Within this essay, I shall examine the idea of Romanticism and also I will evaluate Jane Austen's contribution to the Romantic genre. In doing this, I can get started answering the posed question, 'Is Sense and Sensibility an unromantic novel?' Romanticism itself as a genre started between 1785 and 1825 and was regarded as an age which rejected the ideas of the Enlightenment and Romanticism has been referred to as a 'Counter-Enlightenment'. It was an age that was 'âa crucial transition between an Enlightenment world view and the values of modern, industrial societyâ' whereby its roots stem from the French Revolution of 1789 and the message of revolution and reform. Romanticism revolted against scientific rationalisation and reason that led the Enlightenment movement and embraced antiquity, aesthetics and emotion that are reflected in the works of several Romantic authors such as Wordsworth, Coleridge and Keats.
Romanticism placed an emphasis on symbolism, nature and the imagination. Imagination in particular, played a huge part within the genre. The imagination allowed someone to distance them self from reality and enjoy antiquity, landscapes and relationships. In doing so, poets like Blake could actually create works that highlighted society from a child's and an adults perspective. By doing this, Blake could acknowledge the innocence and imagination of a child, thus paralleling it with the adults view, and how they have effectively lost that sense of freedom.
However, some critics have debated this is of Romanticism and what Romanticism means. Welleck and Lovejoy both argue that, 'âRomanticism (whether "intrinsic" or "historical") comprised a huge and heterogeneous body of materialâ' Romanticism is a assortment of many pieces that aren't necessarily similar or the same. According to Lovejoy, there are always a 'âplurality of romanticismsâ' which is evidently seen through its evolution by poets and novelists alike. Moreover, Welleck discusses that 'âscholars and critics all basically acknowledge what Romanticism is or wasâ [However]âthey may differ in their definitional termsâ' and that the conditions "Romantic" and "Romanticism" are interchangeable and also have been 'âunderstood in approximately the same sense. . . . ' regarding works that were written after the neoclassical period.
Austen herself included many of the qualities found in the Romantic era within her novels, Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Sense and Sensibility to mention a few. Jane Austen was created in December 1775 and died in July 1917. She was one of eight children and her father was 'âa good-natured clergymanâ' Austen instilled a lot of the values expected of women in society during writing into her novels. Austen's writing 'âreflected actions that benefited the society. Duty was paramount, as were Christian ethics. Marriage and family were serious undertakings. ' The reader is also put through these values within 'Sense and Sensibility' as there are four marriages that take place within the text, which solidifies how important the institutions of marriage and family are to women of this period. These were particularly important to determine concrete social order and values within British society after the French Revolution. Austen wrote about the society that she knew. 'Surviving letters show the 20-year-old Jane enjoyed the usual interests of a woman: clothes, men and dancing at balls. ' By authoring the entire world she had known, Jane could describe scenes in her novels with the utmost attention and detail. Sir Walter Scott also commented upon this and wrote 'that dude has a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. ' This intimate language allows the reader to engage with Austen's characters and also begin to understand Eighteenth Century England's' societal values and expectations of women.
Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811 but was formerly written around 1795 under the title of 'Elinor and Marianne' and had been written firstly in an epistolary form, which usually is a novel collated with letters. Furthermore, Austen did not give her name to the book, nor did she leave it anonymous, but it was titled, Sense and Sensibility by 'A Lady'. By stating that it was written by a female rather than leaving it anonymous, the reader automatically knows that the text was of female authorship, that was not common.
The text itself revolves around the Dashwood Family, specifically the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. Elinor within the novel represents 'sense' whilst her sister Marianne with her impulsiveness represents 'sensibility'. The reader follows the sisters and their family on a path of discovery and relationships. At the end of the novel, we eventually see Elinor and Marianne become neutral between both 'sense' and 'sensibility' rather than being two extremes like the beginning of the text. However, it is the way the sisters emerge as more well-rounded women that we have the ability to investigate if Sense and Sensibility is actually an unromantic novel, or does Austen as a woman, have a new view of Romanticism and the canon established by the earlier Romantic Poets. By investigating the title further, it can be described as a novel that deals with the shift from the Enlightenment and the formation of a modern society.
'Sense' can be construed as rationality which was debated by Philosophers such as Hume and Locke. Rationality and understanding had become effectively the canon of the Enlightenment era and reflects Elinor's judgement and emotions. 'Sensibility' however, according to the Oxford Dictionary, defines 'Sensibility' as; 'the quality to be in a position to appreciate and react to complex emotional or aesthetic influences. ' This sensitivity is shown within Marianne's persona, especially in regards to her relationship with John Willoughby. Austen encapsulates the idea of sensibility through Marianne and satires the thought of the 'Cult of Sensibility'. The 'Cult of Sensibility' commenced in the Eighteenth Century with 'âan optimistic view on human natureâ' which contributed to the establishment of the Romantic age and the sentimental novel. According to Inger Sigrun Brodey, Austen 'tried to reviseâ[sensibility]â to accord with a sense of individual responsibility, an admiration of tranquility, and the likelihood of community, which tended to be absent from its cultish extremes' which is self-evident within Sense and Sensibility.
Sense and Sensibility as a novel is seen as unromantic in two distinctive ways. You can ascertain that this novel is unromantic due to how love and relationships are portrayed within the plot and also how Austen incorporates many values and ideas from the enlightened period. Within Sense and Sensibility, Austen depicts how important marriage is and the sanctity of marriage but also highlights how marriage is important within the class structure and economic stability for women of this period. In chapter two, John Dashwood's wife Fanny discusses with her husband that he do not need to be considered a beneficiary to his half-sisters due to it being 'âwell known that no affection was ever likely to exist between your children of any man by different marriagesâ' and that these women 'âwill marry, andâ[the money]â will be gone for ever. If, indeed, it might ever be restored to your poor little boy. ' This statement made by Fanny, exasperates the values of this period with time and also of this social order.
According to Phillip Jennings, 'love and marriage were a societal and economic concern, and, therefore, not immune to the period's conventions and machinations. ' This view is indeed reflected within a lot of Austen's novels, not just Sense and Sensibility. Marianne Dashwood through Sense and Sensibility sometimes appears as a heroine on a search for love, does not fulfil a relationship of love, but instead a marriage of convenience with Colonel Brandon. Marianne had previously rendered Brandon as too old as a suitor but Austen in the ultimate pages of Sense and Sensibility acknowledges that Marianne was 'âborn to find the falsehood of her own opinionsâ' By declaring that Marianne's opinions were false in regards to marriage and love, Austen subsequently is solidifying the perception that marrying for money rather than love is a sensible move to make. She furthers this belief by telling the audience that, 'Marianne could never love by halves, and her whole heart became, in timeâdevoted to her husband. '
