Austen: Pride and Prejudice

About this Course

About the Course

In this course, Dr Katie Halsey (University of Stirling) explores Jane Austen's 1813 novel, Pride and Prejudice. We begin by providing a broad introduction to the historical, literary, social and cultural context of the novel including the early reception of Austen's novel and the status of the novel as a genre in the early nineteenth century. In the second module, we think about the critical reception of Austen's novels from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, before moving on in the third module to explore the presentation of gender in the novel, focusing in particular on the position of gentry-class women in Georgian Britain and the various attitudes to marriage displayed in the novel. In the fourth module, we think about Austen's use of irony in the novel, before turning in the fifth module to explore Austen's use of narrative voice and the concept of 'free indirect discourse'.

About the Lecturer

Dr Katie Halsey is Senior Lecturer in English Studies at the University of Stirling. Her research interests lie mainly in the fields of eighteenth-century and Romantic-period literature and print culture, in particular Jane Austen and the history of reading, although she also works on Mary Russell Mitford and Margaret Oliphant. Her recent publications include (as co-editor) The History of Reading (2011) and Jane Austen and her Readers, 1786-1945 (2012).