The Tensions of Jane Austen’s Epistolary Style

Abstract

Jane Austen’s letters contain few insights into her practice or philosophy as a writer. A series of letters in 1814 to her niece Anna offer comments and advice on the ongoing novel which this budding author has sent her aunt for feedback, but these are mainly of a practical nature, concerning such matters as names, titles and etiquette (‘And when M^r Portman is first brought in, he w^d not be introduced as the Hon^ble—That distinction is never mentioned at such times;—at least I beleive not’). The majority of the letters which survive are concerned with day-to-day, rather than literary or intellectual, concerns. Jane’s letters to her sister Cassandra in particular are full of commonplace gossip between sisters, which could strike a modern reader as trivial, even frivolous. Their structure and style are, as many critics have noticed, akin to the spontaneity and rapidity of speech. In the novels such breathless letters are frequently a sign of negligent behaviour, even moral weakness. However, the letter can be a much more complex form in Austen’s fiction. Letters in her novels do not always reveal character so transparently, and the focus is often on difficulties surrounding their interpretation. The deciphering of epistolary meaning involves Austen’s heroines in some of their deepest personal struggles, and as a result these scenes of reading are crucial in each novel. Far from being trivial and frivolous, the letter is for Austen a powerful means of illustrating fictional consciousness, and the key to generating sophisticated stylistic techniques.