Saturday 6 September 2014

A reply to Louise's latest post about tagging book situations and that Jane Austen one

Firstly

Matthew Macfadyen reflecting how I feel when Austen is hated on 

Okay now that's out of the way and thanks for the support there Darcy.

Sorry Lou but your photo saying Austen is a Bronte wannabe? Totally historically inaccurate. Austen was alive from 1775 until her death in 1817 whereas Bronte, depending on which of the three sisters and the brother you're on about were alive in the Victorian era so 1816, 1818 and 1820 were their years of birth. So technically they're the Austen wannabes.  (I am a diehard Austen fan, you will not win this argument)

Below is a direct quote from Lou's blog and I'm not ashamed to admit I do partially hate her for this post. However it is her opinion so she's entitled to it. Sorry Lou I'm just pointing out a few errors in your post though.
Fee is gonna absolutely hate me for this but I cannot see the appeal of this woman. I find her novels fluffy and very very "shallow" is probably the best word for it. Sure I agree with themes of familial and romantic love but she lacks the depth of Bronte' within these relationships. I think Austen is one of those classics that is no longer relevant. She can be as great as she was back then but people no longer need to learn the lessons in her books as those lessons were fully constructed by her society and status at the time, therefore diminishing the amount of people who relate to it year after year. 
- See more at: http://halleloujah.blogspot.co.uk/#sthash.GUkgyx75.dpuf
Okay so I'm not sure whether Lou is discussing the romantic works of Anne Bronte (Tenant of Wildfell Hall) or the Twilight plugged Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights - EUGH!) or lastly  Charlotte who wrote Jane Eyre aka the book that had a woman fall for a man who was ALREADY MARRIED to a woman that tries to kill everyone! Also they end up together after she discovers she's a rich heiress and he's now a penniless disgraced man only because he's disabled due to the Victorian era's strict social standing.

So that's my small rant over there on Bronte. Austen however writes during the Regency era, a time period also known as the romantics because we appreciated nature and we had just gotten out of the age of enlightenment aka standardising our language (Thank you Dr Samuel Johnson for the dictionary!). But socially the class structure was not as bad as the Victorians. It was rather swell really. We had gentlemen, gentlewomen and such. Look at Sense and Sensibiliy. It follows the Dashwood's and their move from a "big" house to a small cottage in the country. Their older half-brother (from an earlier marriage) inherits the lot and has to provide a yearly allowance for them and so yeah he's now the head of the family. So the Dashwoods (A mother and her three daughters) are living on a sum of money less than they're used to but only their mother truly complains about it. Elinor is busy trying to keep everyone happy and Marianne is just being Marianne.

There is depth to Austen's representations of love. She shows that opposites do attract, that first impressions change a lot (And it does!) and that there are second chances at love. In all fairness Austen wrote the major plots for all romance novels so nowadays we are technically rewriting her novels.

Jane Eyre is practically a rewrite of Persuasion. Both protagonists love a man they can't have but still end up with him by the end. It's the same with Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights in how it's a rewrite of Mansfield Park. Heathcliff is taken in the same way as Fanny and they develop a romantic relationship/feelings for someone higher in class then themselves etc.


And so I'm just going to leave you with this darling of a photo:
matthew macfadyen is just so beautiful as a hipster







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