HENB01401U English - Elective 3, topic 1: Reading Jane Austen

In this course we shall read four (possibly five) of Jane Austen’s novels—Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park (possibly also Persuasion)—and pay very close attention to the text. Our focus will be on details, of spelling and punctuation, of idioms and idiolects, of social customs and regulations. We shall also consider the importance of women as readers, and, in terms of literary history, the detail that Jane Austen is an almost exact contemporary of Wordsworth and Coleridge.