Guest
Literary analysis of a device of Jane Austen’s writing style, which she uses in both the novel Persuasion (notably in Captain Wentworth’s letter to Anne Elliot) and in her own letters: phonocentrism & photocentric language. Many people adore the ‘realness’ & ‘authenticity’ of Jane Austen’s writing style - in the lecture, I analyse one way that Jane Austen constructs artificial ‘realness’ & ‘authenticity’, which is to assume phonocentricity. OUTLINE - Definition & explanation of phonocentrism & phonocentric language - Analysis of Jane Austen’s use of phonocentric textual construction in her own letters to Cassandra - Examination of an example of how Jane Austen depicts phonocentrism in her novels: Captain Wentworth’s beautiful love-letter to Anne Elliot at the end of the novel Persuasion (incl. analysis of the cancelled chapters of Persuasion). You can see the manuscript of the cancelled chapters of Persuasion here
