Abstract
Jane Austen may now be canonized for her six important novels but that’s not all she wrote. Her early narrative work is available in various editions (now including some excellent and easily accessible e-texts) but it is rarely approached with the kind of critical seriousness long circulating around her more mature works. For Margaret Anne Doody, this is because we have been misreading Austen’s ‘short fiction’ as ‘chaotic and childish’, mere ‘prentice-hand attempts to perform what will be done properly in the six novels’.3 While the mature novels have long been used as examples of a defining stage in the maturation of the English literary tradition, Austen’s shorter narrative works resist and expose claims to ‘mature’ novelistic realism at a number of different levels. This chapter will explore the critical significance of this apparent division between early and late Austen as it divides on the works’ claims to realism, where realism is understood as a sincere claim to represent an authentic vision of reality. Literary realism is always a construct, but for the realist claim to hold we have to be persuaded that the author is sincere enough in her representation and not just larking around.KeywordsHappy EndingRealist ClaimFree Indirect DiscourseLiterary RealismHorrible ThingThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.