Jane Austen and the Arts: Elegance, Propriety, and Harmony [Hardcover]

The essays collected in Jane Austen and the Arts; Elegance, Propriety, and Harmony examine Austens understanding of the arts, her aesthetic philosophy, and her role as artist. Together, they explore Austens connections with Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Madame de Sta?l, Joanna Baillie, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, and other writers engaged in debates on the sensuous experience and the intellectual judgment of art. Our contributors look at Austens engagement with diverse art forms, painting, ballet, drama, poetry, and music, investigating our topic within historically grounded and theoretically nuanced essays. They represent Austen as a writer-thinker reflecting on the nature and practice of artistic creation and considering the social, moral, psychological, and theological functions of art in her fiction. We suggest that Austen knew, modified, and transformed the dominant aesthetic discourses of her era, at times ironically, to her own artistic ends. As a result, a new, and compelling image of Austen emerges, a portrait of a lady artist confidently promoting her own distinctly post-enlightenment aesthetic system.

Natasha Duquette is associate professor and chair of the English Department at Biola University in Southern California.

Elisabeth Lenckos teaches at the University of Chicagos Graham School.

Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface: Jane Austen's Critique of Aesthetic Judgment by Vivasvan Soni
Introduction by Natasha Duquette and Elisabeth Lenckos
I. The Fine Arts in Austen's World: Music, Dance, and Portraiture
Daily Practice, Musical Accomplishment, and the Example of Jane Austen
Kathryn Libin
Chapter 2  A 'Reputation for Accomplishment': Marianne Dashwood and Emma Woodhouse as Artistic Performers by Kelly McDonald
Chapter 3  Miss Bingley's Walk: The Aesthetics of Movement in Pride and Prejudice by Erin Smith
Chapter 4  The Sister Artist: Cassandra Austen's Por