Jane Austen and LeisureJane Austen's novels portray a leisured society of gentlemen and ladies who do not need to work. Even the minority of clergymen, soldiers and sailors - men with professions - are almost never seen working. Jane Austen herself, despite responsibility for some domestic tasks, wrote as a woman of leisure. Yet leisure, the distinguishing mark of a gentleman, was not meant to be an excuse for idleness. The proper use of leisure to fulfil duties, to read and to think, and above all to pursue social relations in a world where family and marriage for the propertied was of central importance, was a vital test of character. |
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Page xvi
... moral strength to resist their allure . Jane Austen herself was brought up in the country , among the quiet clergy families of north Hampshire . Her father , the Revd George Austen , had been presented to the living of Steventon by a ...
... moral strength to resist their allure . Jane Austen herself was brought up in the country , among the quiet clergy families of north Hampshire . Her father , the Revd George Austen , had been presented to the living of Steventon by a ...
Page xix
... moral value , as can be seen most clearly in Mansfield Park , where patterns of idleness and activity are keenly scrutinised . The management of Sir Thomas's affairs requires him to go out to Antigua , leaving a vacuum at Mansfield that ...
... moral value , as can be seen most clearly in Mansfield Park , where patterns of idleness and activity are keenly scrutinised . The management of Sir Thomas's affairs requires him to go out to Antigua , leaving a vacuum at Mansfield that ...
Page xx
... moral nature . Mansfield Park shows people indulging in many of the opportunities for leisure by early nineteenth - century society : dancing , walking , riding , shooting , visiting country mansions , attending balls and evening ...
... moral nature . Mansfield Park shows people indulging in many of the opportunities for leisure by early nineteenth - century society : dancing , walking , riding , shooting , visiting country mansions , attending balls and evening ...
Page xxii
... meaning of her novels , in articulating their plot and characterisation and in endorsing their moral views , it is the purpose of this book to show . 1 Society In 1801 , the year in which the XXII JANE AUSTEN AND LEISURE.
... meaning of her novels , in articulating their plot and characterisation and in endorsing their moral views , it is the purpose of this book to show . 1 Society In 1801 , the year in which the XXII JANE AUSTEN AND LEISURE.
Page 19
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amusement assemblies aunt Austen-Leigh ball Bath Bennet brother Captain Wentworth cards Cassandra characters charade Charles Chawton Country Dancing course daughter delightful Donwell Edmund eighteenth century Elton Emma Emma Watson Emma's Fanny Burney feel Frank Churchill gardens give Godmersham Harriet Henry heroine Highbury hunting Ibid James Edward Jane Austen Jane Austen Society Jane Fairfax John kind Knightley Knightley's Lady Bertram later Lefroy leisure letter lived London look Lord Lybbe Powys Lyme Mansfield Park Marianne marry Martha Lloyd Mary Crawford Mary Lloyd Miss Bates moral needlework never niece night Northanger Abbey novel party perhaps pianoforte play pleasure poem popular Pride and Prejudice resort Sanditon scene seaside Sense and Sensibility sister social Steventon taste theatre theatricals thing Thomas Tilney Tom Bertram verse Weston wife woman Woodhouse writing young ladies