Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 259-267).

Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 250-262).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Mississippi, 2009. / Typescript. Vita. "July 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-141). Also available online via ProQuest to authorized users.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

This study of Jane Austen's six novels examines the relationship of comedy and education. Austen carefully constructs two kinds of comedy in her novels: surface comedy derived from inaccurate perceptions and conceptions of the world, and deep comedy, the vital rhythm of growth which is elaborated as growing love and self-awareness. All six novels develop complex relationships between reason, emotion, imagination, aesthetics and ethics. In Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland, victimized by the sterile surface comedy of artificial social conventions and her Gothic fantasy, an artificial aesthetic convention, moves toward a recognition of the deep comedy and vitality which her love for Henry Tilney inspires. Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility perceives and judges the superficialities of life and reacts in an emotional and picturesque fashion, while her sister, Elinor, in love with Edward Ferrars, cannot give surface expression to her emotions. Each sister is educated through tragicomic experiences to the demands of both views of life. Elizabeth Bennett and Darcy, victims of the prevailing social delusion of objectification in Pride and Prejudice, gradually develop a sense of the deeper values in life through expanded aesthetic sensibility and mutual affection. Fanny Price in Mansfield Park possesses deep feelings for Edmund Bertram but must learn to be independent and give her emotions sincere expression in a society deluded by false ceremony. Emma presents surface comedy as a product of Emma's attempt to superimpose her imagined life-patterns on a benevolent world. Educated by sympathy and her attachment to Mr. Knightley, Emma recognises the world below Highbury's glittering surface and the necessity for maintaining society's existing structures. In Persuasion, Anne Elliot achieves surface expression and the capacity to act as Wentworth, a victim of society's delusions of fixed social place, comes to realize the depth of Anne's emotion. Jane Austen's novels portray a complex picture of education through the interaction of surface and deep comedy. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Critics of Jane Austen can be divided into three groups. The first group, which includes W. H. Helm, Sheila Kaye-Smith and G. B. Stern regards Marianne Dashwood as Jane Austen's only passionate heroine. Her other heroines are condemned for their common sense by these critics, who contend that love is an irrational phenomenon. Love and reason, they believe, are mutually exclusive. Jane Austen saw love as a marriage of these two facets of man's being. Aware of its duality, at once both emotional and rational, she saw the inadequacies (and dangers) of "love" which based itself solely on passion. Mr. Bennet is one of Austen's examples of a man who has failed to assess his chosen mate intelligently, and his subsequent life with her demonstrates the deficiency of a concept of love which does not involve use of the mind as well as of the heart. For Jane Austen, "to feel" was not enough. Marianne Dashwood, her so-called "passionate" heroine, is not meant to be admired, but is a satiric target, for Marianne despises any use of reason in the process of falling in love. For Jane Austen, she represents the antithesis of genuine love. The second group, among them Charlotte Brontë, Virginia Woolf, and Marjory Bald, sees no passion at all in Jane Austen's novels. They are considered to be "dry", "dusty", and superficial, and are said to ignore "[v]ice, adventure, passion." It is undoubtedly the subtlety of their presentation which has misled the critics. Jane Austen's sensitive artistry precluded a lengthy exposition of feeling. She provides us with the material necessary to complete the picture by suggesting and leading up to the direct expression of emotion, rather than expressing the emotion itself. The presentation is in fact an extension of her concept, for the truly passionate have not the capacity for facile articulation. Intense emotions cannot be easily expressed. The interplay of surface tensions conveys the strong undercurrents of emotion. Jane Austen's evocative technique reveals their existence, but neither she nor her best characters will wallow in the sensational slough which is thought by many to be the proper resting place for the passionate. The third group, whose first spokesman was Sir Walter Scott, and whose current advocate is Marvin Mudrick, views the marriages of Jane Austen's heroes and heroines as financial mergers, and not as unions of love. Her recognition of the economic pressures operating on her characters is misinterpreted, and seen as endorsement. Jane Austen was, in fact, extremely concerned with the fate of women in her society. Her concern involved a reconsideration of that society's basic values. Jane Fairfax, Miss Bates, and the Watson sisters are some of her sympathetically-treated symbols of the economic and social vulnerability of women in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Jane Austen does not believe that personal happiness should be subjected to financial considerations. She does show some of her characters succumbing to economic pressures. But they are censured within the novels, and her most admirable people never capitulate. Common to all of these groups is a misinterpretation of, or failure to understand, Jane Austen's concept and presentation of love. Using Jane Austen's novels and letters, this paper will attempt to correct the misinterpretations. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Thesis (M.A.)--Wake Forest University. Dept. of English, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-145)

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-95).

Thesis (M.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1997. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2842. Typescript. Abstract appears at end of volume. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-128).