Today marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth and we were delighted to hear St Hugh’s Stipendiary Lecturer in English, Dr Lucy Powell discussing Jane Austen’s 1830 novel Pride and Prejudice with broadcaster and script editor John York on BBC Radio 4’s “Opening Lines“.
The opening lines of Pride and Prejudice are not only among the most famous in all of literature, they also place marriage front and centre as the key theme within the novel. “It is a truth universally acknowledged,” Austen writes, “that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” So many of the characters and their actions are driven by the search for a good marriage – but their motivations and aspirations are both richly varied and illuminating of Regency society at a time when women could find security and status primarily at the altar.
The programme explores how Jane Austin uses the subject of marriage not only as a core part of the plot, but also as a means of reading and critiquing the society she lived in, and asks whether Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy can find a love that transcends the strictures of the time.
To listen to the full programme please click here.