The genius of Jane Austen
Subtitle: her love of theatre and why she works in Hollywood
By: Paula Byrne
Edition: First U. S. Harper Perennial edition.
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 334
ISBN-13: 9780062674494
Copyright date: 2017
Subjects: Theater; Knowledge; English Women novelists; History and criticism; Criticism and interpretation; History
Work titles: Jane Austen and the theatre
Description: Jane Austen loved the theatre. She learned much of her art from a long tradition of English comic drama and took joyous participation in amateur theatricals and her visits to the theatre in London and Bath. Her juvenilia, then 'Sense and Sensibility', 'Pride and Prejudice', 'Mansfield Park' and 'Emma' were shaped by the arts of theatrical comedy. Her admiration for drama's dialogue, characterisation, plotting, exits and entrances is why she has been dramatised so successfully on screen in the last twenty years -- and these versions are at the centre of her continuing fame, culminating in her celebration on £10 note. From the stage adaptations of Austen's novels to modern classics, including the BBC 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Persuasion', Emma Thompson's 'Sense and Sensibility', and the phenomenally brilliant and successful 'Clueless', 'The Comic Muse' presents an Austen not of prim manners and genteel calm, but filled with wild comedy and outrageous behaviour.
Notes: Originally published as : Jane Austen and the theatre. London : Hambledon and London, 2002.

Includes bibliographical references and index.