Legette, Casie
MWF 1 :50 PM
Park Hall 0145
In this class we will read all six of Austen’s novels, as well as her fascinating juvenilia. We will think carefully about Austen’s famous narrative style and about her pivotal position in the history of the novel. We will also consider the way that studies of Austen and her novels intersect with gender history, social history, political history (most of Austen’s novels were published while England was at war), and histories of slavery and colonialism. We will put Austen in context, reading her alongside 18th- and 19th-century essays on manners, marriage, and gender, as well as two novels by other authors: Frances Burney's Evelina and the anonymous The Woman of Colour. Although we will focus on Austen’s own historical context, we will not neglect our own. We will conclude the class with a consideration of the many revisions and adaptations of Austen in contemporary popular culture.