Posted on 03/21/2017 7:34:20 AM PDT by C19fan
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that anyone in want of attention could do worse than take possession of Jane Austen.
We’ve already had Austen and zombies, Austen and game theory, Austen and guinea pigs.
Now, a scholar has offered another spit-take-inducing pairing: Jane Austen and the alt-right.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
That's because she was more Romantic--feelings more important than facts, primitive people are inherently pure, "beauty" is found in the grotesque and exotic--than Christian or Aristotelian, which is where Western Civilization was until about 1800.
Among 1800s female authors, Austen was at the Christian end, Wollstonecraft at the Romantic end, and George Eliot (who was less of a George than Boy George) was somewhere in the middle.
And I do not believe that she has ever been out of contemporary print.
I disagree. One does not have to read Jane Austin with any preconceived picture of contemporary society, in the period in which she wrote. Her keen eye, and literary competence conveys that picture with great clarity. And she does not go off on crack-pot tangents as do so many present day writers, both men & women, postulating ways to project some warped perception.
Conservatives should relish Austen, while Leftist loathe her.
Unmarried youth were expected to be chaste, respectable, subordinate to elders, religious, and productive.
Marriage was pursued with great seriousness & urgency. Leeching off parents, or loitering about with amusements, was frowned on - not because for casual accusations of idleness, but because survival depended on either productivity or familial wealth.
Fornication, if discovered, ruined one’s prospects.
Marrying up was encouraged; marrying for basic sustenance was a minimum. It wasn’t about feelings, it was about survival.
Austen’s heroines _did_ pursue feelings into marriage, but only because the available prospects ensured survival whichever choice she made; falling in passionate love for the guy who was filthy stinking absurdly rich was a bonus on top of adhering to all other social requirements.
The supporting characters who went after gambling & fornication were quickly cut off, while paid enough to get their lives straight long enough to politely get out of everyone else’s.
The saddest cases still managed to achieve union and self-sufficiency, coupled with someone who while maybe not affectionate did act with respect & responsibility.
That’s all quite “conservative”.
Leftists would be understandably outraged that society would press so hard for of-age children to seek out a permanent heterosexual church-sanctioned union, with women hoping for an economic step up and men seeking a submissive helpmate with desirable appearance. Furthermore, they would (and by their own axioms, should) be aghast at the severe rejection of anyone engaged in promiscuity, gender fluidity, unproductive occupations, etc.
Heck, as a “so conservative I’m to the right of the Tea Party” & “I’ve got a knife, let’s go camping” male, _I’m_ an Austen fan.
Per #22, feminiSTS would hate Austen, but feminiNE love her - and accordingly would men who prefer one or the other.
That’s a very good analysis. It’s interesting that if you watch modern Asian television shows - even those from “Communist’ China - you see most of these same virtues rewarded and vices punished. But American television, in its obsession with celebrating deviance, seems to go out of its way to reject even the slightest hint of Austen-like culture.
Those are my favorites too although Clancy is still my number 1 go too.....too bad Hollywood ruined some of his books on film, most notibly, Sum of All Fears.
Hah! I often remark that Pope Francis takes immense pride in his humility but it goes over most people's heads. They think that's praise.
Agreed...and Ben Affleck as Ryan???? Gimme a break!!!!!
Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games are the best of the movies, IMO...
I like some if the new story lines with Jack Jr. And Ryan as President... but those storylines are way to conservative for the snowflakes in Hollywood. I doubt they'll ever make another really good Clancy movie.....
Well, her use of the term ‘baseball’ in Northanger Abbey in 1798-9 is the first time the word appeared in print.
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