For Monday: Early Views & Modern Views of S & S

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For Monday: Early Views & Modern Views of Sense and Sensibility (pp.313-333)

·         Unsigned Review (Feb.1812)

·         Unsigned Review (May 1812)

·         Pollock, from British Novelists (1860)

·         Anonymous, from Miss Austen (1866)

·         Meynell, from The Classic Novelist (1894)

·         Farrer, from Jane Austen (1917)

·         Fergus, First Publication (1991)

Answer TWO of the following…

1. What qualities do both the 1812 reviews agree on in their first reading of Sense and Sensibility?  In general, how do both ‘read’ the novel, and do we generally agree with this assessment today?  Is there anything one or both miss or avoid that we discussed in class as an essential part of the work?  (Note that neither review knew Jane Austen’s identity—the title page originally said “By a Lady”). 

2. In the late Victorian era, when Jane Austen began to become famous, there was a notable shift in how she was read—and what she was appreciated for.  Alice Meynell typifies this when she writes that “Miss Austen’s art and her matter are made for one another.  Miss Austen’s art is not of the highest quality; it is of an admirable secondary quality” (321).  What qualities do Meynell—and others—find somewhat inferior or ‘second rate,’ and how might Austen’s own ‘sensibility’ be called into question as an author? 

3. Reginald Farrer writes that “But its tremendous successors set up a standard besides which ‘Sense and Sensibility’ is bound to appear grey and cool; nobody will choose this as his favourite Jane Austen, whereas each one of the others has its fanatics who prefer it above all the rest” (324).  How does Farrer make this claim in his article, and how might the other writers support the idea that S & S is somehow lacking or formative of the ‘real’ Austen?  Did her contemporaries feel the same way?

4. According to Jan Fergus’ essay, how did Austen feel about Sense and Sensibility and her writing in general?  Remember that, according to her nieces and nephews, she was ashamed of writing and kept all of it hidden (indeed, she scarcely even read poetry around them!).  What picture of Austen, the writer, emerges from this carefully constructed historical account of her publications?