

[Sue Chant · Rating 3 out of 5]

A series of short essays exploring the subtleties of Austen's works in the context of her society and social attitudes. Nothing particularly new is said, but the book is nicely presented and engaging.

[Hélène · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un livre très intéressant qui met en lumière le milieu d'Austen à travers la littérature qu'elle a elle-même lue, les structures sociales et l'époque politique. Tout cela fournit un contexte pour comprendre les multiples couches de son écriture.
Quelques notes :

Northanger Abbey : la politique et la société.
Les meilleurs des romans gothiques parlent de façon subliminale de l'atmosphère de trouble, anxiété, choc qui était celle dans laquelle ils étaient écrits et lus.
Dans Northanger Abbey, les terreurs imaginaires de la fiction s'entrelacent aux réels dangers de la vie de tous les jours.
La situation de Catherine n'est pas littéralement celle d'un roman gothique mais ces romans peuvent exprimer et révéler des modes de persécution et emprise qui continuent d'opérer, sous d'autres atours, dans un monde de sociabilité policée.

Raison et sentiment : le féminisme des Lumières
La sensibilité a été une valeur largement prônée par les auteurs du XVIIIe. Marianne appréhende sa vie quotidienne comme un "roman de sensibilité".
Raison et sentiment est un roman sur l'exploitation, émotionnelle, sociale et économique. Dans ces conditions, le contrôle absolu d'Elinor sur elle-même peut apparaître comme un acquiescement au code de conduite qui l'enserre alors que les scènes que fait Marianne servent aussi à bouleverser les mécanismes sociaux qui bénéficient aux hommes. A ces moments, Marianne n'est pas seulement l'occasion de railler les romans d'amour mais elle pose aussi un élément de critique sociale qui pour être subtil et indirect n'en est pas moins réel.

Orgueil et préjugés et la technique narrative
Le roman a peut-être débuté comme roman épistolaire et les nombreuses lettres qui circulent gardent une grande importance pour l'intrigue ou pour la caractérisation des personnages.
Le discours indirect libre (qu'Austen n'a peut-être pas inventé au sens strict mais qu'elle porte à un sommet) : rares interventions du narrateur mais d'autant plus remarquables, des effets d'ironie ou d'incertitude soigneusement distillés ; jusqu'à dix-neuf points de vue dans le roman ! Mais avec toujours quelques points aveugles qui servent en fait à l'intrigue (on ne sait pas ce que pensent Darcy ou Bingley).

Le silence à Mansfield Park
Mansfield Park n'est pas seulement un roman de sourires et soupirs mais aussi de silences : silences de différents types qu'Austen qualifie soigneusement : déterminé, sombre, indigné, pensif… ou le "silence de mort" qui accueille la référence à l'esclavage que fait Fanny
Pourtant, le silence n'est jamais synonyme d'absence de sens dans le récit d'Austen, et c'est souvent l'inverse. Il faut le décoder, surtout avec Fanny, un personnage « toujours plus enclin au silence lorsqu'il éprouve des émotions fortes », et toujours enclin à les interroger chez les autres. A nous de le questionner et l'interpréter.

Emma et l'anglicité
Les structures, la dynamique et les conséquences du rang sont d'une importance capitale dans toute la fiction d'Austen. C'est dans Emma qu'Austen déploie le système dans ses calibrages les plus fins et les plus souples, et elle le fait à travers une héroïne fermement décidée à maintenir chacun à sa place.
Austen utilise le réalisme domestique pour explorer l'identité nationale telle qu'elle se manifeste, non pas à travers les grandes lignes de l'histoire, mais dans un ici et maintenant documenté et nuancé.

Passion et Persuasion
Persuasion, un roman centré sur la longue et débilitante suppression de la passion, et à la fin sa résurgence euphorique – et aussi profondément physique.
L'agitation incessante des personnages du roman se reflète dans son style, informel, voire expressionniste, à un degré jamais atteint auparavant par Jane Austen. Persuasion atteint une intensité de focalisation sans précédent sur la conscience de son héroïne.
Austen utilise le romantisme inhérent à Lyme pour exprimer quelque chose de fondamental, et fondamentalement passionné, chez Anne. En effet, le lieu non seulement exprime par association sa nature profonde, mais la ravive aussi littéralement et fait resurgir ses passions longtemps enfouies.

Au total, un éclairage riche et nuancé sur l'ensemble de l'oeuvre d'Austen, ses choix littéraires et son ancrage historique.

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.

[Marlies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good overview and critical discussions.

[Ellison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This examines her writings, compares them to others of the time, her wages. Class/status/taste. B/W images. RIP.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last week, I read this article about what Jane Austen can teach us about "social distancing": https://time.com/5836347/jane-austen-.... I understand what the author is feeling, to a degree, but I also found the assertion that we can find joy in the "modest domestic pleasures that Austen's women know and cherish so well" both reductive of Austen's heroines and of the sheer lack of domestic safety we (like Elinor, Fanny Price, and other Austen protagonists) are experiencing. Tom Keymer's forthcoming study of Austen is a compact yet comprehensive look at how much we lose when we reduce Austen's novels to their plots or when we let her careful, precise language occlude the messiness beneath the surface. His chapter on Northanger Abbey could have been written for us in this moment of the shared experience of a pandemic: "Austen's popularity is often strongest in times of crisis, when the serene world of the novels can seem to offer therapeutic escape," with an emphasis on the word "seem"--which Keymer unpacks in this chapter and throughout the study by examining how her representations of private life carefully encode public contexts and political concerns.