Jane Austen's Realism

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Jane Austen’s RealismPSYCHOLOGICAL REALISM: The parenthood of not only the English fiction but also the psychological novel goes to Richardson; and his contemporary, Fielding is the first to write a comedy in English fiction with the deliberate intention of rediculing the sentimental morality of Richardson. The Pamela of Richardson becomes Shamela in Fielding.  Jane Austen, it seems, has combined the task of her two predecessors by writing a kind of fiction which is psychologically realisti. She selected as it were, the good points of both these writers an eschewed all that they did and she could not do. The Richardsonian atmosphere of “a sick room heated by stoves is as conspicuously absent in her novels as the epic width and waster panorama of life of Fielding. In effect, she achieves perfection in her craft by exploring the psychologica possibilities of the comedy of manners.SENSE OF STAGE-CRAFT AND COMEDY: The realism
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in Jane Austen is born of the conciousness of her stage-craft and her fine sense of comedy. She is so detached from and fair to her creatures that never for a moment the temptation to blur their outlines overtakes her. While depicting her characters she rarely introduces herself as Fielding had done and Meredith was to do. The dialogues and actions are not the result of her subjective interpretation; they have been recorded directly from life. Although here and there her point of view may find vent through some single character yet her impersonality is well accentuated throughout. She is ...

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