Date of Award
2014
Publication Type
Master Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Department
English Language, Literature, and Creative Writing
Keywords
book history, gender, Jane Austen, libraries, reading practices, women's reading
Supervisor
Matheson, Suzanne
Rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This multi-disciplinary study of reading in Austen's Mansfield Park and Pride and Prejudice investigates the relationships of people, books, and ways of reading as represented in these books, placing them in the context of reading practices in Austen's time. The first chapter examines reading materials and reading spaces in Austen's period, showing how Austen's representation of books and libraries reveals character and social expectations. Chapter Two focuses on the reading practices of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, arguing that the way characters read sheds light on their social interactions. The performative aspect of reading, particularly reading aloud, is analyzed in Chapter Three, which compares the period's elocutionary, theatrical, and religious modes of performance. The final chapter expands the implications of reading and gender, linking the period's ideas of women's reading to Austen's representations of female readers. Reading enables Austen's heroines to interpret their worlds with greater accuracy and assurance.
Recommended Citation
Marzec, Joanna Claire Bell, "Reading Relationships in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and Pride and Prejudice" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5169.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/5169