Sunday, October 30, 2016
A Minute Meditation
Today is surely a significant day in English Literature, if not in World Literature. On this day Oct. 30, 1811, Sense and Sensibility was published By a Lady. This was followed by five more novels, all of which are still in print. In addition, numerous film versions have been made of all of them, and, no doubt, more will come. Just this year, a film version of one of her juvenalia just appeared.
She was only 42 when she died. What else might she have written had she lived another decade or two?
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R.T.,
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that. I will be looking forward to any comments you may make. It's a wonderful antidote to today's headlines.
as per my comment at Tim's blog, i plan on hunkering down on this dark rainy day and pawing through the stacks to see if i can find a Jane... tx and a very happy birthday to the Miss Austen...
ReplyDeleteYou raise such a good question. It is such a pity that Austen died so young.
ReplyDeleteOne can only speculate what she would have written had she lived longer. Perhaps she would have produced somewhat darker works. Perhaps she would have created characters that were even more complex.
Brian Joseph,
DeleteSanditon, her unfinished novel that she was writing when she died, has two new themes: hypochondria and progress. Several of characters are obsessed with health and are always trying and recommending various nostrums and have a variety of ailments.
A second theme involves an individual who is planning to turn a small village into a tourist haven by advertising and touting the village for its seaside health benefits. I can't think of any other novel by Austen that focused on change, and not only change but entrepreneurship such as this.
Who knows what she would have done with this theme?
Mudpuddle,
ReplyDeleteSounds like an excellent idea to me.
By the way, her birthday is December 16.
oh; tx. i guess i, unsurprisingly, misread the words
DeleteMudpuddle,
DeleteJoin the crowd: I do it all the time.