Context for Sense and Sensibility (AO3) (UNFINISHED)

Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women (1766)

Fordyce instructs women to be dutiful, submissive and modest in dress and behaviour

A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)

Mary Woollstonecraft

A strong critic to the work of Fordyce.

Attacked the prevailing view of docile, decorative femininity, and instead laid out the principles of emancipation: an equal education for girls and boys, an end to prejudice, and for women to become defined by their profession, not their partner.

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787)

Mary Wollstonecraft

Wollstonecraft argued that women within the gentry/aristocracy were ill-prepared for the world and were disadvantaged by a system that did not benefit or provide for them. Also she said that upper class women’s education focused on developing ‘feeling’ rather than ‘understanding’ leaving them vulnerable to excessive responsibility.

Concept of private and public places in the regency era

There were limited opportunities for a man and a woman to speak privately without being subject to severe scrutiny.

Dancing with a partner numerous times indicated that you were interested.

It was like a surveillance state.

What was the ‘cult’ of sensibility developed in the 18th century?

Novels like ‘A Sentimental Journey’ (1768) by Laurence Sterne and ‘The Man of Feeling’ (1771) by Henry Mckenzie were extremely popular.

In these novels, the beauty of nature and a (perhaps over-) sensitivity to human suffering are shown to have a generally beneficial effect.

How did Sense and Sensibility begin when Austen first started writing it?

It was supposed to be an epistolary novel called ‘Elinor and Marriane’ in 1795. It was then redrafted as Sense and Sensibility in 1797.

When was Sense and Sensibility published?

1811

What novel, also published in 1811, inspired Austen’s novel ‘Plan of a Novel’ written in 1815-1816?

Self control by Mary Brunton, which Austen refers to as the kind of work against which her own novels are written.

How could you describe Austen’s style of writing novels

Social Realism

The Female Instructor (1811)

Conduct manual for women that covered courtship and marriage.

It encouraged women to engage with men who were interested in them and demonstrates how within Austen’s society it was frowned upon to reject advances. Men were in control of the courtship process.

Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice (1813)

In Pride and Prejudice Charlotte Lucas marries Mr Collins not out of love but economic and societal necessity.

The alternative to marriage… ‘loneliness and poverty’ (Janet Todd)