This thesis aims essentially at a re-evaluation of the marginalisation that conventional critical assessment makes of Jane Austen's epistolary novella 'Lady Susan' (1794-1795). The consensus within Austen studies, one that has largely been unchanged and unchallenged since the time of the first professional academic accounts of Austen's work (and in turn influenced by the C19 view of the writer) is that 'Lady Susan' is an artistic failure, a regressive step in Austen's stylistic development and, most fundamentally, that its epistolarity is a constraint on the technical progress that Austen appeared to be making in work prior to this, most notably, the unfinished third-person novella "Catharine, or The Bower". The thesis provides a close reading of 'Lady Susan' and of 'Catharine' and in marked opposition to the consensus, concludes that 'Lady Susan' is an emphatic step forward in Austen's stylistic progress, most particularly through the manner in which it establishes a moral framework from within which to develop character and plot, its attainment of incipient narrative voice through a complex use and exploitation of epistolary polyphony (thereby foreshadowing the omniscient third-person narrators of Austen's mature fiction, in addition to its experimentation with a form of free indirect speech) and the markedly plausible realism that is present throughout the novella. Austen's termination of the epistolary section (the novella being concluded in third-person narrative - an ending that was added some time later and which is generally viewed as her own recognition of epistolary limitation), in the view of this thesis, therefore cannot be attributed to stylistic inadequacy or constraint, and obliges other motives to be posited. The thesis then proceeds to move from text into context and assesses the extra-literary factors that may have prompted Austen's abandonment of the epistolary section, according a co-centrality to the character of Catherine that has never before been emphasised in Austen studies and the consequences of which suggest the writer’s political engagement with “the French Question”, and with political concerns in general, at an age that is far earlier than most critics usually accept (‘Lady Susan’ was written when Austen was 19). Beyond the text itself, our close assessment of a broad range of critical views (both on ‘Catharine’ and ‘Lady Susan’) lead us to posit that the critical insistence on the novella’s inferiority and regressiveness, both of which claims we strongly refute through our close reading of the text, in fact corresponds to a determinedly evolutionary manner of understanding novelistic development, on that in turn derives from Ian Watt’s account of the rise of this literary form. In accordance with standard academic procedure, the thesis begins with a critical review—in this case, of epistolary studies— including studies that monographically consider Austen’s work. It also considers the role of Austen’s private correspondence in the broader question of literary epistolarity. The thesis terminates by adding to its conclusion the obligatory outlines of what we deem to be valid and necessary further research into this subject and related issues.

La tesi ha per oggetto il romanzo epistolare in Inghilterra nella seconda metà del XVIII secolo, con particolare enfasi sulle opere scritte da donne. Scopo dello studio è dimostrare come Jane Austen, con le sue opere adolescenziali e il suo “Lady Susan”, rappresenti insieme un momento di sintesi e un punto di arrivo del “novel in letters” settecentesco. In particolare due filoni d’analisi convergeranno verso l’opera austeniana: la prima parte, divisa in tre capitoli, affronta brevemente la storia del romanzo epistolare e della figura della “woman novelist”, analizzando l’importanza dell’opera di Samuel Richardson a metà secolo (cap. 1) e di alcune scrittrici settecentesche quali Sarah Fielding, Charlotte Smith e Frances Burney (cap. 2), per concludersi con l’analisi del “periodo d’oro” del romanzo epistolare inglese, che coincide con gli anni ’80 e ’90 del secolo (cap. 3). La seconda parte della dissertazione, divisa in quattro capitoli, affronta in modo più specifico la figura di Jane Austen e il modo in cui essa si inserisce all’interno dello sviluppo dello stile e della fortuna del romanzo epistolare. Dopo una breve autobiografia dell’autrice e uno studio dell’epistolario fra lei e la sorella Cassandra (rispettivamente capp. 4 e 5), allo scopo di dare conto dell’importanza che le lettere ricoprirono nella formazione di Jane Austen, il cap. 6 è dedicato agli Juvenilia, vale a dire alle opere scritte fra i 15 e i 20 anni, mentre il cap. 7 affronta in modo più approfondito l’analisi di “Lady Susan”, romanzo che decreta l’abbandono dello stile epistolare da parte della scrittrice di Steventon. / The dissertation focuses on the epistolary novel in England in the second half of the eighteenth century, particularly on works written by women. The purpose of this study is to understand how Jane Austen (with her early writings and “Lady Susan”) represents both a synthesis of and a turning point in eighteenth-century novels in letters. In particular, two fields of study will converge into the works by Jane Austen: the first part, divided into three chapters, focuses on the importance of Samuel Richardson at the middle of the century (chapter 1) and of some woman writers such as Sarah Fielding, Charlotte Smith and Frances Burney (chapter 2), whereas chapter 3 is dedicated to the “golden period” of the English epistolary novel during the ‘80s and ‘90s. The second part of the dissertation is divided into four chapters and focuses more specifically on Jane Austen’s role within the development of the style and the fortune of the novel in letters. After a short autobiography of the author and an analysis of the correspondence between her and her sister Cassandra (chapters 4 and 5) in order to underline the importance of letters in Jane Austen’s upbringing, chapter 6 is dedicated to the Juvenilia, that is to say the works written between 15 to 20 years of age, while chapter 7 focuses on “Lady Susan”, a novel which represents the renunciation of the epistolary style by the author.

Of all of Austen<&trade>s works, Lady Susan tends to stand alone in style and character development. The titular character of the novella in particular presents a literary conundrum for critics and readers of Austen. In an attempt to understand the character and why Austen wrote her, Lady Susan has been considered as a œmerry widow (Lane), a Machiavellian power figure (Mulvihill), and an indication of Austen<&trade>s familiarity with gossip and adultery (Russell). Despite these varied and colorful readings, critics have failed to fully resolve the differences between Lady Susan and Austen<&trade>s more beloved, maidenly heroines such as Elizabeth Bennet and Anne Elliott.This paper delves into one explanation that has hitherto been overlooked”Lady Susan<&trade>s relationship to the Restoration rake character trope. In light of Lady Susan<&trade>s philandering, independent, and mercenary ways, as well as her likeable yet reprehensible personality, the connection to the Restoration rake is readily apparent. Reading Lady Susan as a rake better informs critical understanding of this character and sheds new light on Jane Austen<&trade>s own perspectives on gender, while also forming a dialectic for critics and audiences for their own perspectives on gender, gender roles, and acceptable behavior. To accomplish this task, this paper explores Austen<&trade>s own early experiences with theatre and her predilection for theatrical allusions, the rake character<&trade>s genealogy and influence on literature, and a close reading of the novella in context of Restoration comedies.

This dissertation is a study of Jane Austen's juvenilia, including "Lady Susan" and "Sir Charles Grandison: or the Happy Man", a collection of work undertaken between the years 1787 and 1794. Although often viewed by modem critics as apprentice pièces for the six novels written in maturity, thèse taies also exhibit deep reflection and involvement in the Enlightenment's feminist movement and feminist opinions on female éducation, and économie and marital dependency, issues the mature novels would explore, but in a less obviously transgressive manner. Although Austen acquiesces to public and political pressure later in life in order to achieve her ambitions of publishing, her early works show a palpable dissatisfaction with the situation of women. Most scholarly criticism of the juvenilia concentrâtes on either the parody of sentimental fictioji or its biographical content. Some attention has been paid to her feminist leanings in this literature, but no thorough survey has yet been done that analyses ail of the juvenilia in this light. This dissertation hopes to rectify that situation and shed light on the early feminist views of Jane Austen in ail of the taies belonging to her juvenilia. When considering an interpretive approach to the juvenilia for this dissertation, Harold Bloom's théories of intertextuality and influence were selected. Admittedly Bloom's theory is decidedly sexually biased in that it deals with the six canonical maie Romantic poets, and uses Freudian vocabulary. However, since création (or procréation) is also a female process, and equality in parent-child relationships is not exclusively maie, Bloom's theory can be modified to include female authors in their struggle to find their own créative voices. Another reason for using the Bloomian theory of influence is that Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar refer to him as their model of female authorial development in Madwoman in the Attic, the research that is used as the basis for this dissertation's feminist argument. Their study lays the groundwork for a re-examination of the historical manifestations of self-imaging in literature and how such self-imaging has been based on gendered socialization. The analysis of the juvenilia clearly demonstrates that Austen's early works are not simply parodies of contemporary literature. Instead, they contribute to the feminist debate of the period, aligning Austen with radical feminists like Mary Wollstonecraft.