Pride And Prejudice

I worked all day on the second essay for my university preparation course. I chose the question about Jane Austen's best-loved work.

"Good judgement is at the heart of this romantic comedy. Superior judgements, ethical judgements, hasty judgements, unbending judgements and really bad judgements are all examined. Why is good judgement so significant in the world of Pride And Prejudice? Is it merely a source of good comedy?"

Two and a half thousand words later (including quotes) I reached this conclusion:

"The proper deployment or misapplication of judgement in Pride And Prejudice, then, are not merely devices used to great effect in a romantic comedy of social manners. The crucial role good judgement plays in determining the success in the world of the novel is critical to understanding its intentions.

Elizabeth alerts the reader to those intentions when she observes, while dancing with Mr Darcy at the Netherfield ball:

It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion to be secure of judging properly at first.

Jane Austen suggests that only by virtue of experience, reflection and self-knowledge can any of her characters come to understand, as her principals do, that Elizabeth's overt-confident criticism of propud Mr Darcy is prejudiced by a lack of self-knowledge, which ultimately only good judgement can bring."

I am a novice.
.

Reading Jane Austen

I have an essay due next Monday on questions of judgement in Pride And Prejudice so I re-read an engrossing article by Tony Tanner in Jane Austen, edited by Harold Bloom. Among other helpful observations, Tony Tanner writes:

For Jane Austen's book is, most importantly, about prejudging and rejudging. It is a drama of recognition - re-cognition, that act by which the mind can look again at a thing and if necessary make revisions and amendments until it sees the thing as it really is. As such it is thematically related to the dramas of recognition which constitute the great traditions of Western tragedy - Oedipus Rex, King Lear, Phedre - albeit the drama has now shifted to the comic mode, as is fitting in a book which is not about the finality of the individual death but the ongoingness of social life.

That link is strong and obvious once you see it but one does need a perceptive analyst like Tony Tanner to show you the way to a clearer reading of a text that's been part of your reading life for more than thirty years.
.