Parody and burlesque in Jane Austen’s "Juvenilia" and "Love and Freindship"

Jane Austen’s contribution to nineteenth-century English fiction is conventionally attributed to the author’s canonical novels, particularly Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, which are commonly associated to the literary tradition of realism, while, in the analysis of the portrait of the artist, little consideration is given to her juvenile pieces, the Juvenilia, which rather prioritise burlesque and parody. The purpose of this dissertation is to provide evidence of the relevance of these early writings in Austen’s literary development, especially as a source for subject matters and an apprenticeship for narrative techniques towards mature novels, and to emphasise the importance of satire as Austen’s primary and primordial literary genre, with a comprehensive analysis of “Love and Freindship”. This dissertation seeks to explain Jane Austen’s artistic evolution through a research beginning from the writer’s family environment and adolescence until the writing process of her published novels. The first section of the thesis examines the favourable circumstances of Austen’s girlhood which encouraged the development of the young writer towards critical judgement and objective observation: in particular, considerable importance is given to her inborn temperament, which already prioritised irony and humour; her family atmosphere, characterised by a predisposition to literary criticism and original composition; and, finally, her considerable interest in reading both high and contemporary literature. The second section presents a general introduction to Austen’s early writings, the Juvenilia, in which the writer elaborated her keen critical sense: besides explaining its composition period, the intrinsic division analysed by some critics, according to a variation in themes, narrative techniques and satire employment, and its general target of criticism, the chapter also concerns the question of publication, which encountered general reluctance between family members, and the relevance of these juvenile pieces as precursors of Austen’s mature novels, since both share a community of themes and vision. In conclusion, the remaining section of the thesis proceeds with a critical analysis of Austen’s remarkable burlesque “Love and Freindship”, where the criticism introduced in the Juvenilia is further elaborated. The research, supplied with text extracts, demonstrates the extent to which Austen’s parody involves every characteristic of the sentimental novel: the author catalogues the standard incidents of the ‘lachrymose novel’, which are founded on excessive sensibility; she exposes the epistolary form’s inefficacy to construct an accomplished narrative and its fragmentary nature; and, finally, Austen ridicules and criticises the affected language and hackneyed expressions through which the characters of sensibility communicate.