Product Description

Interest in Jane Austen has never been greater, but it is revitalized by the advent of feminist literary history. In a substantial new introduction Marilyn Butler places this book, which was first published in 1975, within the larger tradition of post-war criticism, from the generation of Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling, and F.R. Leavis to that of the now-dominant feminist critics. Professor Butler argues that Austen herself lived in contentious times. Like Wordsworth and Coleridge, she served her literary apprenticeship in the 1790s, the decade of the Terror and the Napoleonic Wars, an era in England of polemic and hysteria. Political partisanship shaped the novel of her youth, in content, form, and style. In this book, she now examines the very different schools of writing about Austen, and finds in them some unexpected continuities, such as a willingness to recruit her to modern aims, but a reluctance to engage with her own history. When the book first came out it attracted attention for its fresh, controversial approach to ideas on Austen. The new edition shows how the arrival of feminism has made the task of the literary historian more vital and challenging than ever. 'Marilyn Butler has written a deeply provoking, exciting book.' New Statesman 'There can be no doubt of the immense value for the critical reader of this impressive exposition of conflicting views concerning the individual and society at the end of the eighteenth century.' Review of English Studies 'interesting, knowledgeable, and controversial.' Times Higher Education Supplement

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87883 in Books
• Published on: 1988-01-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 356 pages

Customer Reviews

A Modern Novelist
What I found exceptional and plausible about this book was that it debunked conclusively cosy notions about Jane Austen as a proto-Romantic and "Persuasion" as a turning point in her moral thinking. Marilyn Butler sees her for what she was: a political and moral conservative. But what Butler exposes so clearly is her radical and original approach to narrative and the novel. The changing lens of her narrative perspective - from totally detached to infiltrated into one character - is streets ahead of her time. We begin to see how decades later someone can write "Madame Bovary" or "To the Lighthouse".

See Austen in a very different light.
If you love Jane Austen, you should read this. It's a rather polemical presentation of her as a politically motivated writer, but don't let that put you off: even if you don't agree with the idea, it will add so much richness, context and depth to your enjoyment of the novels that it's definitely worth it.