Last
week, I posted My Wildest Jane Austen Quiz Yet in Austen L and here in my blog:
It’s
now Monday 10 am EST, and so, since no one guessed the answer, I will, as
promised, give the answer:
"What
is the manuscript that connects to the above-quoted passage from “Henry&Eliza”,
and also to all of the nine above-quoted passages from Emma?"
ANSWER: BOOK M, by Katherine Austen, as described
briefly here:
"First
hint: the name of the author of that manuscript is itself another connection to
Jane Austen, and is actually the connection that I first took note of, which so
intrigued me that it led me to discover all of the
above textual connections. As far as I have been able to discern from diligent
searching, I am the first to discover and take note of these connections, even
though they have been hiding in the plain sight of a
fair number of literary scholars for a number of years."
EXPLANATION:
Of course, the name "Katherine Austen" caught my eye initially, but
it was only when I learned all about the subject matter of Book M
that I noticed the numerous correspondences between it and two of Jane Austen's
writings: the juvenilia "Henry and
Eliza" and Emma.
"Second
hint: As Jesus (as reported by the Evangelist Luke) concludes, what was lost is
now found...after a few centuries."
EXPLANATION:
The above was a teasing reference to the actress Evangeline Lilly, who of
course was one of the lead characters in the TV series Lost. Her character's
name was "Kate Austen"!
"I
promise you this---the Quiz Answer raises important questions not only about
Jane Austen’s authorial agenda and methodology, but also about the balkanization
of literary scholarship, which allows significant connections to remain
undetected, because one “hand” doesn’t know what the other hand already
holds."
EXPLANATION:
What I meant by the above was that a number of excellent scholars of women's
writing from the late 17th century (a century before Jane Austen's era) have known
all about Katherine Austen and her Book M manuscript for a number of years, but
none of them seems to ever have noticed the numerous parallels between Book M
and Jane Austen’s writings.
From
my preliminary digging, I could find no evidence that Katherine Austen was part
of Jane Austen’s family tree, nor was Book M published prior to very recently.
So it is difficult to understand how Jane Austen could have had access to the
content of Book M. And yet, as I will at some future point elucidate, there are
so many specific and densely clustered parallels between Book M, on the one
hand, and “Henry & Eliza” and Emma, on the other, that it appears to me
to beyond the realm of coincidence.
Somehow,
some way, Jane Austen knew all about Book M, recognized its strong feminist
message, and resonated to it so strongly, that she chose to covertly allude to
it as a teenager, and then again as a mature 40 year old.
Cheers,
ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
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