Lights, Camera, Action!

Dr. Alice Villaseñor, Medaille College

"...it was pronounced to be a prodigious bargain by every lady who saw it. I gave but five shillings a yard for it, and a true Indian muslin." Northanger Abbey chap. 3

Henry Tilney knew his Indian muslin. Now JASNA CWNY will have the opportunity to learn about the influence of Jane Austen on films from the great sub-continent. It’s time to roll out the red carpet and break out the supersized basket of popcorn and the 48 oz. big gulp soda, because  JASNA CWNY is going to the movies. 

Most Janeites know about the1940 movie version of Pride and Prejudice starring Lawrence Olivier, Greer Garson and big hoop skirts. However, there was an even earlier televised version of Pride and Prejudice that aired on the BBC in 1938. This one starred Curigwen Lewis as Elizabeth Bennet and Andrew Osborn as Mr. Darcy. Very little is known about this version, but at 55 minutes it must have had even fewer Bingley sisters than the 2005 version. See here for more details.

A quick search of Wikipedia shows that Pride and Prejudice has inspired the most film and TV versions at 11. Close behind is Emma with 6, including two modern adaptations: Clueless, set in upper class society in Beverley Hills and Aisha, set in upper class Delhi, India.

At our March meeting, our own Dr. Alice Villaseñor will introduce us to Aisha. Alice is an Assistant Professor of English at Medaille College in Buffalo. She has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Southern California, where she served as the Director of Public Humanities Initiatives for the Joint Educational Project at the University of Southern California. In this position she developed service-learning programs in the humanities. She is an active Jane Austen scholar and member of JASNA. She has served on JASNA’s Board and has chaired the International Visitor Program.

At Medaille Alice has taught many English courses, including ENG 435—Major Literary Figures: Jane Austen and Popular Culture, a course we would all like to take (without the final exam perhaps). With Aisha she will give us an introduction to how Jane Austen's Emma was adapted in another culture. Before we watch the movie, Alice will provide some context based on two other Bollywood adaptations of Jane Austen: the more famous Bride and Prejudice based on Pride and Prejudice and the lesser known I Have Found It based on Sense and Sensibility.

Some of the material Alice will share is from a book chapter that she co-authored with Ruth Blandón, which will be included in Pride and Prejudice: A Bicentennial Bricolage.

Alice is well known to us as an engaging and informative speaker, and this promises to be an exciting opportunity to learn more about Jane Austen’s impact on popular culture. Here are the details:

Event:    JASNA CWNY March Meeting

Topic:    Dr. Alice Villaseñor showing and speaking on the movie Aisha

Where:  First Baptist Church, 175 Allens Creek Rd., Rochester, NY 14618

                NOTE CHANGE IN LOCATION

When:   March 18, 2017 at 1 pm (We will be watching the movie, about 2 hrs.)

Will and Jane

The Shirt by the author

“But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere; one is intimate with him by instinct. No man of any brain can open at a good part of one of his plays without falling into the flow of his meaning immediately.” Mansfield Park chapter 34

There is something so appealing about Jane Austen writing about William Shakespeare. It just seems so right. These two icons truly dominate English literature, especially for people who were not English lit majors.  Jane Austen was certainly familiar with Shakespeare, and we find the bard mentioned by name five times in four of the six novels: Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Emma and Mansfield Park (twice).

In Northanger Abbey we find that Shakespeare along with Pope, Gray, and Thompson formed the basis of Catherine Morland’s education. In Sense and Sensibility Marianne’s belief that Willoughby will return in weeks rather than months to finish reading Hamlet gives Elinor some hope for the future of that relationship. We learn in Emma that Shakespeare’s comment on the course of true love would have been heavily annotated at Hartsfield. Finally, Henry Crawford almost wins his case after reading Shakespeare aloud before Fanny (or maybe not).

Clearly Will and Jane should be brought together and a recent exhibition at the Folger Library did just that. The exhibit, titled Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen, and the Cult of Celebrity, carefully examines parallels in the success of both authors. From the exhibit’s website:

“Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen, and the Cult of Celebrity takes a close look at these two celebrated authors’ literary afterlives—and finds some surprising parallels. For both, adaptations and parodies in different eras helped popularize their work and make it more approachable (think Shakespeare Undead and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies).” (1)

Janeites attending the 2016 AGM in Washington D.C. had the opportunity to visit this exhibit and I was fortunate to be among them.  Please see my previous post JASNA Goes toWashington D.C. for some additional pictures from the exhibit.

Now JASNA Central and Western NY is pleased to have one of the curators of that exhibit speak at our February meeting.  Professor Kristina Staub is a Professor of English and Director of the Literary and Cultural Studies Program at Carnegie Mellon University where she teaches courses in Gender Studies, Feminist Cultural Studies, Performance Studies, and early modern British literature and culture. Her book, Divided Fictions, is a feminist look at the novelist Frances Burney. She is currently working on a book studying “weird” performances of Shakespeare’s work in the eighteenth century along with co-curating the Will and Jane exhibit with Janine Barchas. Her talk should give us a fascinating look into the connections between Jane Austen and William Shakespeare, and we might learn more about the Shirt.

Please join us for what should be a lively and informative afternoon. The event details are below:

Event:    “Jane Austen at the Folger Shakespeare Library”  by Prof. Kristina Staub

Where:  Community Room, Barnes and Noble, Pittsford NY

When:    February 18, at 1 pm

1. http://www.folger.edu/exhibitions/will-and-jane. I saw Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It actually was pretty good.