| Medicine:
A Margin of Chance
Theater:
Razzle Dazzle
Hearing and Speech:
Fine Tuning
English:
 Musical Muse
Social Work:
Another America
Health:
The Pressure is On
Technology:
Sky's the Limit
Travel:
Destination: Appalachia?
Bioengineering:
Model Knees
Scholarship:
Keeping a Journal  return to top
return to top | | | Musical Muse
Studies Reveal Musical Influence
in Jane Austen's Works It's difficult to imagine a Jane Austen novel devoid of humor, charm, wit, conflicting pleasures, or music. In her day, proficiency in the arts was aligned with a woman's social status and her romantic availability. And although women were encouraged to attain a high level of proficiency in music, there was no public venue for them
to perform. | | click to enlarge
photo:
Courtesy of Mimi Hart and the Jane Austen Memorial Trust Notes and Letters
Jane Austen relied on music and literature in her writing. | A musician herself, Austen understood this superficial fusion of women and music with 18th Century English culture. Many of her female characters were accomplished musicians and, as a satirist, Austen took great pleasure in skewing the cultural appetite for feminine accomplishments, according to studies by Assistant Professor of English Mimi Hart.
It was in graduate school that Hart first became interested in Austen's work and the dichotomy between female amateur musicians and social conventions of the 18th Century woven throughout the author's novels.
"Although the 18th Century witnessed a remarkable demand for the new pianoforte and a proliferation of printed music, music history records little of the female musicians for whom these goods were intended and whose study and performance filled 18th Century middle- and upper-class homes," says Hart, who notes that much of the music during that time was written for women to perform
at home for their families, which gave rise to amateurism. "Austen herself played the pianoforte every day for more than 30 years."
Hart's research led her to Austen's home in Chawton, England, where she found the author's hand-written and printed manuscripts in disrepair. Austen did not compose music. Rather, she painstakingly collected, copied, and bound hundreds of her favorite works.
"It was shocking to see the sad condition of the collection," says Hart, who presented her research at the general meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America in Toronto this fall. "It's ironic considering the loving attention Austen focused on her treasured music. Their condition clearly indicated an opinion that her musicianship continued to be viewed as unimportant to her development as a writer."
But Hart maintains Austen's continuous pairing of books and music in her letters and in her novels points to how thoroughly she relied on both art forms in her writing. Austen's letters also reveal how the author used music to examine important issues of women's lives, Hart adds.
Determined to recover and preserve the manuscripts and songbooks, Hart formed a partnership with the Jane Austen Memorial Trust in Chawton, England, and possesses sole rights to their publication. She'd like to publish a Jane Austen songbook and is currently investigating possible publishers.
For now, Hart is in the process of digitizing the collection of Austen's papers. When the process is complete, she plans to donate it to Ohio University Libraries.
- Susan Green
For more information about this research, e-mail Mimi Hart at hartmi@ohio.edu. |
)
