Jane Austen and the virtues.
Date
2002
Authors
Emsley, Sarah Louise Baxter.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Dalhousie University
Abstract
Description
Recent feminist and post-structuralist criticism of Jane Austen has questioned her reputation as an ideological conservative, and has attempted to demonstrate ways in which Austen's novels subvert authority and represent a secular world of ethical relativism. The present study challenges such criticism, and seeks to establish that Austen's novels, while critical and often satirical about society, nevertheless accept and promote the importance of tradition, specifically of the classical and Christian traditions of the virtues. Through a survey in Chapter One of the tradition of the virtues of prudence, fortitude, justice, temperance, charity, hope, and faith, this thesis argues that Jane Austen's heroines ask the philosophical question "How should I live my life?" and that the answers they find are consistent with an Aristotelian and Thomist, rather than a utilitarian or Kantian, approach to ethics; that is, Austen's fiction stresses the moral education of character as preparation for ethical action. In the last several years literary theory has begun to focus on ethics, and moral philosophy has begun to turn to literature in order to illuminate what has been called "virtue ethics"; literary criticism, I believe, needs now to turn once more to ancient theories about the virtues in order to understand literature, ethics, and life, and the present study of Austen's novels is an attempt to do just that.
I argue that Austen writes from a firm foundation of Christian faith, and thus for her virtuous characters there is a point to moral education. The eponymous heroine of Lady Susan is her only vicious heroine, and in Chapter Two I contrast the worldly, calculating, distorted version of prudence practised in that novel, with the virtuous prudence, or practical wisdom, that Austen explores through the development of Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey. In Chapters Three and Four, on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice respectively, I explore what happens when tensions arise between competing virtues, and suggest that the practice of balancing such tensions is an indication of how flexible Austen's conservatism is. Sense and Sensibility demonstrates how fortitude can help characters to "know their own happiness," while Pride and Prejudice focuses on the role of love in the pursuit of justice. In Chapter Four I suggest that the "regulated hatred" D. W. Harding saw in Austen's novels might be better understood as "righteous anger." Chapter Five looks at the value of habit in Mansfield Park, and the importance of balancing habits temperately; here I argue that Fanny Price's active habits of mind make her Austen's contemplative heroine. In Chapter Six I argue that the misery of thinking leads Emma Woodhouse to learn how to be in charity with her neighbours, and in Chapter Seven I look at strength and hope in Persuasion, concluding that Austen's argument for flexibility within a firm tradition of the virtues is most explicit in this novel. Persuasion thus offers an account of the unity and harmony of the classical and theological virtues achieved by Jane Austen. The Conclusion points to writers after Austen who take up the question of virtue, including George Eliot, Henry James, and Edith Wharton.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 2002.
I argue that Austen writes from a firm foundation of Christian faith, and thus for her virtuous characters there is a point to moral education. The eponymous heroine of Lady Susan is her only vicious heroine, and in Chapter Two I contrast the worldly, calculating, distorted version of prudence practised in that novel, with the virtuous prudence, or practical wisdom, that Austen explores through the development of Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey. In Chapters Three and Four, on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice respectively, I explore what happens when tensions arise between competing virtues, and suggest that the practice of balancing such tensions is an indication of how flexible Austen's conservatism is. Sense and Sensibility demonstrates how fortitude can help characters to "know their own happiness," while Pride and Prejudice focuses on the role of love in the pursuit of justice. In Chapter Four I suggest that the "regulated hatred" D. W. Harding saw in Austen's novels might be better understood as "righteous anger." Chapter Five looks at the value of habit in Mansfield Park, and the importance of balancing habits temperately; here I argue that Fanny Price's active habits of mind make her Austen's contemplative heroine. In Chapter Six I argue that the misery of thinking leads Emma Woodhouse to learn how to be in charity with her neighbours, and in Chapter Seven I look at strength and hope in Persuasion, concluding that Austen's argument for flexibility within a firm tradition of the virtues is most explicit in this novel. Persuasion thus offers an account of the unity and harmony of the classical and theological virtues achieved by Jane Austen. The Conclusion points to writers after Austen who take up the question of virtue, including George Eliot, Henry James, and Edith Wharton.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 2002.
Keywords
Literature, English.