Abstract
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice demonstrates the encounter of the two ruling faculties of human beings: reason and passion. The characters of this novel who are mostly young people are involved in the matters of heart and mind, seeking love and affection from their beloved ones while simultaneously burdened by the codes of manners and mannerisms of their society. Although many studies have been conducted on the subject of marriage and love on Austen’s novels, the nature of this love has not been given its proper attention. A comparative study of Plato’s concept of love and that envisaged in Jane Austen’s novel clarifies a lot of things among which we can refer to their difference in the extent of realism as the former depicts love in its ideal form and the latter in its practical sense. Serving as a means to deepen the readers’ understanding, this essay introduces a new perspective to Austen studies by examining Platonic concepts of love in Pride and Prejudice in the light of the information gleaned from Plato’s two famous works that directly deal with the concept of love: Phaedrus and Symposium. The study shows that despite being Platonic in her approach to love, Austen differs from Plato in that she tries to confine love to decorum under the veil of social relationships which bespeaks of the fact that Austen’s time in early Victorian period gives priority to the practice of love in a real context over intellectual concern for what it might mean or might not.
Highlights
Literature and philosophy have always had common subjects to deal with
The present study aims to remove the veils and reveal the sort of philosophy of love that she pursues in Pride and Prejudice by finding the answer of this question: How much is Austen concerned with love? What are her ideals of love? Does she observe certain philosophy in defining love in her fiction? How far does she succeed in portraying the reality of love in her time? Are the happy romantic relationships in the novel real or are something of her imagination that she has artfully been able to exalt to the level of ideality? The current study is an attempt to provide proper answers for it by making a comparison between Austen’s concept of love and that of Plato
It is hoped that this paper would contribute to Austen’s studies by examining Jane Austen’s novels in light of Plato, which can bring about a lot of interesting results because Plato juxtaposes reason and passion in his definition of love and Austen emphasizes the sovereignty of reason in romantic relationships in a society where social conventions are highly valued
Summary
Literature and philosophy have always had common subjects to deal with. One of these subjects, which are of particular interest to both philosophers and literary figures due to its dazzling complexity and elegant simplicity, is love. It is hoped that this paper would contribute to Austen’s studies by examining Jane Austen’s novels in light of Plato, which can bring about a lot of interesting results because Plato juxtaposes reason and passion in his definition of love and Austen emphasizes the sovereignty of reason in romantic relationships in a society where social conventions are highly valued. Anne Crippen Ruderman considers the novel as the study of lovers dealing with love and the obstacles on their way in society She believes that “Jane Austen’s stories of courtship and marriage are revealing because they are an account of human passion and feelings and of the intellect and reason [1]. Austen’s characters restrain themselves from acting and behaving passionately in order to prevent themselves from violating propriety; otherwise, they will be disgraced as Lydia and Wickham who endanger their reputation and good name by their elopement
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