The Great Novelist:Jane Austen1

By Karen Groves

简·奥斯汀是英国最伟大的女作家之一。她终身未婚，将所有情感倾注于文学创作，虽然一生只有六部作品，但部部都是精华。她以细致入微的观察力和风趣有力的文字为我们展现了她那个时代的英国，也展现了她对这个世界的理解和希望。读她的作品，体会这个遗世而独立的女子关于爱情、金钱以及人情世故的感悟，或许我们也会豁然开朗。

Jane Austen is loved mainly as a charming guide to fashionable life in the Regency period2. Regency period： 英国摄政时期。摄政制度是指在君主制国家中，国王不能理政时期代行国王权力的一种政治制度。此处是指英国历史上最典型的摄政时期，即1811年到1820年间，当时的英国国王乔治三世因精神病因不适于统治，他的儿子（乔治四世）被任命为他的代理人，从而成为摄政王。. She is admired for portraying a world of elegant houses,dances, servants and fashionable young men driving barouches3. barouche： 四轮大马车。. But her own vision of her task was radically different. She was an ambitious—and stern—moralist.4. stern： 严格的，苛刻的；moralist： 道德家，伦理学家。She was acutely conscious of human failings and she had a deep desire to make people nicer: less selfish,more reasonable, more dignified and more sensitive to the needs of others.5. acutely： 非常地，强烈的；failing： 缺点，弱点； reasonable： 通情达理的；dignified： 有尊严的。

Born in 1775, Jane Austen grew up in a small village in Hampshire where her father was the Anglican rector.6. Hampshire： 汉普郡（位于英国南部）；Anglican rector： 圣公会教区牧师。They had quite a high social status but were not at all well-off7. well-off： 富裕的。. She started writing young: at only twentyone she had a novel turned down by a major publisher.During most of her adult life, Britain was at war with Napoleon. Two of her brothers became admirals8. admiral： 海军上将。. She did much of her writing at a tiny octagonal9. octagonal： 八边形的。table.She was a very good dancer and very interested in being well-dressed. She was neat, elegant and lively. She never married, though on a couple of occasions she was tempted10. tempt： 诱惑，引诱。. Mostly she lived in pleasant small houses in the country with her sister Cassandra.

The novel was her chosen weapon in the struggle to reform humanity. She completed six: Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility,Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion.11. 她共完成了六部作品，分别为《诺桑觉寺》、《傲慢与偏见》、《理智与情感》、《曼斯菲尔德庄园》、《爱玛》和《劝导》。

Some of the main things she wants to teach you are:

One: Let your lover educate you

In Pride and Prejudice, Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet start off heartily disliking each other and then, gradually realise they are in love. They make one of the great romantic couples. He is handsome, rich and well connected; she is pretty, smart and lively. But why actually are they right for one another?

Jane Austen is very clear. It’s for a reason we tend not to think of very much today: It is because each can educate and improve the other. When Mr Darcy arrives in the neighbourhood he feels “superior” to everyone else, because he has more money and higher status. At a key moment, Elizabeth condemns his arrogance and pride to his face.12. condemn： 谴责；arrogance：傲慢；to one’s face： 当面。It sounds offensive in the extreme, but later he admits that this was just what he needed.

Elizabeth shares this view of love as education. They suit each other because:

It was a union that must have been to the advantage of both; by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; and from his judgement, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance.13. 这个结合对双方都有好处：女方从容活泼，可以使男方精神放松，礼貌有加；男方精明通达，阅历颇深，也一定会使女方得到莫大的裨益。

It’s a lesson that sounds strange because we still tend to think of love as liking someone for who they already are, and of total acceptance. The person who is right for us, Austen is saying is not simply someone who makes us feel relaxed or comfortable; they have got to be able to help us overcome our failings and become more mature, more honest and kinder—and we need to do something similar for them.

Two: We shouldn’t stop judging people; but we have to judge more carefully

《曼斯菲尔德庄园》电影海报

《傲慢与偏见》电影剧照

Mansfield Park starts when quiet, shy Fanny Price goes to live with her much richer cousins, the Bertrams at Mansfield Park, their big house in the country. The Bertrams are smart, fashionable, confident and well-off. In social terms they are stars and Fanny is a very minor character indeed (her cousin Julia looks down on her because she doesn’t know where the different European countries are). But Jane Austen judges people by a completely different standard.

Austen exchanges the normal lens through which people are viewed in society,a lens which magnifies wealth and power, for a moral lens, which magnifies qualities of character.14. 当时社会上衡量人地位的普遍标准是财富和权力，而奥斯汀将其换成了道德，注重的是性格品质。normal lens： 标准镜头，这里指“一般世俗的眼光”；magnify： 放大。Rather than focus on who has the nicest dress, the best carriage, or the most servants, she examines who is vain, selfish or cruel; who has integrity, humility and true dignity.15. carriage： 四轮马车；integrity： 正直，诚实；humility： 谦虚。

Through this lens, the high and mighty may become small, the forgotten and retiring figures may grow large.16. high and mighty： 大人物，权威人士；retiring： 不善社交的，离群的。Within the world of the novel, virtue is spread without regard to material wealth: the rich and well-mannered are not (as in the dominant status schema) immediately good nor the poor and unschooled bad.17. virtue： 美德；without regard to： 不考虑；schema： 模式；unschooled： 未受过教育的。Virtue may lie with the lame ugly child, the destitute porter, the hunchback in the attic or the girl who doesn’t know the first facts of geography.18. lame： 跛足的；destitute： 贫困的；porter： 行李搬运工，勤杂工；hunchback：驼背的人；attic： 阁楼。Certainly Fanny has no elegant dresses, has no money and can’t speak French—but by the end of Mansfield Park, she has been revealed as the noble one, while the other members of her family, despite their titles and accomplishments,19. reveal： 揭示，显示；noble：高尚的；title： 头衔。have fallen into moral confusion.

Jane Austen is not the enemy of status. She just wants to see it properly distributed and at the end of her novels it always is. Fanny is raised up, and will become the mistress of Mansfield Park. Her selfish, empty-headed cousin Julia, is disgraced.20. empty-headed： 愚蠢的，无头脑的； disgrace： 使……丢脸，使……蒙受耻辱。

小说《爱玛》

Three: Take money seriously

Jane Austen is quite frank about money. She takes aim at two big mistakes people make around money. One is to get over-impressed by what money can do. In Mansfield Park, Julia Bertram gets married to Mr Rushworth (the richest character in all Jane Austen’s novels) but they are miserable together and their marriage rapidly falls apart. But, equally, she is convinced that it is a serious error to get married without enough money.At one point in Sense and Sensibility, it looks like Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars, who are otherwise well suited, won’t be able to get married: “they were neither of them quite enough in love to think that three hundred and fifty pounds a year (a little below the middle-class average) would supply them with the comforts of life.”21. 在《理智与情感》中，埃莉诺·达什伍德与爱德华·费华士曾一度不能够结婚，尽管他们似乎在其他方面都非常般配。“他们都没有足够爱对方到认为每年三百五十英镑（比中产阶层的平均收入还要低一点）就能够让他们过上衣食无忧的生活。”

Jane Austen is steering her way towards an elusive—but crucial—attitude.22. steer： 驾驶，引导；elusive： 令人困惑的，难以捉摸的；crucial： 至关紧要的。Money is in some ways extremely important and in other ways unimportant. We can’t just be for it or against it. It sounds simple, of course, to assert23. assert： 坚持，维护。this; and yet we are continually going wrong in practice.

Four: Don’t be snobbish24. snobbish： 势利的。

In Emma, the heroine—Emma herself—takes Harriet Smith a pretty girl from the village under her wing25. take someone under one’s wing： 庇护某人。. Harriet is a very pleasant, modest and unassuming26. unassuming： 谦逊的，不装腔作势的。young woman. But Emma decides she should be much more than this. She wants Harriet to make an impressive match with the smart vicar27. vicar： 教区牧师。. Harriet is swept off her feet by Emma’s excessive praise.28. sweep someone off one’s feet： 使人飘飘然；excessive： 过度的，过多的。She turns down a very suitable offer of marriage from a farmer, because she thinks him not good enough, though in fact he is thoroughly good hearted and quietly prosperous29. prosperous： 富裕的，成功的。. The Vicar turns out to be horrified at Emma’s idea and Harriet has her heart broken.

It’s droll in the novel, but the underlying point is serious: Emma is unwittingly, but cruelly, snobbish.30. droll： 好笑的，滑稽的；underlying： 潜在的，根本的；unwittingly： 无意地。She is devoted to the wrong kind of hierarchy31. hierarchy： 层级，等级制度。. Jane Austen does not think that the cure for snobbery is to think that everyone is equal. In her eyes, that would be immensely32. immensely： 非常地。unjust. Rather,the real cure is to pay attention to true merit. The farmer is essentially a better person than the vicar; but social conventions33. convention： 习俗，惯例。and manners make it easy to ignore this.

Few people are deliberately34. deliberately： 故意地。snobbish. And Jane Austen is careful to give this fault to Emma, who is in many ways an enchanting35. enchanting： 迷人的。character.But eventually Emma is corrected. We see her recognise her error, feel very sorry and learn a life-long lesson. In other words, Jane Austen does not mock snobbery as the behaviour of ghastly and contemptible people.36. mock： 嘲弄；ghastly： 令人讨厌的，极坏的；contemptible：令人鄙视的。Instead, she regards the snob with pity—as someone who lives a blighted life (however materially comfortable); they are in need of instruction,37. snob： 势利小人；blighted： 衰败的，衰落的；instruction：教育。guidance and reform.But mostly, of course, they don’t get this help.

During her late thirties, Jane Austen had several productive years, living in a congenial38. congenial： 令人愉快的，宜人的。and well-ordered house in the little village of Chawton in Hampshire. Her novels were increasingly well-received and she started making some money from them (though she never became famous because they were always published anonymously39. anonymously： 匿名地。during her lifetime). In 1816, when she was forty, her health declined rapidly. She died the following year and was buried in Winchester Cathedral40. Winchester Cathedral： 温彻斯特大教堂，英格兰最大的教堂之一，位于汉普郡的温彻斯特。.

Austen modestly and famously described her art as “the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour,” but her novels are suffused with greater ambitions.41. 关于自己的作品，奥斯汀有一段谦虚而有名的描述：“像是在两英寸宽的象牙上作画，笔触太细，费神费力却收效甚微”，但她的小说显然更具雄心。be suffused with： 充满，弥漫。

Her art is an attempt, through what she called a study of “three or four families in a country village” to criticise and so alter life. She is the usual assumption that the exciting, important things are going on somewhere else and that we, unfortunately, are missing out.

Austen might have written sermons42. sermon： 布道。. She wrote novels instead. Sadly, we refuse to read her novels as Austen would have wanted. The moral ambition of the novel has largely disappeared in the modern world, yet it is really the best thing that a novel can do. The satisfaction we feel when reading Austen is really because she wants the world to be a certain way which we find immensely appealing; it’s the secret, largely unrecognised, reason why she is so much loved as a writer.