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 9
... taste of Mrs Elton . But Emma and Mr Knightley adhere to the dignified ways of the country house and seek to maintain a decent regulation of meals , as of every other domestic concern . One critic sees it as a wider symbol of a system ...
... taste of Mrs Elton . But Emma and Mr Knightley adhere to the dignified ways of the country house and seek to maintain a decent regulation of meals , as of every other domestic concern . One critic sees it as a wider symbol of a system ...
Page 18
... taste more than sensible & Elegant Letters— . Lady Halifax thinks just like me . Camilla corresponds with her Daughters , and I beleive I may venture to say that they are none of them the worse for it . ' These ideas were too modern to ...
... taste more than sensible & Elegant Letters— . Lady Halifax thinks just like me . Camilla corresponds with her Daughters , and I beleive I may venture to say that they are none of them the worse for it . ' These ideas were too modern to ...
Page 30
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Page 33
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Page 37
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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