Collected Poems And Verse Of The Austen Family

by Jane Austen

This volume of verse by Jane Austen and her family contains all the known poems by Jane herself and a selection of work by her sister Cassandra, four of her brothers, her uncle James, her nieces Anna and Fanny, and her nephew James Edward

Genres: Classics, Jane Austen, Poetry

144 pages, Paperback

First published December 5, 1996

About the author

Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment upon the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage for the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works are an implicit critique of the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her deft use of social commentary, realism and biting irony have earned her acclaim among critics and scholars.

The anonymously published Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816), were a modest success but brought her little fame in her lifetime. She wrote two other novels—Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1817—and began another, eventually titled Sanditon, but died before its completion. She also left behind three volumes of juvenile writings in manuscript, the short epistolary novel Lady Susan, and the unfinished novel The Watsons.
Since her death Austen's novels have rarely been out of print. A significant transition in her reputation occurred in 1833, when they were republished in Richard Bentley's Standard Novels series (illustrated by Ferdinand Pickering and sold as a set). They gradually gained wide acclaim and popular readership. In 1869, fifty-two years after her death, her nephew's publication of A Memoir of Jane Austen introduced a compelling version of her writing career and supposedly uneventful life to an eager audience. Her work has inspired a large number of critical essays and has been included in many literary anthologies. Her novels have also inspired many films, including 1940's Pride and Prejudice, 1995's Sense and Sensibility and 2016's Love & Friendship.

Reviews

[Chris]

The day returns again, my natal day;
What mix’d emotions with the Thought arise!
Beloved friend, four years have pass’d away
Since thou wert snatch’d forever from our eyes.

Jane Austen’s poem (snappily entitled 'To the Memory of Mrs Lefroy, who died Dec:r 16 — my Birthday. — written 1808') is only one of a couple of extant poems with any pretentions to gravity, mock or otherwise, written by the celebrated author. Most if not all of the rest of Jane Austen’s verse output presented here involves ballad-like doggerel, amusing verses parodying serious poetic forms and wordplay in the form of riddles and other games.

A good two-thirds of the poems included in the collection however are either by individuals from the extended Austen family or represent joint efforts, when they accepted poetic challenges and responded with punning rhymes. Among the contributions are works by her mother, Mrs Cassandra Austen, her sister Cassandra and her brothers, plus one of her uncles, several nieces and a nephew.

While we can’t count any of the verse here as seriously great poetry (though a few are quite splendid) their value lies in exhibiting the playfulness and love of words that the family members shared amongst themselves. As the editor tells us, “Verse-making was a social activity, a game of greeting, or charades, or bouts-rimés,” the pieces often composed “as part of a game, with various members of the family making their own contribution to a round.”

Jane’s novel Emma gives us a hint of the place of wordplay and riddles in the kind of genteel social gatherings and meetings she was accustomed to, especially illustrated by Mr Elton’s charade which Emma you may remember mistakenly believed is directed at her protégée Harriet. Included here is a ‘noun verse’ by her niece Caroline, written as if 'In the Character of Mrs. Norris from Mansfield Park', showing how Austen games and Jane’s fiction intersected in real life. Also here is her nephew and later biographer James Edward Austen-Leigh’s 'To Miss J. Austen' (1813), written when the identity of the anonymous author of Pride and Prejudice became known:

No words can express, my dear Aunt, my surprise
Or make you conceive how I opened my eyes,
Like a pig Butcher Pile has just struck with his knife,
When I heard for the very first time in my life
That I had the honour to have a relation
Whose works were dispersed through the whole of the nation. […]

Though a slim collection this is one to dip into, as I have, rather than to read straight through in one sitting: several pieces are both intense and precise, their treasures to be yielded to us moderns only with the help of the annotations because they refer to contemporary events and customs or to familial confidences. For example, Jane’s brother James’s elegiac farewell to her takes on, for all its classical formality, a certain poignancy when we know that he was physically unable to attend her funeral.

Half of the hundred-plus pages here consist of very informative editorial by David Selwyn, to whom the imprimatur has clearly been given by the Jane Austen Society. To the preface and introduction are added (where needed) subheadings for the verses, followed by a bibliography, textual and explanatory notes, and a short appendix of poems not by Jane but copied out by her. Any reader desperate for minutiae of Jane’s life, deeds and acquaintances will be well delighted with these, as they will be for the poems themselves, faithfully transcribed according to the original spelling, punctuation and layout.

Jane’s final poem, 'Written at Winchester on Tuesday the 15th July 1817', is included in this annotated compilation. Composed three days before her death, the extended piece contains few if any premonitions of what’s to come; however, the words she puts into the mouth of Winchester’s St Swithun naturally can equally apply to her immortal self (note that the Venta personified here is the Roman precursor to Winchester):

[…] Oh Venta depraved
When once we are buried you think we are dead
But behold me Immortal […]

[EvaLovesYA · Rating 3 out of 5]

En rigtig fin samling, som var rigtig sjov at læse.