{"id":8570,"date":"2023-03-27T12:34:24","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T16:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/?p=8570"},"modified":"2023-04-21T15:11:09","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T19:11:09","slug":"jane-austen-therapist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/issues\/spring-2023\/jane-austen-therapist\/","title":{"rendered":"Jane Austen, Therapist"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo: Nora Lewis<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jane Austen wasn\u2019t writing romance; she was satirizing it, says Professor Sarah Eron. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a truth universally acknowledged that few, if any, novels have had greater influence on the romance genre than Jane Austen\u2019s Pride and Prejudice<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Credited with writing the definitive marriage plot novel of her age, Austen and her work have spawned an enduring industry. Netflix\u2019s Bridgerton<\/em> and PBS\u2019s Sanditon<\/em> are two recent iterations in a long line of Austen-inspired novels, movies, television shows, and plays. You can buy Austen-inspired dolls, tarot cards, clothing, bobbleheads, teapots, candles\u2014even air fresheners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to read Austen\u2019s novels as romances is to miss their meaning, says Sarah Eron, English professor and Austen scholar. Austen is a satirist whose books take aim at the marriage plot novels of her day, Eron says. In her undergraduate course, \u2018Jane Austen, Therapist,\u2019 Eron teaches what Austen\u2019s work reveals about the mind, how her novels transform and console readers, and what close reading yields, Eron says. \u201cI want my students to see that literature has the power to change lives.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your thoughts are not your own <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want my students to see that literature has the power to change lives.\u201d
\u2014Professor Sarah Eron<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eron\u2019s research is in cognitive studies\u2014the mind and its workings. The author of Mind Over Matter: Memory Fiction from Daniel Defoe to Jane Austen<\/em>, Eron is specifically interested in how our memories aren\u2019t really our own. Rather, they are affected and shaped by what is happening around us. \u201cI start the course with Emma because students see that Austen renders an ambiguity between whether thoughts belong to one character, another character, or the narrator. And suddenly, this idea that our thoughts are our own, that we have ownership of our personal, internal ideas, is completely exploded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn everyday life, we go around and wonder what other people are thinking of us. We have this constant desire to have access to other people\u2019s thoughts, and that\u2019s where all the miscommunications arise in Emma, because she\u2019s really bad at mind reading. This is the power of reading Jane Austen.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who can\u2019t relate to that? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Close reading rewards <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hannah Slater-Grace \u201925, an elementary education major, was already an Austen fan. Eron\u2019s class gave her a deeper app-reciation of the author. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cProfessor Eron had us dive into every detail of the text. We sometimes spent an entire class on one sentence or a couple of words, and I was like, \u2018Wow!\u2019 I\u2019ve never had a professor take us so closely into each word, each comma, each phrase. Each punctuation mark signaled something,\u201d says Slater-Grace. \u201cI realized\u2014after going from reading Austen to reading other books\u2014that not every author is able to do that. Understanding more of how Austen writes has helped me understand the way other authors write and why.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Austen knows what ails you <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The most gratifying moment for Eron as a teacher is when students recognize that their experiences and those of Austen\u2019s characters are essentially the same. \u201cStudents, too, are people embedded in social systems; their memories change, and they have the power to overcome distress. \u201cThat\u2019s the reason for the course title, Jane Austen, Therapist. That is, she might be able to bring the kind of consolation, the kind of answers we seek,\u201d Eron says. \u201cThe texts have a kind of therapy to them. When I see the students living these books and interacting with these books\u2014and their lives influenced by these books\u2014I know that, in some sense, I\u2019ve done my job.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Marybeth Reilly-McGreen <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Besotted with Jane?<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Professor Eron has recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

READ JANE AUSTEN<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For an immersive reading experience, consider The Jane Austen Annotated Editions <\/em>(Harvard University Press). Start with Emma<\/em>. Notice how Austen\u2019s free, indirect style creates a question about whose thoughts are being expressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GO BACK TO SCHOOL<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Attend a virtual lecture, \u201cSlavery, Anti-Slavery, and the Austen Family,\u201d by Austen scholar Devoney Looser (about 1.5 hours) on the Austen family\u2019s connection to the West Indian slave trade and how that may have informed the writing of Emma and Mansfield Park.<\/p>\n\n\nwatch the Lecture<\/a>\n\n\n

ON FILM<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For a cinematic treatment of Austen\u2019s early work, watch Whit Stillman’s Love and Friendship<\/em>, based on the epistolary novella, Lady Susan<\/em>. The film is a reminder that Austen is, at heart, a satirist, fluent in caricature, irony, and mockery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

READ MORE<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For more about the enduring phenomenon that is Jane Austen:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • Jane Austen\u2019s Letters <\/em>by Deirdre Le Faye offers a view intothe author\u2019s life and family through correspondence andrecent scholarship.<\/li>
  • The Making of Jane Austen <\/em>by Devoney Looser centers onAusten\u2019s rise to celebrity status.<\/li>
  • Janeites: Austen\u2019s Disciples and Devotees <\/em>by Deidre Lynchexamines Austen\u2019s most devoted readers and fans.<\/li>
  • Jane Austen and Sciences of the Mind<\/em>, ed. Beth Lau,examines Austen through the lens of cognitive science.<\/li>
  • Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel <\/em>by Claudia Johnson, looks at Austen as social critic, satirist, and feminist.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n\n

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    To read Austen\u2019s novels as romances is to miss their meaning, says Sarah Eron, English professor and Austen scholar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":8942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[313],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-2023","architecture-syllabus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8570"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9281,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8570\/revisions\/9281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}