Well, there's also the fact that Americans are not well educated about British (or Commonwealth) history in general. There were important changes taking place in British law all through the 19th century, but you won't hear much about them in a general history class. Not just the Married Women's Property act but the successive reforms of the House of Commons, the seating of Catholics, Jews, and atheists in the House of Commons, the repeal of the Corn Laws, even the transfer of India from being controlled by the East India Company to being controlled directly by the government-all important, all obscure to most Americans. I certainly learned about them pretty haphazardly. I suspect even Sam Vimes being a descendant of Oliver Cromwell goes past a lot of us. . . .
I feel that the reason Austen has stayed timeless is because she was writing in her own modern age, without being too enamored of it.
She wrote the way people talked realistically rather than with too much literary affect, which sets her apart from a lot of her contemporaries that didn't continue to be so popular.
She wasn't caught up so much in the very details that we can find in our research, too. The actual dress and relative positions played little part, because she was interested in the way people are, under those trappings. Her time and views informed her writing, no more...
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She wrote the way people talked realistically rather than with too much literary affect, which sets her apart from a lot of her contemporaries that didn't continue to be so popular.
She wasn't caught up so much in the very details that we can find in our research, too. The actual dress and relative positions played little part, because she was interested in the way people are, under those trappings. Her time and views informed her writing, no more...
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