Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA)

In Celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the Publishing of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park

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This year it was decided to turn the Winnipeg Chapter of JASNA’s December meeting into an event celebrating the 200th anniversary of the publishing of Mansfield Park.  All celebrations require special and memorable activities and this event was no exception.  In addition to having a sit down turkey dinner members were honoured to listen to a presentation on the novel in question by Vanessa Warne, Associate Professor and Graduate Chair, Book Review Editor for Victorian Review Department of English, Film and Theatre at the University of Manitoba. 

 

After enjoying a wonderful Christmas meal served family style as it would have been in an upper class Regency home,  members and guests adjourned to the drawing room where we were introduced to our guest speaker in a most appropriate way by Sabrina – dressed in a period costume of her own construction.  Sabrina looked like Jane herself, emerged alive from one of Cassandra’s drawings of her. 

 

The theme of Vanessa Warne’s presentation was Improvement in Mansfield Park.  There were several layers of the novel wherein the reader could view the concept of improvement.  Speaking as a fan of Jane Austen’s works rather than an authority, Vanessa admitted that after a decade of neglecting this novel and upon re-reading it to develop her presentation she found the piece as well as her impression of Fanny much improved over the reaction of her younger self.  To be sure some of the characters within the novel are improved by their recent readings – Fanny among them. 

 

And here’s an interesting perspective of the idea of improvement.  Vanessa directs our attention to Alistair Duckworth’s critique of Austen’s work, The Improvement of the Estate.  In his view the reader can judge character based upon how the character reacts to ideas of land improvement – on whether these improvements are done with an eye to community benefit or whether strictly for personal comfort and sensibility. 

 

The discussion period allowed for an engaging discussion by chapter members pulling in references from other authors and drawing parallels with the politics of the ownership and use of property today.

We can summarize our chapter’s Christmas meeting with a quote from Persuasion as referenced by one of the members in the course of the aforementioned discussion.  Anne and Mr. Elliott are having a conversation.

 

My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.'

'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company - that is the best.”

 

I think all present would agree that we were in the best company on that December evening.