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Point out Jane Austen’s contribution to the English novel.

Write a note on Jane Austen’s distinctive contribution to the English Novel.

Jane Austen is the first novelist of England who wrote what may be called pure novels. The art of Jane Austen is made possible precisely by the recognition of limits. Austen was a highly sophisticated artist. Jane Austen in whose half a dozen novels, the genric tradition got a new impetus and vitality was, however, in more ways than one, a pioneering genius, who while she learned a lot from her predecessors gave a completely new turn to novel writing. She gave what we may call the typical feminine touch to the novel, endowed it with a calmness, delicacy and grace one side and a perspicacity, intution and common sense on the other living and writing in a period when momentous political happenings were stirring the heart of Europe. Jane Austen refused to be drawn into the whirpool of exciting and romantic fiction. She kept herself strictly confined within the narrow circle of the upper middle class English families. She placed, with a lively though restrained sense of comedy, and with perfect exactness of touch, the various figures of the gentle folk of a country neighbourhood. Her aim was to draw a picture that would amuse them, within the narrow limits. She achieved a finished realism, with qualities of the highest wit and elegance. Jane Austen was the first novelist to give the world really live novels. Her view of life and her artistic pattern were beautifully woven together to make the novels genuinely life-communicating. Jane Austen’s tone, her ironical opening generalization, her choice of words, her italics and her decision are superb.

Jane Austen is a master of much deeper motion that appears upon the surface.

The characters she draws all are true human beings. With the normal light and shade of human character. She gives them a perfect freedom to express themselves and then she strikes a note of her own, in perfect tune with the speeches of her characters and at once there is a sublimation of character drawing a note of depth and solemnity tempering pure amusement. From mere triviality, the words become suddenly surcharged with a profoundly which stirs the reader to the entire depth of his moral being, and then once again the old gay common place of life. Comes back and the note of serenity is merged in the ebb and flow of human existence.

“Jane Austen’s style is remarkable. It is exquisite for choice of words but not for skill in composition or distinction of language. Her plots are worked out delicately, but they are not original or ingenuous. Incident is almost absent. She repeats situations and to some extent even characters. She cares for story and situation only in as far as they throw light on character. Her novels make no display of idealism, romance, tenderness, poetry, or religion.” Within the limits she gives a clear and sympathetic vision of human nature. She sees everything in clear outline and perspective. She does not analyse logically what she knows by intuition. She does not search out the grounds of motive. Jane Austen imparted artistic excellence to her novels.

Jane Austen is a product of the transitional period even then she belongs more to the 19th than to the 18th. The 18th century traits are marked in the works. First she shows indifference to nature. Secondly there is the absence from her pages of characters drawn from humble life we come a cross the same type of characters. She is wholly of the 19th century in her treatment of character. There is naturalness and reality in speech and behaviour of the characters. They think, speak, and acts as real human beings do. Her portraits are remarkable for their finish, their closeness to human nature and the skill with which she exposes motives. She stands unrivalled in her power of revealing character by means of dialogue alone. She develops her characters to perfection. Each of her character out distinctly as a separate personality. There is constant play of humour. Her novels are full of in direct moral instructions.