Jane Austen [Paperback]

Tony Tanner (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674471741 | ISBN-13: 978-0674471740 | Publication Date: January 1, 1986

Devoted fans and scholars of Jane Austen--as well as skeptics--will rejoice at Tony Tanner's superb book on the incomparable novelist. Distilling twenty years of thinking and writing about Austen, Tanner treats in fresh and illuminating ways the questions that have always occupied her most perceptive critics. How can we reconcile the limited social world of her novels with the largeness of her vision? How does she deal with depicting a once-stable society that was changing alarmingly during her lifetime? How does she express and control the sexuality and violence beneath the well-mannered surface of her milieu? How does she resolve the problems of communication among characters pinioned by social reticences?

Tanner guides us through Austen's novels from relatively sunny early works to the darker, more pessimistic Persuasion and fragmentary Sanditon--a journey that takes her from acceptance of a society maintained by landed property, family, money, and strict propriety through an insistence on the need for authentication of these values to a final skepticism and even rejection. In showing her progress from a parochial optimism to an ability to encompass her whole society, Tanner renews our sense of Jane Austen as one of the great novelists, confirming both her local and abiding relevance.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Cambridge scholar Tanner sums up two decades of close reading in a series of cogent essays describing Austen's novels in relation to "society, education, and language." Included are revisions of his excellent introductions (for Penguin Books) to Mansfield Park , Sense and Sensibility , and Pride and Prejudice. Much of the commentary is grounded convincingly in traditional interpretation, but Tanner's most intriguing perceptions relate to recent critical speculation, especially in his chapter on Emma Woodhouse as socially "ec-centric" and hence in need of community. Recommended for both scholarly and general readers interested in Jane Austen. Starr E. Smith, Georgetown Univ. Lib., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

In a comprehensive volume embracing a lengthy chapter on each of Austen's six novels, as well as the unfinished fragment Sanditon, and a massive introduction focusing on the works 'in the relation to problems concerned with society, education, and language', Tanner reveals a Jane Austen far more subtle, experimental, politically engaged, philosophically aware, and psychoanalytically sophisticated than has hitherto been supposed. On almost every page there is an expected disclosure of meaning.
--Norman Fruman (Times Literary Supplement )

One of the most readable books yet to appear on Jane Austen, as well as the most interesting in itself...It is continuously sensitive to the feel of fictive domesticity, and the potential of a situation in terms of what goes on in modern life, and has gone on in other novels.
--John Bayley (London Review of Books )

This is the sort of intelligent study of a single author's oeuvre that has become uncommon in recent criticism. It is genuinely introductory as well as genuinely searching.
--David Bromwich (New Republic )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 291 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (January 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674471741
• ISBN-13: 978-0674471740
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,287,813 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent study on Jane Austen's novels, January 11, 2000

By 

M. Ramos - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jane Austen (Paperback)

This book is an interesting and insightful analysis on Jane Austen, her novels and her social and ideological milieu. After an introductory chapter on Jane Austen in relation with the Novel, Society, Education and Language, Tony Tanner dedicates the next chapters to a detailed study on Jane Austen's novels, including the incomplete Sandition. Tanner is highly effective in relating the historical, social and artistic circumnstances in Austen's time and how they influence the main themes and values present in her novels. As a result, the reader is able to have a clearer picture of Jane Austen and the evolution of both her writing style and her perspectives of society and the human person. Tanner has a clear style of writing, never losing the interest of the reader. A great work for the literary scholar and the general reader.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A glimpse of the author through her works..., July 13, 2000

By 

Dianne Foster "Di" (USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Jane Austen (Paperback)

Jane Austin was a Tory. She was born in 1775, the year of the American Revolution, lived through the French Revolution, the Jacobin 'Terror' and the Age of Napoleon, and died just after Waterloo. The quiet English countryside she knew and loved became imperiled by many factors during her lifetime.

Tanner, a reader at Cambridge, has written an insightful literary criticism about the seven novels Austen wrote (Sandition was incomplete at the time of her death). His book is written for the 'close' reader of Austen's work. I was introduced to his text in one of my courses on Austen.

For example, in his chapter on 'Mansfield Park' Tanner lays out the underpinnings of the story as one of conflict between the order of the rural countryside (Mansfield Park) versus the disorder of Portsmouth and the corrupting influence of London. Various characters stand for these places as well as the moral failings of society. The three sisters Mrs. Price (lust) represents Portsmouth, Mrs Norris (envy) and Mrs. Bertram (sloth) represent Mansfield Park on the verge of breakdown. The Crawfords (avarice) interlopers from London, reprent the alluring but treacherous ways of urban life. Fanny, Edmund, and Mr. Bertram represent the ordered rural life.

When asked what "Mansfield Park' was about, Ms. Austen replied it was about "ordination." The word ordination comes from the Latin word--ordo. Tanner says Ms. Austen, concerned "with the problem of how a true social order could be maintained, particularly in a troubled period, clearly considered the role of the clergyman as being of special importance."

Tanner says Mansfield Park is loaded with symbolism. For example, on a group walk Fanny stays on the straight and narrow path by remaining stationary on a bench, while Edmund and Mary Crawford walk the Serpintine path. Maria and Julia stray from the cultivated garden into the "wilderness" behind the iron gate with Henry Crawford.

Fanny Price wears an amber cross, a gift from her beloved brother William. She hangs it on a gold chain given her by Edmund. Wearing these two gifts over her heart gives her "inner peace."

Fanny is the center of the story. Although many readers may perceive her as a prig, she is a very complex character. She is Austen's source of Good Orderly Direction. At the end, Mr. Bertram the "lord" of Mansfield Park recognizes her as his "true" daughter.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought Provoking, January 2, 2006

By 

R. E. Whitlock - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jane Austen (Paperback)

I recently read a Penguin edition of Sense and Sensibility with an introduction by Tony Tanner. It was my enjoyment of that piece that made me seek this book out. Each chapter analyzes one of Austen's books, the unfinished Sanditon included. The introduction, with the assertion that in writing about civility Austen was really writing about civilization, and situating her work in its social and political climate, was particularly challenging. This broader picture was most welcome. I also liked how Dr. Tanner quoted and refuted Austen's detractors, and how he compared her stylistically to other authors of the era.