Content
Introduction
1. Theoretical part givesgeneral notes on Jane Austen’s works
1.1 English novelist — Jane Austen
1.2 Artistic and genre peculiarities of J. Austen's works
2. Practical part II. J.Austen’s literary art and its role in English realism
2.1 The «Defense of the Novel»
2.2 Jane Austen's Limitations
2.3 Jane Austen's literary reputation
Conclusion
Bibliography
/>Introduction
Topicality: Englishwriter, who first gave the novel its modern character through the treatment ofeveryday life. Although Austen was widely read in her lifetime, she publishedher works anonymously. The most urgent preoccupation of her bright, youngheroines is courtship and finally marriage. Austen herself never married. Herbest-known books include PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1813) and EMMA (1816). VirginiaWoolf called Austen «the most perfect artist among women.» JaneAusten focused on middle-class provincial life with humor and understanding. Shedepicted minor landed gentry, country clergymen and their families, in whichmarriage mainly determined women's social status. Most important for her werethose little matters, as Emma says, «on which the daily happiness ofprivate life depends.» Although Austen restricted to family matters, andshe passed the historical events of the Napoleonic wars, her wit and observantnarrative touch has been inexhaustible delight to readers. Of her six greatnovels, four were published anonymously during her lifetime. Austen also hadtroubles with her publisher, who wanted to make alterations to her love scenesin Pride and Prejudice. In 1811 he wrote to Thomas Egerton: «Yousay the book is indecent. You say I am immodest. But Sir in the depiction oflove, modesty is the fullness of truth; and decency frankness; and so Imust also be frank with you, and ask that you remove my name from the titlepage in all future printings; 'A lady' will do well enough.» At her deathon July 18, 1817 in Winchester, at the age of forty-one, Austen was writing theunfinished SANDITON. She managed to write twelve chapters before stopping inMarch 18, due to her poor health. The cause of her death is not known. It hasbeen claimed that Austen was a victim of Addison's disease. According to ClaireTomalin, she may have died of lymphoma. Katherine White has suggested in theBritish Medical Journal's Medical Humanities magazine, that she died oftuberculosis caught from cattle.
Jane Austen wasburied in Winchester Cathedral, near the centre of the north aisle. «It isa satisfaction to me to think that [she is] to lie in a Building she admired somuch,» Cassandra Austen wrote later. Cassandra destroyed many of hersister's letters; one hundred sixty survived but none written earlier than hertentieth birthday.
Jane Austen'sbrother Henry made her authorship public after her death. Emma had beenreviewed favorably by Sir Walter Scott, who wrote in his journal of March 14, 1826:" had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and charactersof ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I have ever met with. TheBig Bow-Wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch,which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from thetruth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me." CharlotteBrontë and E. B. Browning found her limited, and Elizabeth Hardwick said:«I don't think her superb intelligence brought her happiness.» It wasnot until the publication of J. E. Austen-Leigh's Memoir in 1870 that aJane Austen cult began to develop. Austen's unfinished Sanditon waspublished in 1925.
The Theme: “JaneAusten's Art and her Literary Reputation"
The Aim ofinvestigation: is to analyze Jane Austen's works, to develop of genreand style in her novels and reflect their role inauthor’s writings.
The objectives:
To give generalnotes on Jane Austen's works;
To define theauthor’s role as the most famous woman — writer in English literature;
To give anexplanation Jane Austen's literary reputation in her writings;
The objectof investigation: is Jane Austen's novel “ASense and Sensibility".
The subject ofinvestigation: The development of genre and artistic peculiarities of novel “ASense and Sensibility".
The hypothesisof investigation: We suppose that investigation of Jane Austen's works, which is givenstylistic devices, analysis of her works, and also her genre of writingsreflect its own place in literature.
Methods ofinvestigation:
Descriptivemethod.2.comparative method.
Materials ofinvestigation: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice(1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), NorthangerAbbey.
Theoreticalvalue: in our course paper work we are going to investigate J. Austen’s lifeand her writings, literary genre in her writings. This material could be usedby the students during their theoretical classes as the literature of GreatBritain.
Practical Valueof this course paper is to investigate J. Austen’s literary art and its role inEnglish realism; also it is given some facts such as Jane Austen's Limitations,Jane Austen's literary reputation.
Structure ofthe course paper: Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Conclusion, Bibliographyand Appendix.
Introductionincludes topicality, theme, problem, aim, objectives, object, subject,hypothesis, theoretical and practical value, methods of investigation andstructure.
/>1. Theoretical part gives general notes on Jane Austen’s works
Practical partrepresents J. Austen’s style and analyzes of her works.
In theconclusion we present the results of our investigation.
Bibliographysuggests a list of sources of references.
Theoreticalpart I./>1.1English novelist — Jane Austen
Jane Austen (16December 1775 — 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romanticfiction set among the gentry have earned her a place as one of the most widelyread and most beloved writers in English literature. [1] Amongstscholars and critics, Austen's realism and biting social commentary havecemented her historical importance as a writer.
Austen livedher entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes ofEnglish gentry. [2] She was educated primarily by her father andolder brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of herfamily was critical to Austen's development as a professional writer. [3] Austen's artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years until shewas about thirty-five years old. During this period, she experimented withvarious literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she tried and thenabandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began afourth. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility(1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma(1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additionalnovels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both publishedposthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon,but died before completing it.
Austen's workscritique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the eighteenth centuryand are part of the transition to nineteenth-century realism. Austen's plots,though fundamentally comic, highlight the dependence of women on marriage tosecure social standing and economic security. Like those of Samuel Johnson, oneof the strongest influences on her writing, her works are concerned with moralissues. During Austen's lifetime her works brought her little personal fame andonly a few positive reviews. Through the mid-nineteenth century, her novelswere admired mainly by members of the literary elite. However, the publicationof her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869 introduced her to a farwider public as an appealing personality and kindled popular interest in herworks. By the 1940s, Austen had become widely accepted in academia as a «greatEnglish writer». The second half of the twentieth century saw aproliferation of Austen scholarship, which explored many aspects of her novels:artistic, ideological, and historical. In popular culture, a Janeite fanculture has developed, centred on Austen's life, her works, and the various.
Biographicalinformation concerning Jane Austen is «famously scarce», according toone biographer. Only some personal and family letters remain (by one estimateonly 160 out of Austen's 3,000 letters are extant), and her sister Cassandra (towhom most of the letters were originally addressed) burned «the greaterpart» of the ones she kept and censored those she did not destroy. Otherletters were destroyed by the heirs of Admiral Francis Austen, Jane's brother. Mostof the biographical material produced for fifty years after Austen's death waswritten by her relatives and reflects the family's biases in favour of «goodquiet Aunt Jane». Scholars have unearthed little information since.
Austen'sparents, George Austen (1731-1805), and his wife, Cassandra (1739-1827), weremembers of substantial gentry families. George was descended from a family ofwoollen manufacturers which had risen through the professions to the lowerranks of the landed gentry. Cassandra was a member of the prominent Leighfamily; they married on 26 April 1764 at Walcot Church in Bath. From 1765 until1801, that is, for much of Jane's life, George Austen served as the rector ofthe Anglican parishes at Steventon, Hampshire and a nearby village. From 1773until 1796, he supplemented this income by farming and by teaching three orfour boys at a time who boarded at his home.
Austen'simmediate family was large: six brothers-James (1765-1819), George (1766-1838),Edward (1767-1852), Henry Thomas (1771-1850), Francis William (Frank) (1774-1865),Charles John (1779-1852) — and one sister, Cassandra Elizabeth (1773-1845),who, like Jane, died unmarried. Cassandra Elizabeth was Austen's closest friendand confidante throughout her life. Of her brothers, Austen felt closest toHenry, who became a banker and, after his bank failed, an Anglican clergyman. Henrywas also his sister's literary agent. His large circle of friends andacquaintances in London included bankers, merchants, publishers, painters, andactors: he provided Austen with a view of social worlds not normally visiblefrom a small parish in rural Hampshire. George was sent to live with a localfamily at a young age because, as Austen biographer Le Faye describes it, hewas «mentally abnormal and subject to fits». He may also have beendeaf and mute. Charles and Frank served in the navy, both rising to the rank ofadmiral. Edward was adopted by his fourth cousin, Thomas Knight, inheritingKnight's estate and taking his name in 1812.
Austen was bornon 16 December 1775 at Steventon rectory and publicly christened on 5 April1776. After a few months at home, her mother placed Austen with ElizabethLittlewood, a woman living nearby, who nursed and raised Austen for a year oreighteen months. In 1783, according to family tradition, Jane and Cassandrawere sent to Oxford to be educated by Mrs. Ann Cawley and they moved with herto Southampton later in the year. Both girls caught typhus and Jane nearly died.Austen was subsequently educated at home, until leaving for boarding schoolwith her sister Cassandra early in 1785. The school curriculum probablyincluded some French, spelling, needlework, dancing and music and, perhaps,drama. By December 1786, Jane and Cassandra had returned home because theAustens could not afford to send both of their daughters to school.
Austen acquiredthe remainder of her education by reading books, guided by her father and herbrothers James and Henry. George Austen apparently gave his daughtersunfettered access to his large and varied library, was tolerant of Austen'ssometimes risqué experiments in writing, and provided both sisters withexpensive paper and other materials for their writing and drawing. According toPark Honan, a biographer of Austen, life in the Austen home was lived in «anopen, amused, easy intellectual atmosphere» where the ideas of those withwhom the Austens might disagree politically or socially were considered anddiscussed. After returning from school in 1786, Austen «never again livedanywhere beyond the bounds of her immediate family environment».
Privatetheatricals were also a part of Austen's education. From when she was sevenuntil she was thirteen, the family and close friends staged a series of plays,including Richard Sheridan's The Rivals (1775) and David Garrick's BonTon. While the details are unknown, Austen would certainly have joined inthese activities, as a spectator at first and as a participant when she wasolder. Most of the plays were comedies, which suggests one way in whichAusten's comedic and satirical gifts were cultivated. Perhaps as early as 1787,Austen began to write poems, stories, and plays for her own and her family'samusement. Austen later compiled «fair copies» of 29 of these earlyworks into three bound notebooks, now referred to as the Juvenilia,containing pieces originally written between 1787 and 1793. There is manuscriptevidence that Austen continued to work on these pieces as late as the period1809-11, and that her niece and nephew, Anna and James Edward Austen, madefurther additions as late as 1814. Among these works are a satirical novel inletters titled Love and Freindship [sic], in which she mockedpopular novels of sensibility,[36] and The History of England,a manuscript of 34 pages accompanied by 13 watercolour miniatures by her sisterCassandra.
Austen's Historyparodied popular historical writing, particularly Oliver Goldsmith's Historyof England (1764). Austen wrote, for example: «Henry the 4th ascendedthe throne of England much to his own satisfaction in the year 1399, afterhaving prevailed on his cousin & predecessor Richard the 2nd, to resign itto him, & to retire for the rest of his Life to Pomfret Castle, where hehappened to be murdered. „Austen's Juvenilia are often, accordingto scholar Richard Jenkyns, “boisterous» and «anarchic»; hecompares them to the work of eighteenth-century novelist Laurence Sterne andthe twentieth-century comedy group Monty Python.
As Austen grewinto adulthood, she continued to live at her parents' home, carrying out thoseactivities normal for women of her age and social standing: she practiced the pianoforte,assisted her sister and mother with supervising servants, and attended femalerelatives during childbirth and older relatives on their deathbeds. She sentshort pieces of writing to her newborn nieces Fanny Catherine and Jane AnnaElizabeth. Austen was particularly proud of her accomplishments as a seamstress.She also attended church regularly, socialized frequently with friends andneighbours,and read novels-often of her own composition-aloud withher family in the evenings. Socializing with the neighbours often meantdancing, either impromptu in someone's home after supper or at the balls heldregularly at the assembly rooms in the town hall. Her brother Henry later saidthat «Jane was fond of dancing, and excelled in it». In 1793, Austenbegan and then abandoned a short play, later entitled Sir Charles Grandisonor the happy Man, a comedy in 6 acts, which she returned to and completedaround 1800. This was a short parody of various school textbook abridgments ofAusten's favourite contemporary novel, The History of Sir Charles Grandison(1753), by Samuel Richardson. Honan speculates that at some point not longafter writing Love and Freindship [sic] in 1789, Austen decided to«write for profit, to make stories her central effort», that is, tobecome a professional writer. Whenever she made that decision, beginning inabout 1793, Austen began to write longer, more sophisticated works.
Between 1793and 1795, Austen wrote Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel, usuallydescribed as her most ambitious and sophisticated early work. [ Itis unlike any of Austen's other works. Austen biographer Claire Tomalindescribes the heroine of the novella as a sexual predator who uses herintelligence and charm to manipulate, betray, and abuse her victims, whetherlovers, friends or family. Tomalin writes: «Told in letters, it is asneatly plotted as a play, and as cynical in tone as any of the most outrageousof the Restoration dramatists who may have provided some of her inspiration… Itstands alone in Austen's work as a study of an adult woman whose intelligenceand force of character are greater than those of anyone she encounters. „Afterfinishing Lady Susan, Austen attempted her first full-length novel-Elinorand Marianne. Her sister Cassandra later remembered that it was read to thefamily “before 1796» and was told through a series of letters. Withoutsurviving original manuscripts, there is no way to know how much of theoriginal draft survived in the novel published in 1811 as Sense andSensibility.
Thomas LangloisLefroy, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, by W. H. Mote (1855); in old age, Lefroyadmitted to a nephew that he had been in love with Jane Austen: «It wasboyish love.»
When Austen wastwenty, Tom Lefroy, a nephew of neighbours, visited Steventon from December1795 to January 1796. He had just finished a university degree and was movingto London to train as a barrister. Lefroy and Austen would have been introducedat a ball or other neighbourhood social gathering, and it is clear fromAusten's letters to Cassandra that they spent considerable time together:«I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagineto yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing andsitting down together. „The Lefroy family intervened and sent him away atthe end of January. Marriage was impractical, as both Lefroy and Austen musthave known. Neither had any money, and he was dependent on a great-uncle inIreland to finance his education and establish his legal career. If Tom Lefroylater visited Hampshire, he was carefully kept away from the Austens, and JaneAusten never saw him again.
Austen beganwork on a second novel, First Impressions, in 1796 and completed theinitial draft in August 1797 when she was only 21 (it later became Pride andPrejudice); as with all of her novels, Austen read the work aloud to herfamily as she was working on it and it became an “established favourite».At this time, her father made the first attempt to publish one of her novels. InNovember 1797, George Austen wrote to Thomas Cadell, an established publisherin London, to ask if he would consider publishing «a Manuscript Novel,comprised in three Vols. about the length of Miss Burney's Evelina» (FirstImpressions) at the author's financial risk. Cadell quickly returned Mr. Austen'sletter, marked «Declined by Return of Post». Austen may not haveknown of her father's efforts. Following the completion of First Impressions,Austen returned to Elinor and Marianne and from November 1797 untilmid-1798, revised it heavily; she eliminated the epistolary format in favour ofthird-person narration and produced something close to Sense and Sensibility.
During themiddle of 1798, after finishing revisions of Elinor and Marianne, Austenbegan writing a third novel with the working title Susan-later NorthangerAbbey-a satire on the popular Gothic novel. Austen completed her work abouta year later. In early 1803, Henry Austen offered Susan to BenjaminCrosby, a London publisher, who paid £10 for the copyright. Crosbypromised early publication and went so far as to advertise the book publicly asbeing «in the press», but did nothing more. The manuscript remainedin Crosby's hands, unpublished, until Austen repurchased the copyright from himin 1816.
In December1800, Rev. Austen unexpectedly announced his decision to retire from theministry, leave Steventon, and move the family to Bath. While retirement andtravel were good for the elder Austens, Jane Austen was shocked to be told shewas moving from the only home she had ever known. An indication of Austen'sstate of mind is her lack of productivity as a writer during the time she livedat Bath. She was able to make some revisions to Susan, and she began andthen abandoned a new novel, The Watsons, but there was nothing like theproductivity of the years 1795-99. Tomalin suggests this reflects a deepdepression disabling her as a writer, but Honan disagrees, arguing Austen wroteor revised her manuscripts throughout her creative life, except for a fewmonths after her father died.
In December1802, Austen received her only proposal of marriage. She and her sister visitedAlethea and Catherine Bigg, old friends who lived near Basingstoke. Theiryounger brother, Harris Bigg-Wither, had recently finished his education at Oxfordand was also at home. Bigg-Wither proposed and Austen accepted. As described byCaroline Austen, Jane's niece, and Reginald Bigg-Wither, a descendant, Harriswas not attractive-he was a large, plain-looking man who spoke little,stuttered when he did speak, was aggressive in conversation, and almostcompletely tactless. However, Austen had known him since both were young andthe marriage offered many practical advantages to Austen and her family. He wasthe heir to extensive family estates located in the area where the sisters hadgrown up. With these resources, Austen could provide her parents a comfortableold age, give Cassandra a permanent home and, perhaps, assist her brothers intheir careers. By the next morning, Austen realised she had made a mistake andwithdrew her acceptance. No contemporary letters or diaries describe how Austenfelt about this proposal. In 1814, Austen wrote a letter to her niece, FannyKnight, who had asked for advice about a serious relationship, telling her that«having written so much on one side of the question, I shall now turnaround & entreat you not to commit yourself farther, & not to think ofaccepting him unless you really do like him. Anything is to be preferred orendured rather than marrying without Affection». In 1804, while living inBath, Austen started but did not complete a new novel, The Watsons. Thestory centres on an invalid clergyman with little money and his four unmarrieddaughters. Sutherland describes the novel as «a study in the harsheconomic realities of dependent women's lives». Honan suggests, andTomalin agrees, that Austen chose to stop work on the novel after her fatherdied on 21 January 1805 and her personal circumstances resembled those of hercharacters too closely for her comfort.
Rev. Austen'sfinal illness had struck suddenly, leaving him, as Austen reported to herbrother Francis, «quite insensible of his own state», and he diedquickly. Jane, Cassandra, and their mother were left in a precarious financialsituation. Edward, James, Henry, and Francis Austen pledged to make annualcontributions to support their mother and sisters. For the next four years, thefamily's living arrangements reflected their financial insecurity. They livedpart of the time in rented quarters in Bath and then, beginning in 1806, in Southampton,where they shared a house with Frank Austen and his new wife. A large part ofthis time they spent visiting various branches of the family.
On 5 April1809, about three months before the family's move to Chawton, Austen wrote anangry letter to Richard Crosby, offering him a new manuscript of Susanif that was needed to secure immediate publication of the novel, and otherwiserequesting the return of the original so she could find another publisher. Crosbyreplied he had not agreed to publish the book by any particular time, or atall, and that Austen could repurchase the manuscript for the £10 he hadpaid her and find another publisher. However, Austen did not have the resourcesto repurchase the book.
Around early1809, Austen's brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a more settledlife-the use of a large cottage in Chawton villagethat was part ofEdward's nearby estate, Chawton House. Jane, Cassandra, and their mother movedinto Chawton cottage on 7 July 1809. In Chawton, life was quieter than it hadbeen since the family's move to Bath in 1800. The Austens did not socialisewith the neighbouring gentry and entertained only when family visited. Austen'sniece Anna described the Austen family's life in Chawton: «It was a veryquiet life, according to our ideas, but they were great readers, and besidesthe housekeeping our aunts occupied themselves in working with the poor and inteaching some girl or boy to read or write. „Austen wrote almost daily,but privately, and seems to have been relieved of some householdresponsibilities to give her more opportunity to write. In this setting, shewas able to be productive as a writer once more.
During her timeat Chawton, Jane Austen successfully published four novels, which weregenerally well-received. Through her brother Henry, the publisher ThomasEgerton agreed to publish Sense and Sensibility,whichappeared in October 1811. Reviews were favourable and the novel becamefashionable among opinion-makers; the edition sold out by mid-1813. Austen'searnings from Sense and Sensibility provided her with some financial andpsychological independence. Egerton then published Pride and Prejudice,a revision of First Impressions, in January 1813. He advertised the bookwidely and it was an immediate success, garnering three favourable reviews andselling well. By October 1813, Egerton was able to begin selling a secondedition. Mansfield Park was published by Egerton in May 1814. While MansfieldPark was ignored by reviewers, it was a great success with the public. Allcopies were sold within six months, and Austen's earnings on this novel werelarger than for any of her other novels.
Austen learnedthat the Prince Regent admired her novels and kept a set at each of hisresidences. In November 1815, the Prince Regent's librarian invited Austen tovisit the Prince's London residence and hinted Austen should dedicate the forthcomingEmma to the Prince. Though Austen disliked the Prince, she couldscarcely refuse the request. She later wrote Plan of a Novel, according tohints from various quarters, a satiric outline of the “perfect novel»based on the librarian's many suggestions for a future Austen novel.
In mid-1815,Austen moved her work from Egerton to John Murray, a better known Londonpublisher,who published Emma in December 1815 and a secondedition of Mansfield Park in February 1816. Emma sold well butthe new edition of Mansfield Park did not, and this failure offset mostof the profits Austen earned on Emma. These were the last of Austen'snovels to be published during her lifetime.
While Murrayprepared Emma for publication, Austen began to write a new novel shetitled The Elliots, later published as Persuasion. She completedher first draft in July 1816. In addition, shortly after the publication of Emma,Henry Austen repurchased the copyright for Susan from Crosby. Austen wasforced to postpone publishing either of these completed novels by familyfinancial troubles. Henry Austen's bank failed in March 1816, depriving him ofall of his assets, leaving him deeply in debt and losing Edward, James, andFrank Austen large sums. Henry and Frank could no longer afford thecontributions they had made to support their mother and sisters.
Early in 1816,Jane Austen began to feel unwell. She ignored her illness at first and continuedto work and to participate in the usual round of family activities. By themiddle of that year, her decline was unmistakable to Austen and to her family,and Austen's physical condition began a long, slow, and irregular deteriorationculminating in her death the following year. The majority of Austen biographersrely on Dr. Vincent Cope's tentative 1964 retrospective diagnosis and list hercause of death as Addison's disease. However, her final illness has also beendescribed as Hodgkin's lymphoma. Recent work by Katherine White of Britain'sAddison’s Disease Self Help Group suggests that Austen likely died of bovinetuberculosis,a disease (now) commonly associated with drinkingunpasteurized milk.
Austencontinued to work in spite of her illness. She became dissatisfied with theending of The Elliots and rewrote the final two chapters, finishing themon 6 August 1816. In January 1817, Austen began work on a new novel she calledThe Brothers, later titled Sanditon upon its first publication in1925, and completed twelve chapters before stopping work in mid-March 1817,probably because her illness prevented her from continuing. Austen made lightof her condition to others, describing it as «Bile» and rheumatism,but as her disease progressed she experienced increasing difficulty walking orfinding the energy for other activities. By mid-April, Austen was confined toher bed. In May, their brother Henry escorted Jane and Cassandra to Winchesterfor medical treatment. Austen died in Winchester on 18 July 1817, at the age of41. Through his clerical connections, Henry arranged for his sister to beburied in the north aisle of the nave of Winchester Cathedral. The epitaphcomposed by her brother James praises Austen's personal qualities, expresseshope for her salvation, mentions the «extraordinary endowments of her mind»,but does not explicitly mention her achievements as a writer.
After Austen'sdeath, Cassandra and Henry Austen arranged with Murray for the publication of Persuasionand Northanger Abbey as a set in December 1817. Henr y Austencontributed a Biographical Note which for the first time identified hissister as the author of the novels. Tomalin describes it as «a loving andpolished eulogy». Sales were good for a year-only 321 copies remainedunsold at the end of 1818-and then declined. Murray disposed of the remainingcopies in 1820, and Austen's novels remained out of print for twelve years. In1832, publisher Richard Bentley purchased the remaining copyrights to all of Austen'snovels and, beginning in either December 1832 or January 1833, published themin five illustrated volumes as part of his Standard Novels series. InOctober 1833, Bentley published the first collected edition of Austen's works. Sincethen, Austen's novels have been continuously in print.
In 1816, theeditors of The New Monthly Magazine noted Emma's publication butchose not to review it./>1.2Artistic and genre peculiarities of J. Austen's works
It brought herlittle personal renown because they were published anonymously. Although hernovels quickly became fashionable among opinion-makers, such as PrincessCharlotte Augusta, daughter of the Prince Regent, they received only a fewpublished reviews. Most of the reviews were short and on balance favourable,although superficial and cautious. They most often focused on the moral lessonsof the novels. Sir Walter Scott, a leading novelist of the day, contributed oneof them, anonymously. Using the review as a platform from which to defend thethen disreputable genre of the novel, he praised Austen's realism. The otherimportant early review of Austen's works was published by Richard Whately in1821. He drew favourable comparisons between Austen and such acknowledgedgreats as Homer and Shakespeare, praising the dramatic qualities of hernarrative. Whately and Scott set the tone for almost all subsequentnineteenth-century Austen criticism.
BecauseAusten's novels failed to conform to Romantic and Victorian expectations that«powerful emotion [be] authenticated by an egregious display of sound andcolour in the writing», nineteenth-century critics and audiences generallypreferred the works of Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Though Austen's novelswere republished in Britain beginning in the 1830s and remained steady sellers,they were not bestsellers.
One of thefirst two published illustrations of Pride and Prejudice, from the RichardBentley edition. Caption reads: «She then told him [Mr Bennett] what MrDarcy had voluntarily done for Lydia. He heard her with astonishment.»
Austen had manyadmiring readers in the nineteenth century who considered themselves part of aliterary elite: they viewed their appreciation of Austen's works as a mark oftheir cultural taste. Philosopher and literary critic George Henry Lewesexpressed this viewpoint in a series of enthusiastic articles published in the1840s and 1850s. This theme continued later in the century with novelist HenryJames, who referred to Austen several times with approval and on one occasionranked her with Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Henry Fielding as among «thefine painters of life».
The publicationof James Edward Austen-Leigh's A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869introduced Austen to a wider public as «dear aunt Jane», therespectable maiden aunt. Publication of the Memoir spurred the reissueof Austen's novels-the first popular editions were released in 1883 and fancyillustrated editions and collectors' sets quickly followed. Author and critic LeslieStephen described the popular mania that started to develop for Austen in the1880s as Austenolatry". Around the turn of the century, members of theliterary elite reacted against the popularization of Austen. They referred tothemselves as Janeites in order to distinguish themselves from themasses who did not properly understand her works. For example, James respondednegatively to what he described as «a beguiled infatuation» withAusten, a rising tide of public interest that exceeded Austen's «intrinsicmerit and interest».
During the lastquarter of the nineteenth century, the first books of criticism on Austen werepublished. In fact, after the publication of the Memoir, more criticismwas published on Austen in two years than had appeared in the previous fifty.
Severalimportant works paved the way for Austen's novels to become a focus of academicstudy. The first important milestone was a 1911 essay by Oxford Shakespeareanscholar A. C. Bradley, which is «generally regarded as the starting-pointfor the serious academic approach to Jane Austen». In it, he establishedthe groupings of Austen's «early» and «late» novels, whichare still used by scholars today. The second was R. W. Chapman's 1923 editionof Austen's collected works. Not only was it the first scholarly edition ofAusten's works, it was also the first scholarly edition of any English novelist.The Chapman text has remained the basis for all subsequent published editionsof Austen's works. With the publication in 1939 of Mary Lascelles's JaneAusten and Her Art, the academic study of Austen took hold. Lascelles's innovativework included an analysis of the books Jane Austen read and the effect of herreading on her work, an extended analysis of Austen's style, and her «narrativeart». At the time, concern arose over the fact that academics were takingover Austen criticism and it was becoming increasingly esoteric-a debate thathas continued to the beginning of the twenty-first century.
In a spurt ofrevisionist views in the 1940s, scholars approached Austen more sceptically andargued that she was a subversive writer. These revisionist views, together withF. R. Leavis's and Ian Watt's pronouncement that Austen was one of the greatwriters of English fiction, did much to cement Austen's reputation amongstacademics. They agreed that she «combined [Henry Fielding's and SamuelRichardson's] qualities of interiority and irony, realism and satire to form anauthor superior to both». The period since World War II has seen morescholarship on Austen using a diversity of critical approaches, including feministtheory, and perhaps most controversially, postcolonial theory. However, thecontinuing disconnection between the popular appreciation of Austen,particularly by modern Janeites, and the academic appreciation of Austen haswidened considerably.
Sequels,prequels, and adaptations of almost every sort have been based on the novels ofJane Austen, from soft-core pornography to fantasy. Beginning in the middle ofthe nineteenth century, Austen family members published conclusions to herincomplete novels, and by 2000 there were over 100 printed adaptations. Thefirst film adaptation was the 1940 MGM production of Pride and Prejudicestarring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. BBC television dramatisations,which were first produced in the 1970s, attempted to adhere meticulously toAusten's plots, characterisations, and settings. Starting with Emma Thompson's filmof Sense and Sensibility and the BBC's immensely popular TV mini-series Prideand Prejudice, a great wave of Austen adaptations began to appear around1995.
Books andscripts that use the general storyline of Austen's novels but change orotherwise modernise the story also became popular at the end of the twentiethcentury. For example, Clueless (1995), Amy Heckerling's updated versionof Emma, which takes place in Beverly Hills, became a culturalphenomenon and spawned its own television series.
/>2. Practical part II. J. Austen’s literary art and its role in Englishrealism/>2.1 The«Defense of the Novel»
In JaneAusten's era, novels were often depreciated as trash; Coleridge's opinion wasthat «where the reading of novels prevails as a habit, it occasions in timethe entire destruction of the powers of the mind». But Jane Austen oncewrote in a letter that she and her family were, and in her novel Northanger Abbey she gives her «Defenseof the Novel» (even though she is also making fun of the of many novelsof the era throughout Northanger Abbey).
It has beenpointed out that most novel-writers and the majority of novel readers werewomen (thus in Jane Austen calls a «sister author»), while the, wouldall have been men. So in Jane Austen's day, novels actually had something ofthe same reputation that mass-market romances do today.
``The progressof the friendship between Catherine [Morland] and Isabella was quick as itsbeginning had been warm… and if a rainy morning deprived them of otherenjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt,and shut themselves up, to read novels together. Yes, novels; — for I will notadopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, ofdegrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number ofwhich they are themselves adding — joining with their greatest enemies inbestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permittingthem to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel,is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine ofone novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expectprotection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the Reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure,and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with whichthe press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Althoughour productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than thoseof any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition hasbeen so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost asmany as our readers. And while the abilities of thenine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collectsand publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton,, and, with a paperfrom the Spectator, and a chapterfrom, are eulogized by a thousand pens, — there seems almost a general wish ofdecrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and ofslighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommendthem. «I am no novel-reader — I seldom look into novels — Do not imaginethat I often read novels — It is really very well for a novel.» — Such isthe common cant. — «And what are you reading, Miss — -?» «Oh! itis only a novel!» replies the young lady, while she lays down her book withaffected indifference, or momentary shame. «It is only CeciliaCamillaBelinda»; or, in short,only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in whichthe most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of itsvarieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the worldin the best-chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with avolume of the Spectator, insteadof such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name;though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of thatvoluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgusta young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in thestatement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics ofconversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language, too,frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that couldendure it.
"Pope":
Alexander Pope,1688-1744, a poet. Not a favorite of Marianne Dashwood's in Sense and Sensibility.
"Prior":
Matthew Prior,1664-1721, a poet and diplomat.
"Spectator":
A series ofessays originally published 1711-1712. Jane Austen attacks this favorite of theliterary elites as being open to much the same accusations which the elitesmake against popular novels.
/>2.2 JaneAusten's Limitations
«Let otherpens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can,impatient to restore every body, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerablecomfort.» — Mansfield Park
«I haveread [Byron's] The Corsair,mended my petticoat, and have nothing else to do.» — Jane Austen,
Jane Austenlimited her subject-matter in a number of ways in her (though her early andher letters often did not conform to these limitations; that she knew about anumber of things she did not choose to treat in her novels can also be seenfrom her glancing allusions to such topics as ). Many of these limitations aredue to her artistic integrity in not describing what she herself was notpersonally familiar with (or in avoiding clichéd plot devices common inthe literature of her day).
She never handlesthe (conventionally masculine) topic of politics.
She never usesservants, small tradesmen, cottagers, etc. as more than purely incidentalcharacters. Conversely, she does not describe the high nobility (the highestranking «on-stage» characters are ), and (unlike present-day writersof modern «Regency» novels, or some of her contemporaries) she doesnot describe London high society.
She confinesherself to the general territory that she herself has visited and is familiarwith (more or less the southern half of ). (See her )
In her novelsthere is no violence (the closest approaches are the duel between ColonelBrandon and Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility,in which neither is hurt, and the indefinite menacements of the Gypsies towardsHarriet Smith and Miss Bickerton in Emma),and no crime (except for the poultry-thief at the end of Emma).
She never usescertain hackneyed plot devices then common, such as mistaken identities,doubtful and/or aristocratic parentage, and hidden-then-rediscovered wills. In Emma, Harriet Smith's parentage is actuallynot very mysterious (as Mr. Knightley had suspected all along). Jane Austen hadexuberantly parodied this type of plot in Henryand Eliza, one of her :
[Wife tohusband:] «Four months after you were gone, I was delivered of this Girl,but dreading your just resentment at her not proving the Boy you wished, I tookher to a Haycock and laid her down. A few weeks afterwards, you returned, andfortunately for me, made no enquiries. Satisfied within myself of the wellfareof my Child, I soon forgot that I had one, insomuch that when we shortly afterwardfound her in the very Haycock I had placed her, I had no more idea of her beingmy own than you had.»
In Jane Austen's works there is hardly any male sexual predation orassaults on female virtue — a favorite device of novelists of the period (evenin a novel such as Evelina,which has no rapes or abductions to remote farmhouses, this is a constant theme).The only possible case is the affair between Willoughby and the younger ElizaWilliams in Sense and Sensibility(about which little information is divulged in the novel) — since of Pride and Prejudice and Maria Bertram of Mansfield Park more or less throw themselvesat and Henry Crawford respectively. Also, the elder Eliza Williams in Sense and Sensibility is more likely temptedastray because she is a weak personality trapped in a wretchedly unhappymarriage (remember that almost the only grounds for was the wife's infidelity),rather than because of any extraordinary arts or persuasions used by herseducer. And finally, whatever the complex of motives involved in the Mrs. Clay-Mr.Elliot affair in Persuasion, itcan hardly be regarded as the seduction of a female by a sexually predatorymale. In Jane Austen's last incomplete fragment, Sanditon,it is true that likes to think of himselfas a predatory male, but he is described as such an ineffectual fool that it isdifficult to believe that he would have accomplished any of his designs againstthe beauteous Clara Brereton, if Jane Austen had finished the work.
Note that allthese affairs take place entirely «off-stage» (except for a fewencounters of flirtation between Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford, long beforeshe runs away with him), and are not described in any detail.
No one dies«on stage» in one of her novels, and almost no one dies at all duringthe main period of the events of each novel (except for Lord Ravenshaw'sgrandmother in Mansfield Park andMrs. Churchill in Emma).
The illnessesthat occur ( in Pride and Prejudiceand Louisa Musgrove's in Persuasion)are not milked for much pathos (Marianne's in Senseand Sensibility is a partial exception, but Marianne is condemnedfor bringing her illness on herself). And Mrs. Smith in Persuasion (who takes a decidedlynon-pathetic view of her own illness) pours cold water on Anne Elliot's ideasof the «ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, [...], fortitude,patience, resignation» to be found in a sick-room. And in Sanditon, written while she was sufferingfrom, Jane Austen made fun of several hypochondriac characters.
«Mrs. F. A.has had one fainting fit lately; it came on as usual after eating a heartydinner, but did not last long.» — Jane Austen,
The only personwho actually faints in one of Jane Austen's novels is the silly Harriet Smithof Emma (since one rathersuspects the genuineness of the «fainting fit» that Lucy Steele isreported to have been driven into by the furious Mrs. John Dashwood, after thediscovery of Lucy's engagement to Edward Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility). On three occasions,Fanny Price of Mansfield Parkimagines to herself that she is on the point of fainting, and once ElinorDashwood thinks that her sister Marianne is about to faint, but neither Fannyor Marianne ever does. And Elinor Dashwood, at one critical moment in Sense and Sensibility, feels herself to be«in no danger of an hysterical fit or a swoon».
Jane Austen'sparsimony in faintings in her novels does not apply to her, where she mocksthe propensity to faint of the conventional novel-heroine of the day. SoElfrida in Frederic & Elfrida«fainted & was in such a hurry to have a succession of fainting fits,that she had scarcely patience enough to recover from one before she fell intoanother».
Notoriously,Jane Austen hardly ever quotes from a conversation between men with no womenpresent (or overhearing). However, despite some assertions that she never includes such dialogue, there is at least in Mansfield Park. (A less clearpossibility is Sir Thomas Bertram's chiding of his son Tom when he has to sellthe Mansfield clerical «living», in Chapter 3 of Mansfield Park)
She is alsosparing of describing the internal thoughts and emotions of male characters (thusin Pride and Prejudice, much of admirationfor is expressed by means of convenient conversations with ).
She is verysparing with (except to some degree in her last novel, Persuasion).
She tends to glide over the more passionatelyromantic moments of her characters, not describing closely lovers' embraces andendearments. So in the marriage proposal scene in Pride and Prejudice the quoted dialogue breaks off justbefore the critical point, giving way to the following report:. Similarly in Emma: «She spoke then, on being soentreated [with a proposal]. What did she say? Just what she ought, of course. Alady always does.» In fact Jane Austen had something of an aversion tosappy language; thus in Pride and Prejudiceshe has Mrs. Gardiner (in fact, the very same expression «violently inlove» that Austen saw fit to fob us off with later in the novel in theproposal scene!). Even in her more «romantic» last novel Persuasion, she still ruthlessly cut outWentworth's line «Anne, my own dear Anne!» from her, and replaced itwith less pointed narration in the final version of the text; and she almostmakes fun of her heroine Anne Elliot:
«Prettiermusings of high-wrought love and eternal constancy could never have passedalong the streets of Bath, than Anne was sporting with from Camden Place toWestgate Buildings. It was almost enough to spread purification and perfume allthe way.»
And in a letterof November 8th 1796, Jane Austen wrote «I have had a… letter fromBuller; I was afraid he would oppress me with his felicity & his love forhis wife, but this is not the case; he calls her simply Anna without anyangelic embellishments».
And Jane Austennever even mentions lovers kissing (an important moment in Emma is when Mr. Knightley fails to kiss Emma's hand), though Willoughbydoes kiss a lock of Marianne's hair in Senseand Sensibility. And Mr. Knightly touches Emma, causing a «flutterof pleasure» in Emma (thoughthey are not yet acknowledged lovers at this point).
See a (non-academic)Pride and Prejudice.
See an
Her heroinesalso famously .
One minor butinteresting point is that, though Jane Austen never used a Jewish character, ordiscussed Judaism in any way in her writings, she manages to strike a blow againstanti-Semitism anyway — her sole mention of Jews is the phrase «as rich asa Jew», used repetitively in NorthangerAbbey by John Thorpe (one of the most obnoxious and ridiculouscharacters in all her novels); significantly, the heroine Catherine Morlanddoes not at first understand what he means.
/>2.3 JaneAusten's literary reputation
Though shealways had her admirers, Jane Austen was not the most popular or mosthighly-praised novelist of her era (none of her novels were reprinted in Englishbetween 1818 and 1831), and she was not generally considered a great novelistuntil the late nineteenth century (). During her lifetime, boosted Jane Austenthrough his review of Emma, butnowadays it is Jane Austen who is used to boost Sir Walter Scott — JaneAusten's comments () on Scott's Waverleyhave been used as a back cover blurb for recent reprintings of Scott's novel.
One thing thatmany contemporary readers felt to be lacking in Jane Austen's novels was theirfailure to be `instructive' (i. e. to teach a moral), or `inspirational' (thatis «to elevate mankind by their depiction of ideal persons, even indefiance of the known realities of ordinary life» —, p.14). Jane Austenmakes fun of such didactic tendencies in her ending to Northanger Abbey: «I leave it to besettled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work bealtogether to recommend parental tyranny or reward filial disobedience.» Inher last work (Sanditon), she hasa very foolish character () criticize novels like those she herself writes as«vapid tissues of Ordinary occurrences from which no useful Deductions canbe drawn». Jane Austen also once said (in ) that «pictures ofperfection make me sick and wicked», and she satirized the frequent lackof realism in the literature of the day in her Planof a Novel: «there will be no mixture… the Good will beunexceptionable in every respect — and there will be no foibles or weaknessesbut with the Wicked, who will be completely depraved and infamous, hardly aresemblance of Humanity left in them». What many other contemporaryreaders did admire in Jane Austen's novels was their plausibility and depictionof real life — as opposed to the sensationalism, unlikely meetings betweenlong-lost relatives, villainous aristocratic would-be ravishers, etc. that werethe stock in trade of much of the literature of the period.
Thus one AnneRomilly wrote in 1814 that
"Mansfield park… has been pretty generallyadmired here, and I think all novels must be that are true to life which thisis… It has not however that elevation of virtue, something beyond nature,that gives the greatest charm to a novel."
In the Opinions of Mansfield Park, Jane Austenrecorded the comments of one Lady Gordon:
«In mostnovels you are amused for the time with a set of Ideal People whom you neverthink of afterwards or whom you the least expect to meet in common life,whereas in Miss A----'s works, & especially in M [ansfield] P [ark] you actually live with them, you fancy yourself one of thefamily; & the scenes are so exactly descriptive, so perfectly natural, thatthere is scarcely an Incident, or conversation, or a person, that you are notinclined to imagine you have at one time or other in your Life been a witnessto, borne a part in, & been acquainted with.»
In a letter ofMay 1813, soon after the publication of Prideand Prejudice, Annabella Milbanke (later Lady Byron) wrote in aletter that
«I havefinished the Novel called Pride and Prejudice,which I think a very superior work. It depends not on any of the commonresources of novel writers, no drownings, no conflagrations, nor runawayhorses, nor lap-dogs and parrots, nor chambermaids and milliners, norrencontres [duels] and disguises. I really think it is the most probable I have ever read. It is not acrying book, but the interest is very strong, especially for. The characterswhich are not amiable are diverting, and all of them are consistently supported.»
In 1815 oneWilliam Gifford wrote
«I havefor the first time looked into P. and P.;and it is really a very pretty thing. No dark passages; no secret chambers; nowind-howlings in long galleries; no drops of blood upon a rusty dagger — thingsthat should now be left to ladies' maids and sentimental washerwomen.»
/>Conclusion
Austen wrote her books at the dawn ofthe nineteenth century, when vast social changes were already encroaching onthe way of life she so loved and rendered with such exquisite artistry. We read her books today on the cusp of anew century, with an unfathomable world creeping up on us, too--one globallyinterconnected, technologically complex, economically uncertain. Perhaps we find on Austen's ruralestates and in her charming, insular society the samepeace and pleasure she found there; and an analogue for the simpler, morecircumscribed world of our own childhoods, itself passing quickly away intohistory. The time in which Jane Austen wrote her novels was a periodof great stability just about to give way to a timeof unimagined changes. At that time most of England'spopulation (some thirteen million) were involved in rural and agriculturalwork: yet within another twenty years, the majority of Englishmenbecame urban dwellers involved with industry, and thegreat railway age had begun. Throughout the early years of thecentury the cities were growing at a great rate; the network of canals was completed, themain roads were being remade. Regency London, in particular, boomedand became, among other things, a great centre offashion. On the other hand, England in the first decade of thenineteenth century was still predominantly a land of country towns andvillages, a land of rural routines which were scarcely touched by the sevencampaigns of the Peninsular War against Napoleon. But if Austen's age was stillpredominantly one of rural quiet, it was also the age of the French Revolution,the War of American Independence, the start of the Industrial Revolution, andthe first generation of the Romantic poets; and Jane Austen was certainly notunaware of what was going on in the world around her. She had two brothers in the Royal Navyand a cousin whose husband was guillotined in the Terror. And although her favourite prose writerwas Dr. Samuel Johnson, she clearly knewthe works of writers like Goethe, Worsdworth, Scott, Byron, Southey, Godwin andother, very definitely nineteenth-century, authors.
/>Bibliography
1. Southam, «Criticism, 1870-1940», TheJane Austen Companion, 102.
2. Lascelles, 2; for detail on «lower fringes»,see Collins, ix-x.
3. Lascelles, 4-5; MacDonagh, 110-28; Honan, 79, 183-85; Tomalin, 66-68.
4. Litz, 3-14; Grundy, «Jane Austen and LiteraryTraditions», The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, 192-93; Waldron,«Critical Responses, Early», Jane Austen in Context, p.83,89-90; Duffy, «Criticism, 1814-1870», The Jane Austen Companion,93-94. Litz, 142.
5. MacDonagh, 66-75; Collins, 160-161.
6. Honan, 124-27; Trott, «Critical Responses,1830-1970», Jane Austen in Context, 92.
7. Fergus, «Biography», Jane Austen inContext, 3-4.
8. Le Faye, «Letters», Jane Austen inContext, 33.
9. Le Faye, A Family Record, 270; Nokes, 1.
10. Le Faye, A Family Record, 279.
11. Fergus, «Biography», Jane Austen inContext, 3-4. Honan, 29-30.
12. Honan, 11-14; Tucker, «Jane Austen's Family»,The Jane Austen Companion, 143.
13. Tomalin, 6, 13-16, 147-51, 170-71; Greene,«Jane Austen and the Peerage», Jane Austen: A Collection ofCritical Essays, 156-57; Fergus, «Biography», Jane Austen inContext, 5-6; Collins, 10-11.
14. Irene Collins estimates that when George Austentook up his duties as rector in 1764, Steventon comprised no more than aboutthirty families. Collins, 86.
15. Honan, 14, 17-18; Collins, 54.
16. Fergus, «Biography», 3; Tomalin, 142; Honan, 23, 119.
17. MacDonagh, 50-51; Honan, 24, 246; Collins, 17.
18. Le Faye, Family Record, 22.
19. Tucker, «Jane Austen's Family», 147; LeFaye, Family Record, 43-44.
20. Le Faye, Family Record, 20.
21. Le Faye, Family Record, 27.
22. Tomalin, 7-9; Honan, 21-22; Collins, 86; LeFaye, Family Record, 19. Le Faye and Collins add that the Austensfollowed this custom for all of their children.
23. Le Faye, Family Record, 47-49; Collins,35, 133.
24. Tomalin, 9-10, 26, 33-38, 42-43; Le Faye, FamilyRecord, 52; Collins, 133-134.
25. Le Faye, «Chronology», 2-3; Grundy, «JaneAusten and Literary Traditions», 190-91; Tomalin, 28-29, 33-43, 66-67; Honan,31-34; Lascelles, 7-8. Irene Collins believes that Austen «used some ofthe same school books as the boys» her father tutored. Collins, 42.