Based on the conversations we have had and our preliminary investigation into the databases available, I am most interested in the Orlando and Reading Experience Databases. We can use these to see how Austen’s writing was received during different time periods, and how someone living in Austen’s era would have interpreted the work. These sources offer us many different perspectives on the work, from people of both genders, varying time periods, classes, education levels, and socioeconomic statuses. They are the most interesting sources to me by far because I want to delve deeper into interpersonal and societal views held by individuals in Jane Austen’s era, especially women. The Orlando database will be especially helpful in furthering that exploration.
As of yet, the topics most interesting to me remain the idea of the novel and its role (among varying time periods, genders, and socioeconomic statuses) both in Austen’s time and in contemporary society. Primary sources from Orlando and The Reading Experience will help me to draw directly from the minds of people reading novels throughout time. I am interested to see what we can learn about ideas of gender and class from studying the reception and role of the novel. I am also still interested in the idea of “judgement” and how Austen may have used varying character perspectives (free indirect discourse) to further a point about differences between classes and genders, or other social/political commentary.
This is an interesting angle and one that hasn’t come up in our conversations yet–what if we looked at responses of Austen’s contemporaries to the novel itself? What could reviews tell us about the broader context in which it was published? Rather than thinking about the context that influenced Austen, we can think more about how Austen influenced that context. Let’s definitely chat more next week about adding reception history to our list of primary source types.