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At the Time Jane Austen's Novels Were Published - Between

question 16

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At the time Jane Austen's novels were published - between 1811 and 1818 - English literature was not part of any academic curriculum. In addition, fiction was under strenuous attack. Certain religious and political groups felt novels had the power to make so called immoral characters so interesting young readers would identify with them; these groups also considered novels to be of little practical use. Even Cole-ridge, certainly no literary reactionary, spoke for many when he asserted that "novel-reading occasions the destruction of the mind's power". These attitudes towards novels help explain why Austen received little attention from early nineteenth century literary critics. (In any case, a novelist published anonymously, as Austin was, would not be likely to receive much critical attention) . The literary response that was accorded her, however, was often as incisive as twentieth century criticism. In his attack in 1816 on novelistic portrayals "outside of ordinary experience", for example, Scott made insightful remarks about the merits of Austen's fiction. Her novels, wrote Scott, "present to the reader an accurate and exact. picture of ordinary everyday people and places, reminiscent of seventeenth - century Flemish painting. " Scott did not use the word "realistic probability in judging novels. The critic whitely did not use the word realism either, but he expressed agreement with Scott's evaluation, and went on to suggest the possibilities for moral instruction in what we have called Austen's realistic method. Her characters, wrote whitely, are persuasive agents for moral truth since they are ordinary persons "so clearly evoked that was feel an interest in their fate as if it were our own" Moral instruction, explained Whitely, is more likely to be effective when conveyed through recognizably human and interesting characters then when imparted by a sermonizing narrator. Whately especially praised Austen's ability to create characters who "mingle goodness and villainy, weakness and virtue, as in life they are always mingled. "Whately concluded his remarks by comparing Austen's art of characterization to Sicken's, stating his preference for Austin's. often anticipated the reservations of twentieth-century critics. An example of such a response was Lewes' complaint in 1859 that Austen's range of subjects and characters was too narrow. Praising her verisimilitude, Lewes added that nonetheless her focus was too often upon only the unlofty and the common place. (Twentieth-century Marxists, on the other hand, were to complain about what they saw as her exclusive emphasis on a lofty upper-middle class) in any case, having been rescued by some literary critics from neglect and indeed gradually lionized by them, Austen's steadily reached, by the mid-nineteenth century, the enviable pinnacle of being considered controversial. The passage supplies information to suggest that the religious and political groups mentioned and Whately might have agreed that a novel

Definitions:

Depression

A mental health disorder characterized by persistent feelings of sadness, loss, and lack of interest in everyday activities.

Factorial Designs

Experimental strategy that involves testing more than one independent variable at the same time, to study their effects and interactions.

Independent Variable (IV)

A variable in an experiment that is manipulated by the researcher to observe its effect on the dependent variable.

Levels

Refers to the different values or states that an independent variable can take on in an experiment or study.