Jane Austen and her Predecessors

by Frank W. Bradbrook

• ISBN13: 9780521148252
• ISBN10: 0521148251
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-06-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This is a study of influences on Jane Austen's art and views of life. She assimilated and transformed certain writings of earlier essayists and novelists; she was herself a potent influence. Dr Bradbrook provides the literary critic with a fresh position from which to inspect the novels. He isolates several kinds of influence that had affect on Jane, which he inspects one by one. First there are the periodical essayists, the moralists in prose and the writers of conduct books. These were sources of general reflections on moral and social behaviour: and especially interesting to Jane Austen when they touched on the position of women. Dr Bradbrook sketches her knowledge of and taste in the drama and poetry of the eighteenth century. In the second half of the book Dr Bradbrook analyses the influence that earlier novelists had on Jane Austen. Useful appendices reproduce some of the rarer sources.

Table of Contents

Preface

The General Literary Tradition:

Periodicals

Moralists in prose

The picturesque

Drama and poetry

The Tradition in the Novel:

The beginnings

The feminist tradition

Other influences

Conclusion

Books for young ladies

Lady Sara Pennington's An Unfortunate Mother's Advice to Her Absent Daughters

Mrs Jane West's Letters to a Young Lady

William Gilpin: An Essay upon Prints

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.