Jane Austen and LeisureJane Austen's novels portray a leisured society of gentlemen and ladies who do not need to work. Even the minority of clergymen, soldiers and sailors - men with professions - are almost never seen working. Jane Austen herself, despite responsibility for some domestic tasks, wrote as a woman of leisure. Yet leisure, the distinguishing mark of a gentleman, was not meant to be an excuse for idleness. The proper use of leisure to fulfil duties, to read and to think, and above all to pursue social relations in a world where family and marriage for the propertied was of central importance, was a vital test of character. |
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Page xii
... important to realise that it is happening , that people are often busier than they seem , though the resourcefulness and utility of the activity will depend on who is performing it - and indeed it is often in itself used as an ...
... important to realise that it is happening , that people are often busier than they seem , though the resourcefulness and utility of the activity will depend on who is performing it - and indeed it is often in itself used as an ...
Page xiii
... important responsibility , perhaps , was to ensure that the social life of the neighbourhood was so ordered that the young people for whom they were responsible had plenty of opportunities to meet and get to know each other so that ...
... important responsibility , perhaps , was to ensure that the social life of the neighbourhood was so ordered that the young people for whom they were responsible had plenty of opportunities to meet and get to know each other so that ...
Page xiv
... important at a time when those people who had money could find a great many ways of spending it . Jane Austen was born in the last quarter of a century that saw an unprecedented expansion of the national economy . Vast increases in ...
... important at a time when those people who had money could find a great many ways of spending it . Jane Austen was born in the last quarter of a century that saw an unprecedented expansion of the national economy . Vast increases in ...
Page xv
... important result of this expansion was the need for regulation . It is a paradox that , as they sought to attract an ever wider audience , the purveyors of leisure also wanted to foster its social status . This could of course be done ...
... important result of this expansion was the need for regulation . It is a paradox that , as they sought to attract an ever wider audience , the purveyors of leisure also wanted to foster its social status . This could of course be done ...
Page xx
... importance to this particular study . The second chapter deals with the world of public leisure . In the pleasure garden , the spa and the seaside resort ( which was eventually to eclipse both of them ) we have the most obvious ...
... importance to this particular study . The second chapter deals with the world of public leisure . In the pleasure garden , the spa and the seaside resort ( which was eventually to eclipse both of them ) we have the most obvious ...
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Common terms and phrases
amusement assemblies aunt Austen-Leigh ball Bath Bennet brother Captain Wentworth cards Cassandra characters charade Charles Chawton Country Dancing course daughter delightful Donwell Edmund eighteenth century Elton Emma Emma Watson Emma's Fanny Burney feel Frank Churchill gardens give Godmersham Harriet Henry heroine Highbury hunting Ibid James Edward Jane Austen Jane Austen Society Jane Fairfax John kind Knightley Knightley's Lady Bertram later Lefroy leisure letter lived London look Lord Lybbe Powys Lyme Mansfield Park Marianne marry Martha Lloyd Mary Crawford Mary Lloyd Miss Bates moral needlework never niece night Northanger Abbey novel party perhaps pianoforte play pleasure poem popular Pride and Prejudice resort Sanditon scene seaside Sense and Sensibility sister social Steventon taste theatre theatricals thing Thomas Tilney Tom Bertram verse Weston wife woman Woodhouse writing young ladies