Detailed Course Outline of B.A. (Hons) In English Language and Literature, 4 Years Programme Year 1, Semester I

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1. Foundations of English – I

• Use of grammar in Context

o Tenses: meaning & use

o Use of active and passive voice

o Use of articles and prepositions

o Different sentence patterns

o Combining sentences

• Oral Communication Skills (Listening and Speaking)

o Express ideas/opinions on topics related to students’ lives and experiences

o Participate in classroom discussions on contemporary issues

• Reading and Writing Skills

o Skimming

o Scanning

o Identifying main idea/topic sentence

o Inference and prediction

o Recognizing and interpreting cohesive devices

o Note taking and note making

o Generating ideas using a variety of strategies e.g. brainstorming

o Developing a paragraph outline (topic sentence and supporting details)

o Vocabulary building skills

• To develop the ability to use a dictionary

2. Islamic Studies

Quranic Verses: Translation and Explanation: Selected from various Sections of Quran Relating to different issues like Salat, Zakat, Ramadan, Tuheed etc.

.

Ahadis: Translation and Explanation: Selected Ahadis relating to different issues like, Haqooq- ul- Habad, Jehad, Husn-e- Ikhlaq etc

History of The Prophet’s Life: Various incidents and battles taken from the life of the Holy Prophet. (PBUH)

Islamic Culture and Civilization: Islamic Culture and Civilization through the History, its development, achievements etc

3. Primary Readings in Poetry

  • Robert Herrick, To Daffodils
  • John Donne: Go and Catch a Falling Star, The Flea
  • Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress
  • Milton: On His Blindness
  • William Blake, Introduction to ‘Songs Of Experience’, Tiger
  • W. Wordsworth, The Daffodils, Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802, The Solitary Reaper, The World Is Too Much With Us
  • S.T. Coleridge, Kubla Khan
  • P.B. Shelly, Song: Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Ode to the West Wind, To A Skylark
  • J. Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci, Ode to A Nightingale,
  • A.L. Tennyson, Ulysses
  • Robert Browning, Love Among The Ruins
  • Mathew Arnold, Dover Beach
  • Robert Frost, Stopping By Woods on A Snowy Evening
  • W.B. Yeats, Among School Children, The Leda And the Swan, Byzantium
  • T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
  • Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz
  • Christina Rossetti, When I am Dead my Dearest

4. Introduction to Literature and Literary Movements – I

Literary Forms: their origin and development

ü What is Poetry? Various forms/types of Poems/Verse/Stanza, metre, rhyme, rhythm

ü What is drama? Various types of drama, Plot, Setting, Character/, Characterization, Story, Dialogue, Spectacle, etc.

ü

Some Literary Movements

ü Classicism, Romanticism, Modernism, Post-Modernism, Formalism, Realism, Symbolism, etc.

5. History of English Literature- I

ü The Age Of Chaucer, 14th Century

ü The Renaissance Period

ü Elizabethan Age

ü 17th Century (Milton, The Puritan Movement, The Metaphysical and The Cavalier Poets, The Reformation Age)

ü Restoration Period

Semester II

1. Foundations of English – II:

• Use of grammar in context

o Phrase, clause and sentence structure

o Reported speech

o Modals

• Oral Communication Skills (Listening and Speaking)

o Comprehend and use English inside and outside the classroom for social and academic purposes

• Reading and Writing Skills

o Distinguishing between facts and opinions

o Recognizing and interpreting the tone and attitude of the author

o Recognizing and interpreting the rhetorical organization of a text

o Generating ideas using a variety of strategies e.g. mind map

o Developing an outline for an essay

o Writing different kinds of essay (descriptive and narrative)

o Vocabulary building skills

2. Pakistan Studies

Ideology of Pakistan: Definitions, Historical Background, Speeches delivered by Quaid-e-Azam etc.

Life and Works of : Mujadid-Alf- Sani, Shah Waliullah, Sayed Ahmad Shaheed etc.

Two Nations Theory: Services of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and others.

1900_1930: The establishment of All India Muslim League, Lacknow Pact, Khilafat Movement, Nehro Report, Quaid-e-Azam’s Fourteen Points, Round Table Conferences, Allah Abad’s Address etc.

1930_1946: 1935 Act, 1936-37 Elections, Congress Ministries, Pakistan Resolution, Crips Mission, Shimla Conference, Dehli Convention etc.

After 1946: Cabinet Mission Plan, 3rd June 1947, Independence Act 1947, The Creation of Pakistan, Red Cliff’s Award, Early problems and difficulties of Pakistan.

3. Primary Readings in Short Story and Essays

Short Stories:

Ø Janet Frame, You Are Now Entering The Human Heart

Ø Bessie Head, The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses

Ø Etidal Osman, The House For Us

Ø Ernest Hemingway, Soldier’s Home

Ø Jamaica Kincaid, Girl

Ø Naguib Mahfooz, The Answer is No

Ø Khalida Asghar, The Wagon

Ø Katherine Mansfield, The Doll’s House

Ø Anton Chekhov, The Bet

Ø Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Handsomest Drowned Man in The World

Essays:

Ø George Orwell, A Hanging

Ø N. Scott Momaday, The way To Rainy Mountains

Ø Virginia Woolf, The Death Of The Moth

Ø Martin Luther King: I Have A Dream

Ø Deborrah Tannen, How to Give Orders Like A Man

Ø Russel Becker, Slice Of Life

Ø Suzanne Britt, Neat People vs. Sloppy People

Ø E.M. Forster, My Wood

Ø Alleen Pace Nilsen, Sexism In English: A 1990s Update

Ø William Zinsser, College Pressure

Ø Barbara Ehrenreich, Cultural Baggage

Ø Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal

4. Introduction to Literature and Literary Movements – II

Literary Forms: their origin and development

ü What is Novel? Various types of Novel, Plot, Setting, Character, Characterization, Story, Narrative Devices/Techniques, etc.

ü Short Story, Essay, Types, Constituents Elements/Essentials of short stories and essays, etc

Literary Movements

ü Marxism, Feminism, Deconstruction, Naturalism, Surrealism, Absurdism, etc.

5. History of English Literature- II

Aims and Objectives: To make the students understand how historical and socio-cultural events influence literatures written in English and how the literature of a particular nation and age mould and shape the thinking of the writers. Although the scope of the course is quite expansive, the students shall focus on the historical survey of various genres of literature (Poetry, Prose, Novel, Drama, Short Story, Essay, etc., and literary periods/movements from 19th Century to 21st Century.

Topics:

ü Classical or the Neo-Classical Age

ü Romantic Age

ü Victorian Age

ü 20th Century or the Modern Age

ü 21st Century

Year 2, Semester III

1. Communication Skills

• Preparing for interviews (scholarship, job, placement for internship, etc.)

• Writing formal letters

• Writing different kinds of applications (leave, job, complaint, etc.)

• Oral presentation skills (prepared and unprepared talks)

• Preparing a Curriculum Vitae (CV), (bio-data)

• Writing short reports

2. Citizenship Education (HR)

• What are Human Rights (HR)?

• Evolution of the Concept of HR

• Four Fundamentals in HR: freedom, equality, justice, and human dignity

• Universal Declaration of HR

• Three Key Principles in HR: inalienability, indivisibility and universality

• Are HR Universal? (debate/ discussion etc)

• HR in South Asia: Issues

• Rights of Women

• Rights of Children (debate/ discussion on child labor, etc)

3. A General Survey of American Literature

CONTENTS: Although historically speaking it is difficult to encompass all the merging and emerging traditions or trends of American literary sensibility in this short survey course, the parameters of the course will highlight some salient and unique features of literature written in English in the United States of America. The writings, not classics all the way but popular expressions of their time, can be analyzed in different historical, social, political, religious, mythical, and of course literary contexts. The teachers can focus on themes, issues or concerns that have run through American life from its beginnings and can ask what makes them particularly American. In this regard knowledge of American history and political theory in terms of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and nationalism as a background resource to tracing the frontier tradition and American hero will be very useful. As a guiding principle, some of the common themes to be picked and discussed may go around approaching American selfhood, American character and culture to further delve into exploring the American sense of adventure, human will to connect or conquer, toughness, courage, humor, expedition, exploitation, competition, experimentalism, materialism, dignity, freedom, opportunity, dream, desire, illusion, reality, self-reliance, search for identity, belonging, alienation, loneliness, isolation, pathos, optimism, difference, co-existence, human rights, building or bulldozing democracy, so on and so forth.

4. Classics In Poetry-I(Chaucer 1st Generation Of Romantics)

ü J. Chaucer, Prologue To The Canterbury Tales

ü E. Spenser, Fairie Queene (Canto-1)

ü J. Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1

ü J. Donne, Love And Divine Poems: Selections: The Flea, The Sunne Rising, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, Extasie, Death Be Not Proud, Thou Some have Called Thee, If Faithful Souls Be Alike Glorified

ü Pope, Rape of The Lock

ü S.T.Coleridge, Rime Of The Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan

ü W.Wordsworth, Intimation Ode, Tintern Abbey, It’s A Beauteous Evening, The World is too Much With Us

5. Linguistics & Major Schools in Linguistics -An Introduction

ü Basic terms And Concepts in Linguistics (language, design features, nature and functions of language, diachronic/synchronic linguistics, paradigmatic/syntagmatic relations)

ü Elements of Language (Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, etc.)

ü Scope of Linguistics (an introduction to major branches of linguistics)

ü Schools of Linguistics (generativism, structuralism, mentalism, etc.,)

ü Discourse Analysis

Semester IV

1. Academic Reading and Writing

a. Critical Reading

Advanced reading skills and strategies building on Foundations of English I & II courses in semesters I and II.

· expository (description, argumentation, comparison and contrast)

b. Academic Writing

Advanced writing skills and strategies building on Foundations of English I & II in semesters I and II:

· report writing

· assignments/term-papers

· examination answers

2. South Asian Literature

• Anita Desai: In Custody (novel) or Bapsi Sidhwa: Cracking India / Ice Candy-Man (novel)

• Bapsi Sidhwa: “Breaking it Up” (essay)

• Arun Joshi: “The Only American from Our Village” (play)

• Aamir Hussain: “Sweet Rice” (poem)

• Tahira Naqvi: “Attar of Roses” (poem)

• Daud Kamal: “An Ode to Death” (poem)

• Taufeeq Rafat: “Reflections” (Poem)

3. Classics in Poetry-II (2nd Generation of Romantics to 20th Century)

ü John Keats, Ode On Grecian Urn, Ode To A Nightingale, Ode To Autumn

ü A. L. Tennyson, The Lotus Eaters, The Lady Of Shallot, Break Break, Break, Tears, Idle Tears

ü Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken, Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening, Mending Walls

ü W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming, The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

ü T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, The Love Song Of Alfred J. Prufrock

ü Ted Hughes, Hawk Roosting, The Owl, The Seven Sorrows, Crow’s Fall, A Woman Unconscious

ü Sylvia Plath, Ariel, The Colossus, Daddy, Lady Lazarus, The Bee Meeting, The Arrival Of The Bee Box, Purdah

4. Classics in Drama-I (Sophocles to Shaw)

ü Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

ü Marlowe, Doctor Faustus

ü Shakespeare, Hamlet

ü Shakespeare, The Tempest

ü G.B. Shaw, Arms And The Man

5. Phonetics and Phonology

ü Introduction

· Stages in the production of speech

· Speech Organs

· Manner and Place of articulation

ü Segmental Phonology

· Phonemes and allophones (consonants, vowels, diph/triphthongs)

· The Cardinal Vowel System

· Syllable and syllabic structure (consonant clusters, syllable, word stress)

· Sounds in connected speech (weak forms, elision and assimilation)

ü Suprasegmental Phonology

· Word and Sentence stress and intonation

ü Contrastive Phonology

· Teaching of pronunciation

· Application of phonetic and phonological rules in daily life

· Pakistani English

ü Phonetic/Phonemic Transcription

Year III, Semester V

1. Classics in Drama-II (Modern)

ü T.S. Eliot’s Murder In The Cathedral

ü Sean O’Casey’s Juno And The Paycock

ü Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot

ü H.Pinter’s The Caretaker

ü A. Millers The Death Of A Salesman

2. Grammar, Syntax and Semantics

Introduction

· Grammar

· Some Traditional Concepts

· Morphology

· Transformational Generative Grammar

Syntax

· Introduction to Syntax

· Aspects Of The Theory Of Syntax

· Basic Concepts Of Syntax, Structure Of English And Syntactic Problems

Semantics

· Introduction To Semantics

· Ambiguity

· Context

· Pragmatics

3. Literary Criticism and Theory-I

Literary Criticism

ü Aristotle’s Poetics

ü Longinus’ On The Sublime

ü Dr. Johnson’s Preface To Shakespeare

ü Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads (Chapter 14 and 15)

ü Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria (Chapter 17, 18)

ü M. Arnold’s Function Of Criticism

4. Sociolinguistics

ü Functions of Language in Society

ü Domains of Language Use

ü Speech Community

ü Multilingualism and Bilingualism

· Dimensions of Bilingualism

· Bilingualism and Diglossia

· Causes of Bilingualism

· Manifestations of Bilingualism

v Loan-words

v Borrowing

v Code-switching/code-mixing

· Effects of Bilingualism

v Language Conflicts

v Language Attitudes

v Language Maintenance

v Language Change/Shift

v Language Death

ü Dialects, Pidgin and Creoles, Register, Genderlect, etc.

ü Standard Language

ü National Language, Language Planning And Policy,

5. Prose-I (Bacon to Ruskin)

ü F. Bacon, Bacon Essays (Of Studies, Of Death, Of Love, Of Followers And Friends)

ü J. Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

ü C. Lamb, Essays Of Elia (Dream Children, The Chimney Sweepers)

ü W. Hazlitt, My First Acquaintance With Poets, From Mr. Wordsworth

ü J. Ruskin, The Crown Of The Wild Olive (Lecture-1 Work)

Semester VI

1. Classics in Novel- I (18th Century to Victorian)

ü Fielding, Joseph Andrews

ü Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

ü Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

ü Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

ü Thomas Hardy, Tess Of The D’Urbervilles

2. Psycholinguistics

ü The Nature Of Language

· The Psychology Of Language

· The Structure And Function Of Language

· Processes In The Use Of Language

ü First Steps In Child’s Language Acquisition

· Communicating with Language

· Issues In The L/A

· Methods Of Studying Child’s Language

ü Later Growth In The Child’s Language

ü The Psychology of Learning

· Theories of language Acquisition/Learning (Behaviourism, Cognitivism, Interactionism)

· Memory

· Interlanguage

· Error Analysis

ü Perception and Production of First and later Sounds

ü Individual Learner Factors

· Age and Critical Age

· Affective and personality factors

· Cognitive styles

· Motivation

ü Language and Thought (Language Universals and Linguistic Relativity)

3. Literary Criticism and Theory-II

New Criticism

ü T. S. Eliot’s Tradition And Individual Talent, Function Of Criticism

ü F.R. Leavis’ Literary Criticism And Philosophy (The Common Pursuits)

ü Derida, Of Grammatology (Selection)

Modern, Post-modern and Contemporary Approaches/Theories (An Introduction)

(At least four as per Choice or Requirement):

§ Postcolonial–With emphasis on Racial, National, and Global

§ Postmodern–With emphasis on Popular, Cyber-Spatial, and Technological

§ Linguistic – With emphasis on Structural, Post-structural, Translation

§ Psychoanalytic – With emphasis on Psycho and Socio-pathological

§ Reception – With emphasis on Interpretation, Hermeneutics, Reader-Response

§ Marxist – With emphasis on Economic, Social and Cultural

§ Feminist – With emphasis on Gender and Sexuality Studies

§ Myth-o-poetic – With emphasis on Archetypal, Phenomenal, and Genre based

§ Inter-textuality – With emphasis on Comparative World

4. Prose- II (Modern)

ü T.H. Huxley, Selections: From Agnosticism And Christianity, From Science And Culture, From A Liberal Education

ü Bertrand Russel, Bertrand Russel’s Best: Silhouettes In Satire

ü Martin Luther King, Non-violent Resistance

ü Mikhailovich Bakhtin, Dialogics

ü Edward Said, Orientalism (Chapter-1)

5. Contemporary Issues in Applied Linguistics

ü Language, Identity and Culture

ü Language and Gender

ü Globalization and its Impact on Teaching and Learning of English

ü Language and Development

ü World Englishes

ü Language Policy and Planning

ü Language in Education

ü Bilingual Education

NOTE: Books/Materials related to the part of Contemporary Issues in Applied Linguistics will be suggested and provided by the tutor of the course.

Year 4, Semester VII

1. ELT (English Language Teaching)

ü Methods of Language Teaching

· Approach, Method and Technique

· Selected ELT Methods: Grammar-Translation, Direct Method,

Audio-lingual, etc.

· ELT models for Pakistan

ü Theory and Practice of Teaching Oral Skills

· Nature of Oral Communication

· Theory and techniques of teaching listening and speaking

· Lesson Planning for Teaching Oral Skills

ü Theory and Practice of Teaching Reading Skills

· Nature of Reading

· Theories of Reading – Interactive and Schema

· Designing activities for reading skills

· Lesson Planning for teaching reading

ü Theory and Practice of Teaching Writing Skills

· Nature of Writing

· Theories of Writing – Product and Process

· Lesson Planning for teaching writing

· Techniques for giving feedback and correcting written work

ü Teaching English Pronunciation

2. Classics in Novel- II (Modern)

ü Joseph Conrad, Heart Of Darkness

ü D.H. Lawrence, Women In Love

ü J. Joyce, The Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man

ü Virginia Woolf, To The Light House

ü William Faulkner, The Sound And The Fury

3. Stylistics

ü Introduction

· What is stylistics?

· Subject and Discipline

· Stylistics as a Bridge between Linguistics and Literature.

· Literature as Text and as Discourse

ü The Nature of Literary Communication.

ü Literature as Foregrounded Language.

ü The Theory of Deviation and its Application to the Study of Poetry

· Lexical, Grammatical, Phonological, Semantic, Dialectal deviation

· Deviation of Register

· Deviation of Historical Period

ü Parallelism

· Scheme as Foregrounded repetitions of expression e.g. Verbal repetition and its poetic effects, Rhythm and Rhyme.

· New concepts of meter such as Measure. Tropes as Foregrounded irregularities of content: figurative language i.e. metaphor, oxymoron, synecdoche, irony, hyperbole, litotes etc.

ü The stylistic analysis and appreciation of the short stories, poems and essays (Written in the form of assignments and Oral in the form of Class Presentations or Seminars) with reference to concepts such as conflict, the Narrative Voice, Irony etc.

4. Research Mechanics/Methodology (Applied Linguistics And Literature)

Ø Introduction: Qualitative and Quantitative Research Paradigms

Ø Identifying and Defining a Research Problem

Ø Selection Of the Topic and delimitation of The Topic

Ø Ethical Considerations

Ø Sampling Techniques

Ø Tools for Data Collection: Questionnaires, Interviews, Observation &

Ø Documents

Ø Data analysis and Interpretation

Ø Some Aspects of the Research Work

· Review of literature

· Transcription and Transliteration

· Referencing and Citation

5. Language Assessment

• The contexts in which language assessment takes place;

• Concepts, principles and limitations of measurement;

• The educational and research uses of language assessment;

• The nature of the language abilities that affect performance on language assessment instruments;

• The characteristics of assessment methods that affect performance on language assessment instruments;

• Procedures for investigating the reliability of assessment results and the validity of the uses of assessment results;

• Current issues and problems in language assessment and language assessment research.

• Evaluating and designing tests for assessing different language skills and grammar.

Semester VIII

1. ELT Practicum

ü Lesson Planning

· Making and using Lesson Plans for teaching Listening,

Speaking, Reading and Writing Skills, Grammar and Vocabulary.

ü Classroom Observation

· The importance of Classroom Observation

· Observation of English Language Classrooms/Peer Observation

ü Classroom Dynamics

· Roles of Teachers and Learners

· Classroom Interaction

· Teaching the Whole Class

· Pair-Work

· Group-Work

ü Microteaching

· Students will teach on topics (either in the University classes or outside in the affiliated colleges) of their choice from the lessons that they have already planned with support from the tutor/peers.

2. Literary Pedagogy and Practicum

ü Theoretical Background

• Curriculum Development

• Teaching Methodology for Literature

• Material Development

• Adaptation and Design for Literature

• Assessment of Literature

• Lesson Planning

• The Teaching of Literature in the Sub-Continent

ü Practicum

• Classroom Observation

• Presentation /Micro-Teaching

3. Syllabus and Material Development

• Principles and process of syllabus design

• Kinds of ELT syllabus

• Conducting needs analysis

• Evaluating and designing a syllabus

• Evaluating, adapting and designing print and web-based materials for language learning including prescribed textbooks in Pakistani schools

• Evaluating, adapting and designing self study materials for language learning

• Designing no-cost, low-cost materials for language teaching

4. Research Thesis/Dissertation or Research Paper

Writing Thesis/Dissertation (40-60 pages) and 08 CHs means a serious and concentrated effort to write their research work on a topic of choice and it becomes mandatory for them having been exposed to literary taste and linguistic style for more than three years. At this final stage of their readings the students are expected to write their research works. Details regarding research may be connected back to the training received through the introductory course in “Research Methodology/Mechanics” offered in Semester VII.

Jane Austen’s Achievement as a novelist

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Introduction:

The correct evaluation of Jane Austen as a novelist has come only recently. Her genius was not recognised by her contemporaries or even her successors. None of her books saw a second edition in her lifetime. The collected edition of her works which was brought out in 1833 could not be sold for about half a century.

Her first biographer humbly wished her to be placed beside such novelists as Fanny Burney and Maria Edgewerth and no more. But about 1890 the tide of appreciation and popularity markedly turned in her favour and, correspondingly, against her contemporary, Sir Walter Scott. Today she needs no advocate as she has made a secure niche in the temple of fame from where she cannot possibly be dislodged-at least for many years to come. In the twentieth century she has been made the object of numerous biographies and appreciations. Almost every piece of her writing has been carefully and lovingly edited and commented upon; almost every aspect of her singularly uneventful life has been brought out and sympathetically examined. Her works in their entirety have been vastly read and extolled, and she has been characterised as the greatest female novelist of England and one of the best of all novelists. F. R. Leavis gives her a sort of five-star rating by including her in the “Great Tradition.” Let us quote here a modern representative opinion-that of David Daiches: “The greatests of all the novelists of manners of thisorany other period and one who raised the whole genre to a new level of art was Jane Austen (1775-1817). With no exhibitionist critical apparatus, such as Fielding’s theory of the comic epic, no pretentiously moral purpose such as Richardson kept repeating, and indeed with no apparent awareness that she was doing more than essaying some novels in an established social mode, this unpretentious daughter of a Hampshire rector, with her quietly penetrating vision of man as a social animal, her ironic awareness of the tensions between spontaneity and convention and between the claims of personal morality and those of social and economic propriety, her polished and controlled wit. and beneath all her steady moral apprehension of the human relationships, produced some of the greatest novels in English.” Jane Austen wrote no more than six novels, but each of them is a masterpiece in its own right.

Artistic Concern:

Considered strictly as an artist, Jane Austen is superior to most of her predecessors as also successors. Most English novelists have had the fault of carelessness. Scott, for example, never revised a line of his own, simply because he had no time for it. In the novels of Dickens also we come across passages which could have been easily improved with a little care. Jane Austen was, by contrast, extremely careful and painstaking. For months together, after finishing a novel, she would go on revising it till she found it incapable of further improvement. Her meticulous artistic concern for form, presentation, and style cannot be exaggerated. “It is”, observes Diana Neill, “not, therefore, surprising that the final versions of her novels had a formal perfection-no loose ends, no padding, no characterization for its own sake, and a flawlessly consistent idiom suited to the person who used it.” What is remarkable about Jane Austen, therefore, is the flawlessness of her art. Everything in her novels is carefully conceived and exquisitely executed.

Her Range and Themes:

Jane Austen’s art as a novelist has stringently set limits which she seldom oversteps. She was amazingly aware which side her genius lay and she exploited it accordingly without any false notions of her capabilities or limitations. As Lord David Cecil points out, she very wisely stayed “within the range of her imaginative inspiration.” Her “imaginative inspiration” was as severely limited as, for example, Hardy’s or Arnold Bennett’s. Her themes, her characters, her moral vision, her observation-everything has a well-etched range within which she works, and works most exquisitely. Let us now glance at the territories of her art and achievement.

(i)         All her novels have for their scene of action South England where she lived and which she knew so well. However, her novels cannot be called “regional novels” in a category with, say, Hardy’s Wessex novels, because she does not particularly concern herself with the landscape and other peculiar features of the region she deals with. She is, as has been said by Robert Liddell, a “pure novelist” whose concern and study are “human beings and their mutual relations.” Regionalism as such is unknown to her.

(ii)        She deals only with one peculiar mode of existence. Her novels are all about the upper middle classes and their (mostly trivial) activities. Moody and Lovett observe: “The chief business of these people, as Miss Austen saw them, was attention to social duties; their chief interest was matrimony. This world Miss Austen represents in her novels; outside of which she never steps.” The same critics observe: “Unlike Maria Edgeworth, whose novels represented a considerable range of social experience, Miss Austen exploited with unrivalled expertness the potentialities of a seemingly narrow mode of existence.”

(iii)       Jane Austen had an eye for the minutiae of life. Theatricals, tea parties, and balls were the most important events in the placid life of her own family and her neighbourhood. These very things are given the pride of place in her novels. The most “thrilling” events are nothing more than an elopement or a runaway marriage. In her novels there are no storms-except those in tea cups.

(iv)       There is thus no adventure, no passion, and no “romance” in her novels. There are no deeply stirring tempests either literal or psychic, such as we find, for example, in the novels of the Bronte sisters. Charlotte Bronte herself was constrained to observe about Jane Austen: “She ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound. The passions are perfectly unknown to her : she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy sisterhood.”

(v)        She was not a romantic novelist of the kind of either the Brontes or Scott. Temperamentally she belonged more to the eighteenth century than her own age which was then being swept over by a strong current of the Romantic Revival. Once when she was invited to write a romance of the kind of Scott’s novels, her reply was perfectly clear: “I am fully sensible that [such a romance] might be more to the purpose, profit or popularity than such pictures of domestic life in country villages as I deal in. But I could no more write a romance than an epic poem…No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way: and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.”

(vi)       Jane Austen limits herself strictly to the depiction of personal relations. Now a man can be considered with reference to several kinds of relations such as :

(a) His relation to himself.                                      

(b) His relation to other men and to his social environment.

(c) His relation to his country.

(d) His relation to Nature.

(e) His relation to God.

Except the second listed, Jane Austen neglects all other kinds of relations. David Cecil observes in this connection: “Man in relation to God, to politics, to abstract ideas, passed by her: it was only when she saw him with his family and his neighbours that her creative impulse began to stir to activity.”

(vii)      Jane Austen refuses to deal with the seamy aspects of life. There are no murders or gory crimes in her novels. She shuts her eye even on financial matters, which are a major driving force in real life. Samuel C. Chew rightly complains that she knew nothing about finance.

Her Realism and Depiction of Social Manners:

These limitations of range should not be treated as so many imperfections. On the contrary, her awareness of these limitations is what exactly makes her a great novelist. Within her voluntarily demarcated range she never bungles. Her essentially anti-romantic temper made her a realist. She did what Scott did not. Cross observes: “She was a realist. She gave anew to the novel an art and a style, which it once had, particularly in Fielding, but which it had since lost.” She did not have Fielding’s range, and she also eschewed his masculine coarseness. She feminized Fielding. Even Scott admitted Jane Austen’s excellence-in her own field- He wrote in his diary about her: “That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements, feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I have ever met with. The big bow-wow I can do myself sets any one going, but the exquisite touch which renders commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of description and the sentiments is denied me.” Whether you consider Fanny’s visit to her parents’ home after an absence of more than ten years, or Darcy’s proposal to Elizabeth and its rejection, or the union of Emma with her lover after many many years, or such trivial incidents as a tea party, an evening-walk, a ball or a theatrical you are always struck by Jane Austen’s fidelity to life. For a novelist to be realistic what is required is not only a sense of intuition but also a very minute and searching observation. And this Jane Austen has as her forte. It is not surprising that her favourite poet happened to be Crabbe-that unswerving realist. Her range is limited, but within that she never fails. From a study of her novels, we can easily buil up an authentic picture of the life of middle classes of South England in the early nineteenth century.

Her Characterisation and Plot-construction:

Jane Austen is one of those novelists in whose works characters cannot be considered apart from plot. Characterisation and the building of plot go hand in hand in them, and quite often the two are interchangeable too. Her psychological insight into her characters, like her minute observation, needs no elaboration. Most of them are “round” characters and have an organic development in most cases, from self-deception to self-knowledge and self-realisation. Her female characters are certainly more complex and engaging than her men who have a certain softness about them. Her characters are all highly individualized  and yet they have something of the universal about them. They reveal themselves not in moments of crisis but during their engagement in the trivial activities of social life. Jane Austen herself was so convinced of the reality of her fictive characters that, as Chew puts it, “she would narrate to her family incidents in their lives which do not occur in the book.”

One of Jane Austen’s achievements and merits is her excellence at plot-construction. Very few English novelists have given as well integrated plots as she has. All the characters in a Jane Austen novel are essential to its plot; even the very minor ones cannot be justifiably separated from it on the ground of being superfluous or supernumerary. She has something like the architectonic ability of a dramatist. Numerous of her novels have been split by critics into so many acts of a drama. About the structure of Pride and Prejudice Cross observes: “The marriage of Elizabeth and Darcy is not merely a possible solution of the plot, it is as inevitable as the conclusion of a properly contructed syllogism or geometrical demonstration. For a parallel to workmanship of this high order one can only look to Shakespeare, to such a comedy as ‘Much Ado about Nothing.’ Mostly, Jane Austen keeps herself, like a dramatist, behind the stage, and lets her characters unfold themselves through their own action and dialogue. She rarely introduces them like Fielding, Meredith, or Thackeray, or offers to comment upon what they are doing. Her own impressions and opinions are delivered not as regular interpolations but in the record of action and dialogue.

Humour, Satire, and Irony:

This detachment from her characters is, mostly, ironic in nature. Her irony, like her humour and comedy, is of the quiet, unobtrusive kind. As Cecil puts it, “humour was an integral part of her creative process.” She laughs at the social aberrations and irrationalities of her characters. She is a satirist but shows no evidence of holding a lash in readiness. She paints more the follies of manners than morals. “Her province,” says Samuel C.Chew, “is not that of sombre delinquency but of venial error. The faults in her characters are mostly due to bad training or want of training in youth. In older people these are often beyond repair; but in young, especially the young lovers, they are purged and done away through tribulations which are nonetheless poignant for being generally misunderstandings. Each book is thus a history of self-education and self-correction.” “Jane Austen”, observes Compton-Rickett, “never lashed our follies, she faintly arched her eyebrows and passed on.” She constantly considered decorum, grace, tolerance, sympathy and self-respect with their opposites like ill-breeding, coarseness, intolerance, selfishness, and self-humiliation. However, she is never harsh, and she never arrogates to herself any pontifical dignity. She is convinced of the ordinariness of life and all its appurtenances. Her tolerance as a moralist places her beside Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Fielding.

Her Style:

A word now about her style which is a monument of grace, lucidity, intelligence, perception and a kind of “feminine” charm. “There are,” says Samuel C. Chew, “qualities of Miss Austen’s style-the delicate precision, the nice balance, the seeming simplicity-which remind many readers of Congreve’s comedies.” As examples of her typical ironic wit consider the following sentences:

(a)        It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

                                                      Pride and Prejudice

(b)        Her father was a clergyman without being neglected or poor, and a very respectable man though his name was Richard and he had never been handsome.

Northanger Abbey

(c)        When Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice laments that after her husband’s death she will become destitute, he consoles her:

“My dear,” [says her husband] “do not give way to such gloomy thoughts. Let us hope for better things. Let us flatter ourselves that I may be the survivor.”