No Abiding Place: Jane Austen in Space & Time
Location
Wedgewood Conference Center, Room 4094
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
23-9-2014 1:00 PM
Description
Jane Austen, often conceived as surrounded by a timeless English countryside, in fact lived a nomadic existence, moving from place to place across her varied but 41 years. Her most important move was undoubtedly her penultimate one, in 1810, when she, along with her sister and mother, moved to Chawton cottage, where she was to revise her six novels. It is arguable that the six novels are a meditation about time and place — about change and nomadism — which that move to Chawton engendered. Sense and Sensibility, Austen’s first project to be completed, is the tale of three women whom time forces out of home into nomadism. Pride and Prejudice tells the story of triumphant nomadism through time. Other Austen novels take the dynamics of time and place in different directions. Emma is the cautionary tale of a mind which does not travel, as Emma Woodhouse is the weaker for thinking she can control her space and the passage of time. In these and other works, Austen interests herself in the dynamics of space and time — in how human beings respond to changes in place experienced through the passage of time.
Recommended Citation
Murray, Douglas, "No Abiding Place: Jane Austen in Space & Time" (2014). Humanities Symposium. 27.
https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium/2014/2014/27
No Abiding Place: Jane Austen in Space & Time
Wedgewood Conference Center, Room 4094
Jane Austen, often conceived as surrounded by a timeless English countryside, in fact lived a nomadic existence, moving from place to place across her varied but 41 years. Her most important move was undoubtedly her penultimate one, in 1810, when she, along with her sister and mother, moved to Chawton cottage, where she was to revise her six novels. It is arguable that the six novels are a meditation about time and place — about change and nomadism — which that move to Chawton engendered. Sense and Sensibility, Austen’s first project to be completed, is the tale of three women whom time forces out of home into nomadism. Pride and Prejudice tells the story of triumphant nomadism through time. Other Austen novels take the dynamics of time and place in different directions. Emma is the cautionary tale of a mind which does not travel, as Emma Woodhouse is the weaker for thinking she can control her space and the passage of time. In these and other works, Austen interests herself in the dynamics of space and time — in how human beings respond to changes in place experienced through the passage of time.
Comments
Convocation Credit: Academic Lecture