Approaches To Teaching Austen S Emma

Jane Austen is a favorite with many students, whether they've read her novels or viewed popular film adaptations. But Persuasion, completed at the end of her life, can be challenging for students to approach. They are surprised to meet a heroine so subdued and self-sacrificing, and the novel's setting during the Napoleonic wars may be unfamiliar. This volume provides teachers with avenues to explore the depths and richness of the novel with both Austen fans and newcomers. Part 1, "Materials," suggests editions for classroom use, criticism, and multimedia resources. Part 2, "Approaches," presents strategies for teaching the literary, contextual, and philosophical dimensions of the novel. Essays address topics such as free indirect discourse and other narrative techniques; social class in Austen's England; the role of the navy during war and peacetime; key locations in the novel, including Lyme Regis and Bath; and health, illness, and the ethics of care.

There were no reviews of Mansfield Park when it first appeared in 1814. Austen's reputation grew in the Victorian period, but it was only in the twentieth century that formal and sustained criticism began of this work, which addresses the controversies of its time more than Austen's earlier novels did. Lionel Trilling praised Mansfield Park for exploring the difficult moral life of modernity; Edward Said brought postcolonial theory to the study of the novel; and twenty-first-century critics scrutinize these and other approaches to build on and go beyond them. This volume is the third in the MLA Approaches series to deal with Austen's work (Pride and Prejudice and Emma were the subject of the first and second volumes on Austen, respectively). It provides information about editions, film adaptations, and digital resources, and then nineteen essays discuss various aspects of Mansfield Park, including the slave trade, the theme of reading, elements of tragedy, gift theory, landscape design, moral improvement in the spirit of Samuel Johnson and of the Reformation, sibling relations, card playing, and interpretations of Fanny Price, the heroine, not as passive but as having some control.

“Jane Austen’s Families” focuses on family dynamics in Jane Austen’s six novels. After a general introduction, which places its approach in the context of ethical criticism, it divides into two sections. The first, “Family Dynamics,” consists of three chapters – “The Function of the Dysfunctional Family,” “Spoilt Children” and “Usefulness and Exertion.” The three chapters of section two, “Fathers and Daughters,” look at father–daughter relationships in “Mansfield Park,” “Emma” and “Persuasion.”

A Study Guide for Jane Austen's "Emma," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

Now at seventy-three volumes, this popular MLA series (ISSN 1059-1133) addresses a broad range of literary texts. Each volume surveys teaching aids and critical material and brings together essays that apply a variety of perspectives to teaching the text. Upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, student teachers, education specialists, and teachers in all humanities disciplines will find these volumes particularly helpful.

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is one of the most popular and widely taught works of English literature. Despite its enormous appeal--the novel has been in print almost continuously since its publication in 1812--there are few scholarly works devoted to teaching it. As Marcia McClintock Folsom notes in her introduction to Approaches to Teaching Austen's Pride and Prejudice, respondents to an MLA survey on teaching this Austen novel expressed the need for relevant background materials, brief reviews of criticism, and descriptions of pedagogical strategies This volume, like others in the MLA's Approaches to Teaching World Literature series, is divided into two parts. The first part, "Materials," reviews available editions of Pride and Prejudice and works of criticism. The section also includes a handy biographical chronology and a map. In the second part, "Approaches," sixteen teachers offer ideas for presenting the novel in the classroom, such as examining the social and economic conditions of late-eighteenth-century England; discussing biographical details, Austen's unpublished writing (e.g., her juvenilia and letters), and the influence of other works on her fiction; considering the structure and themes of the novel; and analyzing Austen's use of language. This collection is an indispensable resource for teachers of courses ranging from introductory literature surveys and continuing-education classes to graduate-level seminars.

Emma is a comic novel by Jane Austen, first published in December 1815, about the perils of misconstrued romance. The main character, Emma Woodhouse, is described in the opening paragraph as "handsome, clever, and rich" but is also rather spoiled. Prior to starting the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like."