Jane Austen [ Art and Literature ]
… theatricals developed into the boisterous satire of Austen’s teenage writings and informs the more sophisticated social play of her mature novels, most particularly Emma (1815). Socially, the Austens were on the margins of the gentry class, … social order as she negotiates her way through the crowds at the Pump Room, the Assembly Rooms and the theatre, where playgoers are as much spectators of each other as of the play. Commercial spaces of the new leisure economy, like circulating libraries and retail premises, also serve as sites …
Courtship | Fiction | Gender | Public sphere
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