Jane Austen, une écrivaine toujours actuelle

Jane Austen, a writer always current

Literature

How to forget the legendaries Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, the heroes of the famous novel Pride and prejudices published in 1813? They crossed the centuries to impose themselves among the mythical couples of English literature. It is the same for the author who made them known.

Jane Austen’s name still resonates in classrooms, personal libraries and media. A mystery surrounds the novelist born in 1775 in Hampshire in England.
Until this day, we do not know where his inspirations came from. Some stories, it was said to be closely linked to his life. The biographical film Jane released in 2007 shows this. Other stories imitated society. The fact remains that the author’s style remains one of the most subtle.

Jane Austen, a subversive novelist?
The writer begins most of these works “pride and prejudices” (1813), “reason and feelings” (1811) and “persuasion” (1817) on the same model: a contraried love because of social, family positions. The protagonists are often young women subject to patriarchy.
The latter claim their right to emancipation outside the male and social diktats. In this, Jane Austen seems subversive and avant-garde because she tackles themes that can be judged feminists.
Shreya Goswami of the feminist and collaborative platform Her Cycle writes about the author: “(…) The way in which she reflects the smallest asperities of society means that her books remain modern. The fact that the stories she has chosen to tell still resonate with women more than two centuries after their writing (…) make her an author that we should all read at least in our lives. »»
The fact that Jane Austen is taken for example by feminist movements which invite us to discover it proves that she still has an echo today.

Should we see in Jane Austen’s works a second degree?
It would be a mistake to read the novels in the first degree because they are ironic. British literature teacher Catherine Bernard of Paris Diderot University underlines this irony through an analysis of the novel pride and prejudices. His explanation is entitled, an ironic vision of society. She says:
“The art consumed of irony allows Jane Austen to probe the soul of a society taken in contradictions which prevent him from returning to her own principles and to evolve.”

In other words, the writer uses irony to paint society. Jane Austen is all the more subtle as she does by diverting a widespread literary genre of her time, namely the romantic novel, to make it a comedy of manners. This is where the genius of the author resides. It takes up the codes of an existing genre, much appreciated, to better mock it. She thus inscribes her work in literary realism.

Jane Austen, new muse of the Z generation?
As surprising as it is, the novelist was erected on Tik Tok and Instagram social networks, a romantic icon by the Z generation, the connected generation born between 1996 and 2010.
On the Tik Tok network, the hashtag dedicated to the writer has more than 600 million views.
A study called “OMG Jane Austen” conducted by a Cambridge academic shows that the enthusiasm around the woman of letters is as it is placed, after Shakespeare, in the list of the most famous writers.
Fashion effect or real interest? In this, she remains a current writer.
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