Austenmania and critical snobbery

[pegkerr]

The Pride of Austen Critics: a Prejudice?

Deborah Kaplan muses upon the immense growth of popularity of Jane Austen's fiction, and the effect that all the recent adaptations of her work has had upon the assumption that her work is truly only accessible and enjoyed by those fortunate few with elevated taste:

"...while many of us were trying, whether we were aware of it or not, to rescue Austen from her popularity, other critics were beginning to view the representations and activities that constitute Austenmania with more appreciation and, in the process, to probe our discipline's investment in hierarchies of literary value, readings, and readers. For the study of Austenmania prompts questions about what cultural works we value, why and how we value them, and who "we" are.

Read the whole essay here.

Comments

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

I am excessively diverted! Thanks for the pointer!