2025 marks the 250th birthday of one of Britain’s leading pioneers in English Literature, Jane Austen. While adaptations of her work and biopics of her life seem to grace our screens every few years, such as the new BBC drama Miss Austen which aired on 2 February. With some of our favourite classic ‘90s romcoms like Clueless (1995) being adapted from Austen’s work. Some sceptics still consistently argue her work is “overrated,” or worse, that she writes merely about “everyone getting married off.” I would argue that while on the surface her novels may seem to be about marriage and family life and not much more, and that the frequency to which she exists as a conversation in the literary scene makes her appear somewhat overrated, in reality, her novels explore the complexities of married and single life for women of her era, engaging in nuanced debates regarding class, gender and power.
Regarding the critique that the plot of all her novels is “and everyone gets married,” I would point to the obvious that Austen was very clearly commenting on what surrounded her, just as other British literary greats akin to the Brontës and Shakespeare did. While issues of marriage and romance may seem trivial to a modern audience, these were concerns very present in the minds of women in Regency England. A successful marriage could be the difference between securing safety and security for oneself and their families, or becoming as Charlotte Lucas proclaims in Pride and Prejudice, “27 years old…No money and no prospects” and “Already a burden to my parents.”
Furthermore, while certainly marriage is a key theme in many of her novels, they are hardly always conventional in composure, with elopements, affairs, pre-marital cohabitation and refused proposals to name a few examples. I can only imagine, therefore, how refreshing it must have been for a contemporary female reader to see the complexities of family life and the marriage market reflected in the strong and vocal heroines of Austen’s novels, especially within the work of an author who herself refused marriage. Seeing oneself in literature is something we all strive for, and the vitality of that must not be underestimated in Jane’s work, purely because there is more distance now between us and the times she tells of.
Jane Austen is more than a literary phenomenon but a cultural one also. I can think of few authors whose work is still in such high demand so many years after publication. Her work transgresses into our cultural scene in a way only comparable to Shakespeare, even if sometimes less explicitly. Name your favourite romcom and I can almost without doubt ensure the romantic trope would have been one pioneered by Austen. Enemies to lovers? Pride and Prejudice. Friends to lovers? Emma. Unrequited love? Mansfield Park. I am sure we can all join in wishing this literary great a Happy 250th Birthday and thank her for transforming our literary and cultural landscape in incomparable ways.
Illustration by Katya Roberts @katyaillustrates