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| Birth Name(s) : Jane Austen |
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Full Jane Austen Biography
Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works include Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. Her social commentary and masterful use of both free indirect speech and irony eventually made Austen one of the most influential and honoured novelists in English literature. Her novels were all written and set around Regency Era. She never married and died at age 41.
Although she never married, Austen experienced at least two potential romances in her short life. In 1796, Austen had a flirtation with Tom Lefroy, later Lord High Justice of Ireland, who was the younger relative of a friend. She wrote two letters to Cassandra mentioning him. In a letter dated 9 January 1796, she wrote:"After I had written the above, we received a visit from Mr. Tom Lefroy and his cousin George. The latter is really very well-behaved now; and as for the other, he has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove—it is that his morning coat is a great deal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears the same coloured clothes, I imagine, which he did when he was wounded".
In 1801, following her father's retirement, the family moved to the fashionable spa city of Bath, which provided the setting for many of her novels. However, Austen, like her character Anne Elliot, seemed to have "persisted in a disinclination for Bath." Her dislike may have been influenced by the family's precarious financial situation and from being uprooted from her settled existence in the country."Chawton Cottage" where Jane Austen lived during the last eight years of her life (today a museum).
Austen’s father died in 1805, and she, Cassandra, and their mother moved to Southampton. They lived there with Austen’s brother, Frank, and his family for several years, before moving to Chawton in 1809. In Chawton Austen’s wealthy brother Edward had an estate with a cottage, where the three women lived. Austen wrote her later novels there, and the cottage is now a museum.
It is now thought by some that Austen may have suffered from Addison's disease, a failure of the adrenal glands that was common in the 19th century because it is a frequent complication of tuberculosis. The disease was at that time unnamed. Others, such as biographer Carol Shields, have hypothesized that she died from breast cancer.
Although Austen's career coincided with the Romantic movement in literature, she was not an intensely passionate Romantic and the social turbulence of early nineteenth-century England was barely touched upon in novels which concentrated on the everyday life and ostensibly trivial aspects of genteel society—balls, trips, dances, and an unending procession of marriage proposals. Thus, it could be argued she was more neo-classical in outlook. Passionate emotion usually carries danger in an Austen novel: the young woman who exercises twice a day is more likely to find real happiness than one who irrationally elopes with a capricious lover. Austen's artistic values had more in common with David Hume and John Locke than with her contemporaries William Wordsworth and Lord Byron.
Some contemporary readers may find the world she describes, in which people's chief concern is securing advantageous marriages, unliberated and disquieting. During her time, options were limited, and both women and men often married for financial considerations. Female writers worked within the similarly narrow genre of romance. Part of Austen's reputation rests on how well she integrates observations on the human condition within a convincing love story. Much of the tension in her novels arises from balancing financial necessity against other concerns: love, friendship, honor and self-respect. It is also important to point out that, at the time, romance novels were seen as a clever modern variation on the knightly romances of medieval times; these were damsels engaged in adventure, seeking their fortunes and carrying out quests.
Adaptations
- Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), a loose adaptation by Helen Fielding based on her book of the same name. The movie stars Renée Zellweger in the Elizabeth Bennet-inspired role of Bridget; Colin Firth, literally as Mr. (Mark) Darcy; and Hugh Grant as the Wickham-inspired Daniel. The 1995 TV serial is specifically referenced in the book and subsequent movie, intentionally naming Mr. Darcy after the Pride and Prejudice character.
- Bride & Prejudice(2004), a Bollywood style adaptation directed by Gurinder Chadha and starring Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson.
Adaptation
- Kandukondain Kandukondain (2000), a contemporary Kollywood (Tamil) film set in the present, based on the same plot, starring Tabu as Sowmya (Elinor Dashwood), Aishwarya Rai as Meenakshi (Marianne Dashwood), with Ajit as Manohar (Edward Ferrars), Abbas as Srikanth (Willoughby) and Mammootty as Captain Bala (Colonel Brandon).
Film
- Persuasion (1995 film), made-for-television film which was released in US theatres by Sony Pictures Classics, starring Amanda Root as Anne and Ciarán Hinds as Captain Wentworth.
Film
- Northanger Abbey (1986 film), directed by Giles Foster and released in 1986, starring Peter Firth in the role of Henry Tilney.
Television
- Northanger Abbey (2007 TV drama), directed by Jon Jones and released in 2007, starring Felicity Jones as Catherine Morland and JJ Fields as Henry Tilney. |
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