Philosophy
Jane Austen Austen completed six novels in her lifetime
The elegant writing style of novelist Jane Austen may have been the work of her editor, an academic has claimed.
Professor Kathryn Sutherland of Oxford University reached her conclusion while studying 1,100 original handwritten pages of Austen's unpublished writings.
The manuscripts, she states, feature blots, crossing outs and "a powerful counter-grammatical way of writing".
She adds: "The polished punctuation and epigrammatic style we see in Emma and Persuasion is simply not there."
Professor Sutherland of the Faculty of English Language and Literature claims her findings refute the notion of Austen as "a perfect stylist".
It suggests, she continues, that someone else was "heavily involved" in the editing process.
She believes that person to be William Gifford, an editor who worked for Austen's publisher John Murray II.
Jane Austen is widely celebrated as a supreme stylist - a writer of perfectly polished sentences.
Yet after studying more than a thousand handwritten pages of the novelist's unpublished manuscripts, Professor Kathryn Sutherland of Oxford University has concluded that Austen's style was far more free-flowing and featured a limited range of punctuation.
Letters between Austen's publisher and an editor who worked with him acknowledge the untidiness of her writing.
According to Professor Sutherland, they suggest it was the editor who then intervened to sharpen the prose of one of English Literature's most popular writers.
The research formed part of an initiative to create an online archive of all of Austen's handwritten fiction manuscripts.
The three-year project - in which King's College London, the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the British Library in London were involved - is due to be launched on 25 October.
Professor Sutherland, an Austen authority, said studying her unpublished manuscripts gave her "a more intimate appreciation" of the author's talents.
The manuscripts, she went on, "reveal Austen to be an experimental and innovative writer, constantly trying new things."
They also show her "to be even better at writing dialogue and conversation than the edited style of her published novels suggest."
Jane Austen (1775-1817) completed six novels in her lifetime, two of which were published posthumously.
- Jane Austen Was More Than A Novelist...she Was A Moral Philosopher
"Reading Jane Austen as a Moral Philosopher" by Thomas Rodham January/February 2013 Philosophy Now Jane Austen (1775-1817) wrote delicious romantic comedies about middle-class girls looking for good husbands among the landed gentry of Regency England....
- Jane Austen: Moral Philosopher?
"Jane Austen, philosophical psychologist"by Rose WoodhouseMarch 14th, 2012The League of Ordinary GentlemenHere’s kind of an odd, but very interesting post, arguing that Jane Austen is a better moral philosopher than a writer, and she’s not a writer...
- Nbc University Theater Of The Air...quality Radio Adaptations Of Classic Literature
If you've ever desired to read the classics but can't seem to find the time, these shows are a great alternative. Almost all have survived in good audio quality. In 1944, NBC brought WORLD'S GREAT NOVELS to radio, offering high quality...
- Babylon's Nineveh, Austen Henry Layard, Asteroid
Austen Henry Layard March 5th, 1817 to July 5th, 1894 In 3123 BC, a Sumerian astronomer saw a devastating asteroid, perhaps a half-mile wide, according to an interpretation of a clay tablet, made by researchers from Bristol University, reported in The...
- "a Is For Atom"
Just six years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki we had begun the "atomic age" here represented by A Is for Atom in animated format and complete with sophomoric atomic physics. Have to start somewhere I guess. This 1953 film is a John Sutherland Productions...
Philosophy
Jane Austen exposed?
"Jane Austen's style might not be hers, academic claims"
by
Rebecca Jones
October 22nd, 2010
BBC NEWS
by
Rebecca Jones
October 22nd, 2010
BBC NEWS
Jane Austen Austen completed six novels in her lifetime
The elegant writing style of novelist Jane Austen may have been the work of her editor, an academic has claimed.
Professor Kathryn Sutherland of Oxford University reached her conclusion while studying 1,100 original handwritten pages of Austen's unpublished writings.
The manuscripts, she states, feature blots, crossing outs and "a powerful counter-grammatical way of writing".
She adds: "The polished punctuation and epigrammatic style we see in Emma and Persuasion is simply not there."
Professor Sutherland of the Faculty of English Language and Literature claims her findings refute the notion of Austen as "a perfect stylist".
It suggests, she continues, that someone else was "heavily involved" in the editing process.
She believes that person to be William Gifford, an editor who worked for Austen's publisher John Murray II.
Jane Austen is widely celebrated as a supreme stylist - a writer of perfectly polished sentences.
Yet after studying more than a thousand handwritten pages of the novelist's unpublished manuscripts, Professor Kathryn Sutherland of Oxford University has concluded that Austen's style was far more free-flowing and featured a limited range of punctuation.
Letters between Austen's publisher and an editor who worked with him acknowledge the untidiness of her writing.
According to Professor Sutherland, they suggest it was the editor who then intervened to sharpen the prose of one of English Literature's most popular writers.
The research formed part of an initiative to create an online archive of all of Austen's handwritten fiction manuscripts.
The three-year project - in which King's College London, the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the British Library in London were involved - is due to be launched on 25 October.
Professor Sutherland, an Austen authority, said studying her unpublished manuscripts gave her "a more intimate appreciation" of the author's talents.
The manuscripts, she went on, "reveal Austen to be an experimental and innovative writer, constantly trying new things."
They also show her "to be even better at writing dialogue and conversation than the edited style of her published novels suggest."
Jane Austen (1775-1817) completed six novels in her lifetime, two of which were published posthumously.
- Jane Austen Was More Than A Novelist...she Was A Moral Philosopher
"Reading Jane Austen as a Moral Philosopher" by Thomas Rodham January/February 2013 Philosophy Now Jane Austen (1775-1817) wrote delicious romantic comedies about middle-class girls looking for good husbands among the landed gentry of Regency England....
- Jane Austen: Moral Philosopher?
"Jane Austen, philosophical psychologist"by Rose WoodhouseMarch 14th, 2012The League of Ordinary GentlemenHere’s kind of an odd, but very interesting post, arguing that Jane Austen is a better moral philosopher than a writer, and she’s not a writer...
- Nbc University Theater Of The Air...quality Radio Adaptations Of Classic Literature
If you've ever desired to read the classics but can't seem to find the time, these shows are a great alternative. Almost all have survived in good audio quality. In 1944, NBC brought WORLD'S GREAT NOVELS to radio, offering high quality...
- Babylon's Nineveh, Austen Henry Layard, Asteroid
Austen Henry Layard March 5th, 1817 to July 5th, 1894 In 3123 BC, a Sumerian astronomer saw a devastating asteroid, perhaps a half-mile wide, according to an interpretation of a clay tablet, made by researchers from Bristol University, reported in The...
- "a Is For Atom"
Just six years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki we had begun the "atomic age" here represented by A Is for Atom in animated format and complete with sophomoric atomic physics. Have to start somewhere I guess. This 1953 film is a John Sutherland Productions...