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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.7
EAN num: 9781551111254
ISBN number: 155111125X
Label: Broadview Press
Manufacturer: Broadview Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 427
Printing Date: April 03, 2001
Publishing house: Broadview Press
Sale Popularity Level: 127765
Studio: Broadview Press
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Austen’s work has of course enjoyed a renaissance of interest, but whereas for many years it was Pride and Prejudice and Emma that were almost exclusively taught, recent critical attention and course curricula have increasingly found room for Austen’s other work, including the delightful and witty Sense and Sensibility. The story revolves around two sisters, Elinor and Marianne. Elinor is level-headed and self-controlled. Marianne is passionate and impulsive. When their father dies, his very first son by a previous marriage takes possession of the family home against the father’s dying wishes. Elinor, Marianne and their mother remove to a cottage and each sister meets a man in whom she is interested. As with other Austen novels, requited love does not come easily, and many revelations and a trip to London are needed before a resolution can be found.
When Sense and Sensibility very first appeared, the words of its title had enormous cultural weight: Austen was addressing–and also satirizing–notions of sensibility, the meaning of which, while akin to the current use of 'sensitivity,' was already a subject of debate. Sensibility had been considered the incorporation of reason and feeling, a virtue–according to many–that would lead people into correct and benevolent behavior and that marked them as intellectually and morally superior. However, by Austen’s day, there was already a concern about excessive sensibility, and most especially the effects of such excess on women. Sensibility had come to imply a susceptibility to illness, and untamed female sexuality (an association in part derived from The Memoirs of Emma Courtney in which Mary Hays’s heroine cultivates her feminine sensibility and offers herself sexually to the object of her affections). Indeed in Austen’s novels, characters of sensibility do not distinguish between bodily and mental sensation, leading Marianne to the questionable conclusion that she would be physically 'sensible' of any improper action. More recently, critics have found the 'sense' in Sense and Sensibility the more problematic term with the debate centering on whether Austen’s characterization of the self-controlled Elinor may have a satirical edge as well. James-Cavan addresses these questions and in the appendices, she includes materials from conduct books prescribing women’s behaviour.
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Jane Austen's 1811 novel, her very first published, "Sense and Sensibility," receives a grand treatment in this Broadview Literary Texts edition, edited by Kathleen James-Cavan. Anyone who knows me knows how I doat on Jane Austen, and for the very first time reading her in a Broadview edition, I find myself doating excessively. "Sense and Sensibility" was the very first public exposure of Austen's masterful characterization, plotting, and satire to reach the reading public of the Romantic Era. Austen thrives on what I like to call 'the middle of the book,' writing the situations that complicate the lives of her characters, better than almost anyone - almost, it seems, preferring getting her characters and readers in a position to learn from their mistakes, than actually getting them out.
"Sense and Sensibility" begins with the illogic of early 19th century British inheritance law. The hereditary owner of Norland Park is on his deathbed, and invites the heirs of his estate, the Dashwood family, to reside at Norland. The Dashwood's and their three daughters come to live there, but are put into jeopardy soon after by the demise of both Mr. Dashwoods - bringing the subsequent male heir (and the girls' half-brother), John Dashwood and his manipulative wife, Fanny to Norland. Greedy as they are, John and his wife soon drive their half-sisters, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret, along with their mother, out of Norland, Sussex, to the Devonshire countryside. Here in Devonshire, in a small cottage, and at a considerably reduced income, the Dashwood sisters and their mother struggle to rebuild their life, while the two eldest daughters, Elinor, 19, and Marianne, 17, try to deal with life and love in the English countryside.
Like the well-known "Pride (Darcy) and Prejudice (Bennet)," "Sense and Sensibility"s title can be seen to refer to the character traits that mark its two principle characters - Sense on the side of the Enlightenment-influenced, almost certainly emotionally-repressed Elinor, and the overfine Sensibility of Marianne, a great admirer of dead leaves and the dirty ground. As opposed to the former novel, Austen does not really disparage either, except when carried to excess, as each young woman does, instead seeking, as was popular during the period, to reconcile, or strike a balance between rational logic and emotional response. In their love affairs, Elinor's with a distant cousin, the diffident and somewhat mysterious 24-year old Edward Ferrars, and Marianne's with a younger, and very handsome rogue John Willoughby, the young ladies' moral, social, and aesthetic principles are put to the test. While Elinor and Marianne are two of the most cultured, educated, and refined characters in the novel, and while Austen certainly privileges the country over the London metropolis, she makes clear that the ladies' limited interaction with society at large leaves them in a kind of sheltered ignorance which they must come to terms with, both for their sakes and for the sake of their lovers.
Austen always does a great job with her minor characters, especially those who serve in comic relief roles - or as the butts of her satire, and "Sense and Sensibility" is no different. In their avarice and greed, John and Fanny Dashwood are the epitome of wholly uncultured social climbers and mindless landowners. In her less than refined, but wholly maternal attitudes toward the Miss Dashwoods, Mrs. Jennings (mother of the neglected, but ever cheerful wife Charlotte Palmer and the reticent to a fault Lady Middleton) is as amusing a character, and as warm a mother as one will find in Austen. Colonel Brandon is a fit counterpart to Mrs. Jennings, in his reserved melancholy, while caring just as much about those around him as Mrs. Jennings. The comic pairings of Mr. Palmer and Sir John Middleton with their wives is absolute genius, both being the mirror opposite in style and attitude to their wives - and in particular the relationship between the Palmers, including the continual laughing of Charlotte at the fact that Mr. Palmer "never listens to me" and "never tells me anything," is both highly entertaining, and at the same time, one of the most troubling relationships in the novel.
I've praised James-Cavan's handling of this Broadview edition, and now may be a good time to say some more on that head. Broadview and its editors, like the people who put together the Norton Critical Editions, concern themselves with really presenting literary texts in a solid foundation of cultural, theoretical, and critical contexts. "Sense and Sensibility" contains a real treasure trove of such material - the two contemporary reviews of Austen's novel from 1812, generous selections of essays from the late 1700's and early 1800's on contemporary debates on the meanings of the words "sense" and "sensibility," and on the cult of sensibility and the picturesque. Also included are exerpts from poems referenced by Marianne throughout ... Read More
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