this is why movies skew things so badly. jane austen is not a romance. she's not the nora roberts of the victorian era. in fact, mansfield park has the only real romantic lead that she has done (err, so some scholars aqrgue anyway). when she tried to write a conventional romantic heroine, she didn't do as well as with the witty elizabeth bennet.
i loved emma. the ending broke my heart, but it was expected. i felt it fit the series perfectly and the minute eleanor said that last thing to will, i knew.
i was thinking of doing a ficlet, just a one-shot, an epilogue in the syle of George Eliot. i think i might when i'm finished reading middlemarch. but sorry, i nearly screamed when i saw you say that austen's work was romance. not at all, not in the way we think of romance. the movies are, but it's quite different on paper. she also doesn't focus on social divisions as much as she ridicules the whole aspect of courting and all that surrounds those silly rituals.
give victorian novels a chance. they won't let you down. :)
They're not romances? Everything I've ever seen or heard or read about Jane Austen portrays most of her stuff as romantic stories. The films for Sense & Sensibility, Mansfield Park and Emma were totally about various characters' love lives.
But, that might just be the films as you said. I haven't read them.
sorry, i nearly screamed when i saw you say that austen's work was romance. not at all, not in the way we think of romance.
How do you mean the way we think of romance? How do you think of it?
I think any story where the main plot/conflict or one of the two or three main plots/conflicts involves one or more relationships of romantic or sexual nature is a romance.
Well, I guess if you define it in those terms it applies, but I still hesitate to call it that because people think of nora roberts when they think romance novel. Yes, they all had to do with relationships, but really all victorian novels by women did (actually, most novels by women did), because that was the spectrum of women. Therefore, I don't call it that, because it gives that perception that there's nothing else behind victorian novels. Jane Austen's novels criticized society, often times ridiculed the way courting happen, and so on. The way they come off in the movies misses some of the humor and cynicism of it. So your definition of romance applies only to a small extent.
For example, George Eliot could fall under the same category, but I fail to see her books as just romances. They delve into the characters so deeply, that yes the relationships take center place a lot of times, but so do the politics, family conflicts, etc.
I don't know. Just the way you dismissed it, I thought you might be thinking of it like it's portrayed in the movies or a nora roberts type of thing, and that's not the case at all. I have no idea if I've made myself clear, but I'm at work and can't look over this.
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timepiececlock) wrote2005-07-26 09:54 pm
Re: *hug back*
i loved emma. the ending broke my heart, but it was expected. i felt it fit the series perfectly and the minute eleanor said that last thing to will, i knew.
i was thinking of doing a ficlet, just a one-shot, an epilogue in the syle of George Eliot. i think i might when i'm finished reading middlemarch. but sorry, i nearly screamed when i saw you say that austen's work was romance. not at all, not in the way we think of romance. the movies are, but it's quite different on paper. she also doesn't focus on social divisions as much as she ridicules the whole aspect of courting and all that surrounds those silly rituals.
give victorian novels a chance. they won't let you down. :)
Re: *hug back*
But, that might just be the films as you said. I haven't read them.
sorry, i nearly screamed when i saw you say that austen's work was romance. not at all, not in the way we think of romance.
How do you mean the way we think of romance? How do you think of it?
I think any story where the main plot/conflict or one of the two or three main plots/conflicts involves one or more relationships of romantic or sexual nature is a romance.
Re: *hug back*
For example, George Eliot could fall under the same category, but I fail to see her books as just romances. They delve into the characters so deeply, that yes the relationships take center place a lot of times, but so do the politics, family conflicts, etc.
I don't know. Just the way you dismissed it, I thought you might be thinking of it like it's portrayed in the movies or a nora roberts type of thing, and that's not the case at all. I have no idea if I've made myself clear, but I'm at work and can't look over this.