Jane Austen Society of Australia: Study Guide

Resources

A short list of further reading & reference:

Becoming Jane Austen. The newest biography on the block, and one of the best. Dr Jon Spence, Hambledon & London, London, 2003.

Excel HSC English Study Guide – Emma & Clueless, Lindsay Green, 2002

Jane Austen in Hollywood, ed Linda Troost & Sayre Greenfield, 2nd edition. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001. This is one of the pioneering works in this area, now in its second edition. Two articles from this work are included in this study guide - 'Emma becomes Clueless' and 'As if!....'

Jane Austen: A Life, Claire Tomalin (winner of the Whitbread prize), Penguin Books, 1998.
Tomalin is a great pleasure to read. This work is clear, interesting and covers a lot of territory.

Jane Austen's Letters. Collected and Edited by Deirdre LeFaye, Third Edition. Oxford University
Press, 1995.
The Letters are a superb, near-essential source for all Jane Austen study.

Jane Austen's England, by Maggie Lane, Robert Hale, 1989, reprinted up to 1996. Maggie Lane's works are extremely well researched and informed, as well as being a pleasure to read.

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mETAphor is the journal of the English Teachers’ Association (NSW). It contains a variety of articles which explore texts in the context of the HSC Syllabus. Some examples are:

July, 2000

Parill, S., “Metaphors of Control: Physicality in Emma and Clueless

May, 2001

Mazmanian, M., “Reviving Emma in a Clueless world: The Current Attraction to a Classic Structure”

February, 2002

Gibson, J., “Emma and Clueless and the effects of transformation”

Simulated Marking: Stage 6 Advanced (Transformations – Emma and Clueless)

mETAphor, published four times a year, is available from the ETA, PO Box 425, Newtown, NSW, 2042. The phone number of the Association is (02) 9517 9799.

A short list of current websites

http://www.pemberley.com/etext/index.html
This site carries the texts of all six Austen novels. Most convenient if you need to quote from the text in your assignments. Don't forget to acknowledge the source!
http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/maclulss.html
An excellent piece on character transformation between Emma and Clueless

http://www.uah.edu/colleges/liberal/education/S1998/jennyd.html#Austen's%20Writing2.
Some of the social background.

Clueless script There may be some difficulty accessing this page. You may need to try again later: it has a limit on how much it can be downloaded) http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/5342/Clueless.htm
http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/clueless.html
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?clueless
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/News/register/Feb12_96/story6.html
http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/janewrit.html#emma
http://www.jasna.org/PolOP1/mazmanian.html

The present site - www.jasa.net.au - has links to all the important Jane Austen sites.

The following commentaries by Professor William Phillips:

A word about libraries

Fortunately for us, an outstanding percentage of the great libraries in the world are located in English-speaking countries. Many of the world's great libraries are attached to universities.

It is further fortunate for us that growing numbers of these libraries have on-line catalogues. If you are lucky, you may be able to get on-line access to the catalogue of one or more major libraries near you. Maybe your school library has such access. Ask your school library or resource centre to help you. Your school resource centre may also have "search" capability that will help you find further resources on-line or generate lists of books and articles to look for.

It helps to have a good idea of what you are looking for before you make a trip to a major library. It can save a lot of time once you get there.

Web sites

Only a few web addresses are included - but these contain links that will lead you to all kinds of interesting and useful information.

A few words of caution in web browsing:

Set time limits. Don't keep wandering around the web if you haven't been successful. At least take a break and come back to it when you feel fresher.
Try not to get led astray by the commercial links that twinkle and buzz all over the screen. It's another matter if you're shopping, but when you are trying to get work done, they encourage you to waste time and money.
Take advantage of serendipity. If you have the luck to stumble onto something interesting by accident, use it!

However -
Don't forget to make a bookmark for a nifty new site you stumble upon. If you're like me, you may never find it again otherwise.

Movie websites

When I need basic information about movies, I go first to this website: http://www.imdb.com

If you use the links carefully, they will lead you to lots of reviews of movies from journalistic sources. Once you have called up the page for a particular movie, click on "outside reviews" on the left side of the page. This can sometimes be rather frustrating, but it's worth a try.

Such reviews have to be read carefully for academic purposes. Most journalistic film reviewers are more interested in movies than they are in the novels on which the movies are based. That's fair enough, they are paid to review movies, not to read novels. However, it is sometimes obvious that even the brightest of these men and women haven't read the novel at all, or haven't read it for a long time. Nevertheless, if you read carefully, movie reviews can sometimes contain valuable insights.

One thing the "reviews" link will do is lead you to lots of other movie related sites.

Here's an Australian site: http://www.urbancinefile.com.au. A big problem with this site is that requires you to subscribe. Don't spend your hard-earned money (or your family's) unless that's not a problem. Perhaps your school library has access to this site, or you could request it.

Here's a UK site with links to movie reviews: http://www.thisislondon.com/.

Sources about film adaptations

This is a small sample of books devoted to discussions of film adaptations of novels. You may want to spend some time with a library catalogue and see what others you can find.

Bluestone, George. Novels into Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957.
This is the pioneering work in English on film adaptation of novels. For about 20-25 years following its publication, most books, essays or other discussions of films based on literary sources were strongly influenced by its point of view. That point of view emphasizes that literature and film are totally distinct media. The implication in Bluestone is that film is inherently inferior to literature.
Boyum, Joy Gould. Double Exposure: Fiction into Film. New York: Universe Books, 1985.
Theoretically this work takes a middle ground between apologists for the superiority of literature on the one hand and the superiority of film on the other. She argues convincingly that it is a pointless argument.
Giddings, Robert, Keith Selby and Chris Wensley. Screening the Novel: The Theory and Practice of Literary Dramatization. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990.
The introduction summarizes the critical debate about movies and the books they are based on. Issues are identified and major historical developments are discussed. They may make it seem like more of a battle than really exists just to lend weight to their discussion.
Griffith, James. Adaptations as Imitations: Films from Novels Newark, DL: University of Delaware Press, 1997.
Griffith's essays on specific films may not be particularly helpful for your purposes. However, the introduction gives a rather thorough outline of the history of criticism devoted to film adaptations. Griffith develops his own theoretical framework based on the Chicago school of literary criticism. There is an interesting discussion of what it means for a movie to be "faithful" to the novel.
Klein, Michael and Gillian Parker, Eds. The English Novel and the Movies. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1981.
In their introductory essay, Klein & Parker argue that the best adaptations are "true to genre."
Sinyard, Neil. Filming Literature. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986.
This work has had more influence on me than any other I've encountered on the topic. Sinyard argues that the best movie adaptations and their creators have certain affinities with the original sources.

Some sources about Jane Austen

Here are some print resources to get you started on several topics.

General background

Choices and annotations by Professor William Phillips, at wilphil@for.aichi-pu.ac.jp

Poplawski, Paul. A Jane Austen Encyclopedia. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1998.
The opening sentence of the "Preface" to this book is illuminating. "This book aims to present the known facts about Jane Austen's life and works in as uncluttered and straightforward a manner as possible, without duplicating the structures, approaches, and assessments of previous books of a similar sort. . .(ix)
The book is laid out in alphabetical entries like any other encyclopedia. The book is very useful when you need a quick reminder of something in the chronology of Austen's life, a quick reference to some character (both those that appear and those mentioned are included as entries), or need a quick summary of one of Austen's works.
There is an extensive bibliography of essays on the works of Austen (including some from the 19th century) at the end of the book.
Tyler, Natalie. The Friendly Jane Austen Book: A Well-Mannered Introduction to a Lady of Sense and Sensibility. New York: Viking-Penguin, 1999.
This little book is both amusing and helpful. It is organized into entertaining tidbits (that may be "titbits" to you guys in Australia) that help make studying Jane Austen much less daunting.

Biographical and beyond

Choices and annotations by Professor William Phillips, at wilphil@for.aichi-pu.ac.jp

There are quite a few biographical works on Jane Austen. Here are two that I think you should make sure your school library has available. The first one has the sponsorship of JASA.

Spence, Jon. Becoming Jane Austen.
The particular appeal of this biography is its focus on the things Jane Austen actually lived through. Spence probably knows more about the details of what Jane Austen was doing on any particular day of her short life than any other living person.
Tomalin, Claire. Jane Austen: A Life. London: Penguin Books, 1998 (first published, 1997).
Tomalin is a great pleasure to read. This work is clear, interesting and covers a lot of territory.
Jane Austen's Letters. Collected and Edited by Deirdre LeFaye, Third Edition. Oxford University Press, 1995.
It is useful to have a copy of Austen's letters at hand, particularly when reading "scholarly" works about Austen which often make reference to the letters. One problem I have with this edition is that the indices are difficult to use. There are Biographical, Topographical and General indices. The first two listings are full of information about people and places mentioned in Austen's letters, which is particularly helpful to those of us who are neither historians nor well versed in the minute details of English rural geography. However, neither of these listings is cross referenced to the General Index. You have to flip back and forth. The General Index is geared to the Biographical and Topographical entries and is not very helpful if you are trying to locate topics Austen discussed in her letters.

On the feminist front

Choices and annotations by Professor William Phillips, at wilphil@for.aichi-pu.ac.jp

Jane Austen was no radical. Her novels promoted an essentially conservative ethos. However, on a number of issues, particularly those related to the status quo for women in society, Austen's work was substantially subversive. Here are a couple of places to begin investigating 'women's issues' in relation to Austen.

Johnson, Claudia. Jane Austen: Women, Politics and the Novel. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1988.
According to me, Johnson is brilliant. Her work is insightful and instructive. She introduced me to topics concerning women in Austen that I would never have thought of on my own. This is not "light reading", so be prepared to struggle a bit, but the rewards can be great. If you are interested in Austen studies from a feminist point of view, read anything you can get your hands on by Johnson.
Kaplan, Deborah. Jane Austen Among Women. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1994 (originally published, 1992).
Kaplan concludes that neither committed feminists nor committed conservatives can claim the whole of Jane Austen for their camps. Using available evidence from Austen's life and letters, Kaplan shows how important the society of other women was to Austen's development as both a writer and a woman.
Looser, Devoney. "Feminist Implications of the Silver Screen Austen," in Jane Austen in Hollywood, 159-176.
You'll find reference to this book elsewhere. I just mention this essay now to say that if you have an interest in feminist perspective in relation to transforming Austen, you should probably start here. Looser (pronounced 'low-sir') discusses the feminist issues raised by both Austen's novels and their film adaptations with intelligence and common sense. You know where she stands but she doesn't scream at you or try to bowl you over with obtuse "academic" prose.

Concerning language

The Oxford English Dictionary, commonly referred to as the OED, is probably the best source available to research the "history" of English words. This huge work tries to stay abreast of the meaning of English words and chart the historical point at which different words and different meanings of the same words enter the language. It is available at most large libraries, where you may also find that they have access to the OED on-line. That access costs a great deal and is unlikely to be used by anyone without institutional support of some kind. See also the Jane Austen Concordance: http://www.concordance.com/austen.htm

Post -colonial perspectives

An area of study now called "Post-colonial Criticism" has developed over the last 20 years in English cultural studies. The general point of view is that the classic products of Western culture must now be viewed from the perspective of the "colonized" peoples of much of the world rather than solely from the Euro-centric perspective of the products themselves. For purposes of discussing Jane Austen, the most directly relevant source is the section entitled "Jane Austen and Empire" found in the following book.

Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1994 (first pub 1993).

Jane Austen at the movies

The pioneering work in this area is the following book, now in its second edition.

Troost, Linda and Sayre Greenfield, Eds. Jane Austen in Hollywood, 2nd edition. Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press, 2001.
All the essays in this collection except perhaps those by Ellington, Diana, Samuelian, and Kaplan have ideas that might be directly relevant to an investigation of any of the three films (Clueless, Mansfield Park and Metropolitan). That is not to discount these as interesting essays. They just deal in specific terms with other film adaptations of Austen works or with different topics. I would say that getting access to a copy of this volume is almost a must if you wish to think further about such film adaptations. All the essays here except the final one by the Editors on the 1999 Rozema film appear in the 1998 first edition. However, there is a much more extensive bibliography in the second edition as well as the additional essay.

For basic information about movies: http://www.imdb.com
If you use the links carefully, they will lead you to lots of reviews of movies from journalistic sources. Once you have called up the page for a particular movie, click on "outside reviews" on the left side of the page. Though sometimes there is no reference to the novel at all, movie reviews can sometimes contain valuable insights.

A UK site with links to movie reviews: http://www.thisislondon.com/.

Web sites

The following choices and annotations by Professor William Phillips, at wilphil@for.aichi-pu.ac.jp

"The Republic of Pemberley" site: www.pemberley.com. One of the most informative Austen sites. Near the top of the home page is a section which has discussions of the novels and film adaptations.

http://www.concordance.com/austen.htm
This is a concordance of all six of the major novels by Jane Austen, plus her early novel Lady Susan and some juvenile writing under the title Freindship. You can enter particular words and find not only the frequency with which Austen used them but also their location in the text of the novel. Another feature is that the concordance will list words in order of frequency of use in either ascending or descending order.

The British site labelled 'Bibliomania' http://www.Bibliomania.com/ offers free study guides to a lot of the most read novels in English. Emma is on the Jane Austen list, but Mansfield Park is not.

The guide to the Jane Austen collection in the library of Goucher College (Baltimore, Maryland, USA) might be helpful in generating a bibliography to help you search in a library closer to home. http://www.goucher.edu/library/jausten/jane.htm

The huge JASNA (Jane Austen Society of North America) may have material of interest on their site - www.jasna.org - a most useful site. Study the links listed down the left side of the home page.

One of these is particularly useful: it gives you access to the society's online publications which are quite extensive since being launched a few years ago. If you click on the "Occasional Papers" link, it will lead you to the table of contents for Occasional Papers No 3, in which all of the articles are about movies based on Emma. You'll notice that I wrote one of these articles. OK, OK, so you might have guessed that I'd sneakily direct you to something that I had written. Seriously, there is some good stuff in this collection of articles.

NOTE: While these texts and resources have been made available to us for the benefit of students and teachers, by the courtesy and goodwill of their authors and publishers, students are reminded that copying text without acknowledgement of its author and source constitutes plagiarism, which is not tolerated by the HSC examiners, and is considerably frowned upon in schools.

FEEDBACK: info@jasa.net.au

16 July 2003