Jane Austen's Novels: The Art of Clarity - Hardcover

Gard, Roger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300054947 ISBN 13: 9780300054941

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1992

Synopsis

Although Jane Austen has long been one of England's best loved novelists this book by Roger Gard is at once a discussion of Jane Austen's oeuvre and a commentary that should stimulate all readers. Gard offers discussions of the six major novels, together with the early "Lady Susan" and the unfinished "Sanditon". The precise nature and scope of Jane Austen's realism, her particularly English approach to the world, and the characteristic blend in her work of a sharp skepticism about human nature and its banality with an idealism about human virtue are themes that recur throughout Gard's study. The book also makes links between Jane Austen and other authors ranging from Shakespeare to Flaubert, Lawrence, George Eliot, and Barbara Pym.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

This book by Roger Gard is at once a thoughtful and detailed discussion of Jane Austen's oeuvre and a provocative and witty commentary that will stimulate all readers.

From Library Journal:

Gard (reader in English at Queen Mary and Westfield Coll., Univ. of London) has authored and edited several studies on Jane Austen and Henry James, including Jane Austen, Emma and Persuasion (Viking, 1989) and Henry James: The Critical Heritage ( LJ 11/1/68). The present study is a reaction against the approach generally taken in contemporary literary criticism. Espousing the more personal reader response criticism, Gard argues that readers of Austen need not be specialists in Georgian England or in Austen's literary predecessors. Writing of Northanger Abbey --for which Mrs. Radcliffe's novels are usually considered prerequisites--he states, "This general truth is particularly important to Northanger Abbey because one of its exemplary features is its simple accessibility." Gard has a strong sense of Austen's voice and diction and, in fact, plays with these in his chapter on Pride and Prejudice , which he writes as a dialog. Highly recommended to both Janeites and Austen scholars.
-Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, Ore.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0300054947
• ISBN 13: 9780300054941
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 261