Prospect And Refuge in the Landscape of Jane Austen

Given the neatly veiled attitude of Austin for the meat market that was middle-class and elite marriage in her time, it is interesting that Wenner would choose the concept of "refuge" in her title. Wenner obviously well understands the tension between what Austen's heroines say and what they feel, so she uses the thematic element of landscape and the heroines' use of it to entice and to withdraw as they manipulate their hapless suitors and women friends into getting what, after all, is best for them. Wenner covers the potential of death by landscape, steel traps as bowers, heroines in training, civility, the geography of Persuasion and Sanditon and the reactions of more modern women to using the landscape as a lasso. Annotation c2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Barbara Britton Wenner is an associate professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Cincinnati, USA. She teaches courses on Jane Austen and has published several articles about her.