"She wrote depictions of everyday, ordinary activities and experiences, yet still became this phenomenon celebrated today. We've talked about the mundane, how it gets harder to find awe in the routine. Jane Austen created awe from the mundane. So it is possible to find awe in anything I suppose, mundane or grand, if you are consciously or subconsciously looking for it." -Amber
"I was always in awe of her ability to take the mundane and ordinary social interactions of her day and magnify them into these iconic stories." -Cara
This semester, I want to research Austen's literary texts as well as the cultural phenomenon surrounding her works. I had no intention to write about Austen for this class, but I experienced my own moment of awe in the form of an epiphany while reading from Wordsworth's "Preface to Lyrical Ballads." It was while reading the following two passages when I realized my love for Austen is something I could study and actually write about:
"The principle object, then, which I proposed to myself in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement." (264 Norton Anthology of English Literature)
This quote is exactly what Amber and Cara were talking about. Just like Wordsworth, Austen writes awe into the mundane and captures that "state of excitement" (something I have come to associate with experiencing awe) in stories about the ordinary.
Wordsworth's second quote raises an entirely new dimension:
"The invaluable works of our elder writers, I had almost said the works of Shakespeare and Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse.--When I think upon this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation, I am almost ashamed to have spoke of the feeble effort with which I have endeavoured to counteract it . . . " (267 NA)
I was at first confused where Austen fit into this conversation. However, the footnote in the Norton Anthology names Ann Radcliff and August von Kotzebue as two of the authors Wordsworth is attacking, and Austen directly parodies both of these authors in her novels Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park. So Austen has once again aligned with Wordsworth's ideas, but instead of reacting with Romantic poetry, she reacts by satirizing and perfecting the very works she opposes. So what does this say about finding awe in Austen?
To end, a few fitting lines from Austen herself: "I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my Life, and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first Chapter." (515)
"I was always in awe of her ability to take the mundane and ordinary social interactions of her day and magnify them into these iconic stories." -Cara
This semester, I want to research Austen's literary texts as well as the cultural phenomenon surrounding her works. I had no intention to write about Austen for this class, but I experienced my own moment of awe in the form of an epiphany while reading from Wordsworth's "Preface to Lyrical Ballads." It was while reading the following two passages when I realized my love for Austen is something I could study and actually write about:
"The principle object, then, which I proposed to myself in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement." (264 Norton Anthology of English Literature)
This quote is exactly what Amber and Cara were talking about. Just like Wordsworth, Austen writes awe into the mundane and captures that "state of excitement" (something I have come to associate with experiencing awe) in stories about the ordinary.
Wordsworth's second quote raises an entirely new dimension:
"The invaluable works of our elder writers, I had almost said the works of Shakespeare and Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse.--When I think upon this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation, I am almost ashamed to have spoke of the feeble effort with which I have endeavoured to counteract it . . . " (267 NA)
I was at first confused where Austen fit into this conversation. However, the footnote in the Norton Anthology names Ann Radcliff and August von Kotzebue as two of the authors Wordsworth is attacking, and Austen directly parodies both of these authors in her novels Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park. So Austen has once again aligned with Wordsworth's ideas, but instead of reacting with Romantic poetry, she reacts by satirizing and perfecting the very works she opposes. So what does this say about finding awe in Austen?
If you've made it this far, thank you. My ideas are still a big jumbled mess but I have one more distinction to make. As I approach the subject of awe in Austen, I plan to look at both "awe" and "spectacle," (not the kind of spectacle created by a play or performance, but rather the "outrageous stimulation" Wordsworth talks about). I want to talk about how Austen creates spectacle as she writes about the mundane, but also that these spectacles themselves are really just parodies, and understanding this is where the real awe in Austen comes from. She perfected something in order to satirize it and as a result has captivated readers for generations.
To end, a few fitting lines from Austen herself: "I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my Life, and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first Chapter." (515)
No comments:
Post a Comment