Jane Austen - biography of the author
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Jane Austen
Jane Austen (eng. Jane Austen, it is possible to write Austen, 1775-1817) was an English novelist, harbinger of realism in British literature, the founder of the family, "lady a novel".
Her books are acknowledged masterpieces and win artless sincerity and simplicity of the plot, against the background of deep psychological penetration into the souls of heroes and ironic, soft, truly "English" humor.
Jane Austen is still rightfully considered the" First Lady " of English literature.
Her works are mandatory for study in all colleges and universities in the UK.
Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 in the town of Steventon, Hampshire.
Her father, George Austin, was a parish priest.
He came from an old Kentish family, was an enlightened and widely educated man.
His wife, Cassandra Lee, also belonged to an old but impoverished family.
In addition to Jane, there were six boys and one girl (Cassandra) in the family.
Jane Austen was the penultimate child.
With the high infant mortality rate in those years, all of them survived.
The older brother, James, had a penchant for literary pursuits: he wrote poetry and prose, but followed in his father's footsteps.
They preferred not to talk about the second brother, George, in the family: he was mentally disabled, he never learned to speak.
For his sake, Jane studied the alphabet of the dumb.
The third brother, Edward, was adopted by rich, childless relatives of the Austin Knights, which opened up wide opportunities for him — he moved from the gentry class to the nobility class.
The brightest and most romantic fate was that of Jane Austen's fourth, beloved brother, Henry Thomas.
A man who is fond of and not very practical, he has tried many professions in his lifetime: he served in the army, was a banker, initially succeeded, but then went bankrupt, took orders.
He was married to Eliza de Feyd, the widow of a French nobleman who ended his days on the guillotine.
Eliza had a lot of influence on Jane.
It is to Eliza that she owes a good knowledge of the French language and French authors: La Rochefoucauld, Montaigne, Labruyer, as well as a love of the theater.
Two other brothers, Francis and Charles, were sailors, rose to the rank of admiral.
But Jane had a special friendship with Cassandra.
She shared all her plans with her.
Cassandra, of course, knew the name of the person to whom Jane Austen was faithful, Jane died in Cassandra's arms.
Cassandra, like her sister, did not get married.
Her chosen one, a young priest Thomas Fowle, died of yellow fever in the West Indies, where he went in the hope of earning money for the upcoming wedding.
When he died, Cassandra was only twenty four years old.
Much less definite information is available about the writer herself.
The opinions of contemporaries even about her appearance are contradictory.
Jane is "not pretty at all, she is prim for her twelve years, capricious and unnatural," so her cousin Philadelphia said.
"She is attractive, pretty, thin and elegant, only her cheeks are a little round," said the brother of her close friend.
Cassandra's portrait of Jane is similar to this description.
Jane Austen loved dresses, balls, fun.
Her letters are full of descriptions of the styles of hats, stories about new dresses and gentlemen.
Fun was combined in her with a natural mind and a very good education, especially for a girl of her circle and position, who had not even graduated from school.
In the period from 1783 to 1786, she studied with Cassandra at Oxford, Southampton and Reading.
Jane had no luck with schools; in the first one, she and Cassandra suffered from the domineering temper of the headmistress, almost died after contracting typhus.
Another school in Reading, on the contrary, was run by a very good natured person, but the knowledge of the students was the last concern of her life.
After returning his daughters home, George Austin decided to take up their education himself and was very successful in this.
Skilfully directing their reading, he instilled in the girls a good literary taste, taught them to love classical authors, whom he knew perfectly well by his own occupation.
They were also fond of novels, reading such authors as Ridcharson, Fielding, Stern, Maria Edgeworth, Fanny Burney.
Among the poets, Cowper, Thomson, and Thomas Gray were preferred.
The formation of Jane Austen's personality took place in an intelligent environment — among books, constant conversations about them, discussions of what was read and what was happening.
Although the writer spent her entire short life in the provinces, Steventon, Bath, Chotan, Winchester, only occasionally traveling to London, the big world with its events and cataclysms: wars, uprisings, revolutions — constantly broke into the outwardly calm and measured existence of the daughter of an English priest.
There were the Napoleonic Wars, the War of Independence in North America, England was engulfed by an industrial revolution, the first Luddite demonstrations had already swept through it, Ireland was engulfed by uprisings.
Jane Austen was in a lively correspondence with her brothers, their wives, children, distant relatives, and some of them were direct participants in historical events.
The French Revolution radically changed the fate of Eliza de Feyd, the brothers Charles and Francis went to war with France.
Cassandra's fiance died in the West Indies; for several years, the son of the former governor of India, Warren Hastings, was raised in the Austin family.
The letters connected the English province with revolutionary France, unfamiliar and distant America, exotic India and gave Jane Austen invaluable material for her novels.
But in none of them is there a story about wars or revolutions, and the actions are never taken outside of England.
But the fact that she was guided by what was happening is especially noticeable in her last novel, "Arguments of Reason", where there are many sailors who have just returned to land after military operations, distinguished themselves in battles, sailed to the West Indies.
However, Austen did not consider herself competent to write in detail about the military operations and the beginning of the colonial expansion of England.
Restraint is not only a feature of the creative appearance of this writer, restraint is the basis of her entire life position.
And in this regard, it is important that Jane Austen came from a very English family in the atmosphere that reigned in it.
Here they were able to feel deeply, but at the same time they were restrained in expressing feelings.
The Reverend George Austin raised his daughters not only by Sunday sermons, but also by an everyday example — the spirit of a person should be above the hardships of life, diseases, hunger, poverty, death.
Life didnot spoil Austin too much.
At the age of thirty, Jane put on a cap, thereby announcing to the world that she was now an old maid who had said goodbye to the hopes of personal happiness, although she had been proposed to once.
The Austins had never been rich, and after their father's death, their circumstances became even more straitened.
Jane sewed the family, helped her mother with the housework.
The writer died on July 18, 1817 in Winchester, where she went to be treated for Addison's disease.
Before her death, she was trying to finish her last novel, "Sanditon".
Books by the author:
Out of series
Pride and pride
Pride and prejudice
Pride and prejudice and zombies
Arguments of reason
Leslie Castle
Lady Susan
Lady Susan
Love and friendship
Mansfield Park
Northanger Abbey
Mind and feelings and sea reptiles
Sanditon
Sense and sensitivity
Emma
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