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Jane Austen completed only six novels, but enduring passion for the author and her works has driven fans to read these books repeatedly, in book clubs or solo, while also inspiring countless film adaptations, sequels, and even spoofs involving zombies and sea monsters. Austen's lasting appeal to both popular and elite audiences has lifted her to legendary status. In Jane Austen's Cults and Cultures, Claudia L. Johnson shows how Jane Austen became "Jane Austen," a figure intensely--sometimes even wildly--venerated, and often for markedly different reasons. Johnson begins by exploring the most important monuments and portraits of Austen, considering how these artifacts point to an author who is invisible and yet whose image is inseparable from the characters and fictional worlds she created. She then passes through the four critical phases of Austen's reception--the Victorian era, the First and Second World Wars, and the establishment of the Austen House and Museum in 1949--and ponders what the adoration of Austen has meant to readers over the past two centuries. For her fans, the very concept of "Jane Austen" encapsulates powerful ideas and feelings about history, class, manners, intimacy, language, and the everyday. By respecting the intelligence of past commentary about Austen, Johnson shows, we are able to revisit her work and unearth fresh insights and new critical possibilities. An insightful look at how and why readers have cherished one of our most beloved authors, Jane Austen's Cults and Cultures will be a valuable addition to the library of any fan of the divine Jane.… (more)
User reviews
A discussion of whether or not Jane Austen is disembodied, one of the first topics in this book, would normally bore me, but this is quite interesting, particularly as Johnson comments upon the various possible portraits of Jane Austen (all of which are pictured) and includes several that I have not seen before. I have one comment: with regard to the Rice portrait (a full-length portrait of a girl in her early teens): the main objection that I have heard is that the subject's clothing is from a later time. Not that I am any expert, but Johnson might have addressed this issue. I can also understand why, when asked for a portrait of Jane, her sister Cassandra did not offer her own somewhat crude sketch, particularly if it wasn't a good likeness. Being of a prosaic mind, although I wish she had been in a living body longer, and written more books, the important thing to me is that she remains with us in her books.
Johnson then gives us an interesting history of views of Jane Austen in the Victorian era, World War I, World War II, and more recently. The critics of the past argue whether she was feminine or a man in a woman's body, a rebel or deeply contented with her society, and so forth. It is very interesting to read an overview of opinions, even with the obvious dangers, when I probably wouldn't want to actually plow through the originals. The main idea that I got from these chapters is that one finds the Jane Austen that one wants, as I suppose one does for most authors.
Johnson concludes with a history of the creation of the Chawton House museum, a discussion of its merits and demerits, and a consideration of whether such tributes are really meaningful. I personally am always in favor of preserving such places, whether or not I have any interest in its famous former occupants, simply to have the buildings and furnishings of an older time preserved.