Jane Austen's Influence on Literature

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Jane Austen was a romantic novelist who captivated English readers with her inspired writing skills. Even today, readers all over the world learn to enjoy her writing style and the settings among the landed gentry, a largely historical British social class, consisting of landowners who could live entirely off rental income (Wikipedia.org), during a time when a woman's place was considered to be in the home and subservient to the male. Jane Austen was reflective of her times in that she understood women needed marriage or were reliant on families. Yet, her female characters incorporated free wills and minds of their own. Also, Jane Austen grew up during a time where women were excluded from many things in society, she broke through as an influential writer who overcame the education barrier faced by young women her age and succeeded with a writing style that was all her own. Jane Austen's influence on literature is quite significant and would be altered today without her, because her writing encouraged other females to write, even if that meant using a male pen name, she wrote about real life in her period of time and made people feel like they were right there experiencing the stories with her, and her legacy also reaches into modern literature through the continuous influence of her themes and characters.

To begin, Jane Austen was born in the English village of Steventon on December 16, 1775, to her educated father George Austen who was a clergyman and an aristocratic mother named Cassandra (Reisman 8). She was only the second daughter out of seven children. Jane Austen’s family had a vast love for writing and literature, all of which were extremely literate. She had the liberty of...

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... 2014.

Johnson. Austen cults and cultures,The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, 211.

Gilson. Later publishing history, with illustrations. p. 127.

Johnson, Claudia L. Jane Austen: Women, Politics and the Novel. Chicago: U Chicago

1988.

Litz, A. Walton. Jane Austen: A Study of Her Artistic Development. New York: Oxford

University Press. 1965.

O'Connor, Kate. The Anonymous Jane Austen. writersinspire.org. 25 April. 2014.

Merriam-Webster.com. Genteel. 25 Apr. 2014.

Pinion. F.B. A Jane Austen Companion. London: Macmillian Press Ltd. 1973.

Reisman, Rosemary M. Canfield. CAREER LIFE, AND INFLUENCE: Biography Of Jane

Austen. Critical Insights: Jane Austen. 2010: 8-14. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 12 Apr. 2014.

Wikipedia.org.Jane Austen. Landed Gentry. Authors Influenced by Jane Austen. Modern

Movies Influenced by Jane Austen. 11 Apr. 2014.

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