Jane Austen's Names Riddles, Persons, Places |
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| Author:
| Doody, Margaret |
| ISBN: | 978-0-226-15783-2 |
| Publication Date: | Apr 2015 |
| Publisher: | University of Chicago Press
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| Book Format: | Hardback |
| List Price: | USD $38.00 |
Book Description:
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Jane Austen took a particular delight in the resonance of names, and in her novels she used the names of people and places as a potential source of meaning, satirical or historical. Margaret Doody’s book is a learned and enjoyable investigation of this aspect of Austen’s art. Doody tells us that Austen preferred first names in common and traditional English use, though these sometimes acquire a subtly new flavor in her works. Austen also favored the names of saints and...
More DescriptionJane Austen took a particular delight in the resonance of names, and in her novels she used the names of people and places as a potential source of meaning, satirical or historical. Margaret Doody’s book is a learned and enjoyable investigation of this aspect of Austen’s art. Doody tells us that Austen preferred first names in common and traditional English use, though these sometimes acquire a subtly new flavor in her works. Austen also favored the names of saints and of royalty, but she did use some classically derived "pagan” names, always with a purpose. And Austen would signal political loyalties and allegiances in her novels through the use of names, both first names and last names, as well as place names. In exploring Austen’s names and their connotations, Doody has a larger point to make. By uncovering the riddling and punning in Austen’s names, as well as Austen’s interest in history, Doody casts Austen as a "decidedly earthy” writer steeped in the particulars of place and time, rather than a timeless novelist writing in an abstemious style. From this attention to names in her work emerges a picture of Austen that is both fuller than we’ve had before, and controversial.