Well, here it is folks! You didn’t ask for it, you might not have even wanted it, but you are sure getting it: The Austen Experience.
I don’t really attempt to hide my love for Jane Austen.
I will argue until my dying days that I think her work remains the gold standard for romance in fiction, mostly because her writing isn’t really about romance. I know, all the Darcy lovers are crying blasphemy at me.
Here’s the thing, it’s very unfair to compare the work of Jane Austen to the work of Phillippa Gregory or Julia Quinn. This is primarily because Jane Austen is a writer who writes about the period she is living in, which I think any reasonable person would realize is an unfair advantage.
While romance is a central tenet of all the novels, they are often more about the way in which young women are experiencing the world in the Regency period and will often comment on other social issues. Persuasion is just as much about Anne Elliott’s insecurities and personal growth over the course of the novel as it is about second chances in love. Mansfield Park shows the ways in which Fanny is used and abused by her relatives, but Austen also uses the setting to comment on slavery and emancipation.
But I do feel it is of some worth to explore the comparison because Jane Austen’s work is often branded by the media who consume it as being historical romance.
Most of Austen’s legacy has been defined by how relatable and engaging her characters, and the stories they inhabit, are. Her protagonists are generally witty, with rich inner lives, and are surrounded by a cast of characters who are endlessly entertaining. She always seems to strike the line perfectly between writing people who leap off the page with how real they are while still remaining true to the era she was writing for.
Elizabeth Bennett remains one of the most enduring female leads in literature because she is both very much a young woman in Georgian England while displaying a sort of eternal relatability no matter what generation you are from. I think it’s this balance that has made faithfulness to Austen’s text one of the key features of what has traditionally consisted of a good Austen adaptation. Coincidentally, loyalty to the subject matter, by definition, means attention to historical accuracy
For many years, fans of Pride & Prejudice have upheld the 1995 BBC series starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth as the epitome of adaptation. Much of the dialogue was lifted straight from the novel, there was considerable time and effort put into the costumes and set to be as accurate as possible, and all of the actors were drilled on etiquette training so they could eat, sleep, and breathe like the gentry from the Regency period. Even the choreography was lifted from The Apted Book of Country Dances (1966) by W.S. Porter to try and get as close as possible to how the social circles being depicted would have moved.
This adaptation spurred a wave of other Austinian film and miniseries adaptations. For a time in the late 90s and early 00s, one could not turn on a tv without tripping over a Sense and Sensibility, a Mansfield Park, or an Emma. It was completely reasonable that this slew of adaptation would be varying in quality and style, but their discourse was often unified by a call to be true to the subject matter. To be true to the experiences of Austen.
There was certainly a place for adaptations the eschewed the Regency setting entirely, but those usually came out after there had been a faithful first adaptation in this period. The exception to this rule was Emma. Clueless was a smash hit the same year of Firth and Ehle’s miniseries, but the setting and dialogue were so removed from Austen’s original work that many didn’t make the connection to its source material. Furthermore, the character of Emma Woodhouse is a bit of an oddity anyway in Austen’s menagerie of female leads.
As mentioned earlier, Emma differentiates herself from an Elizabeth Bennett or Fanny Price in that she is attractive, wealthy, and well-liked. The trials and tribulations Emma faces in the course of the novel are ones of her own devising due to her vanity and ill-thought-out meddling. While Emma is still subject to some of the constraints of women in her time (like when she can’t be friends with Jane Fairfax as they are, by necessity, rivals for the same small pool of eligible men), but she does not suffer from the same life or death consequences. It’s also what makes her, in some ways, less likeable than many of Austen’s other leads.
All this really just boils down to the fact that an Emma adaptation relies less on its accuracy in depicting female life in Regency England in order to be successful.
This is in contrast to adaptions of all of her other work.
When the 2005 movie adaption of Pride and Prejudice starring Kiera Knightley and Matthew Macfayden hit theatres, it was met with cautious applause but was still found wanting when compared to the 1995 miniseries. It strove for realism but in a different manner. More authentic to some of the realities of Regency living than to the way Austen tends to dress it up in her work. As Joanna Briscoe points out in her 2005 review of the film, everyone has muddy hems, the Bennett sisters scramble past chickens to tumble out onto the unmanicured Georgian landscape, and many kinds of makeup were banned on set. I think she is right to note that at many points in the film, it seems to be evoking more of a feel for Wuthering Heights than it does Austen’s work.
So true to the period, but maybe not completely to the author.
The reaction to 2005’s Pride and Prejudice seems to highlight the other side of the accuracy to Austen debate. While some adaptations are just not up to snuff in getting the intricacies of the Regency period down the way 1995’s adaptation does, others are at risk of not capturing it in the way Austen saw it.
The bottom line is that while Austen is a beloved writer with a very specific style, there is a different weight to adaptations of her work that a Bridgerton just doesn’t have. While it is certainly possible to accurately capture Georgian England without leaning in too heavily to the conventions of Austen, I think you risk losing some of the key thematic features of her work.
At the end of the day, Austen’s characters are bound to the restraints put on them. Whether that be because of their social circle, their gender, or the colour of their skin, her characters are constantly testing and pushing the boundaries that they have enforced on each other. In many ways, her oeuvre is a showcase in balancing relevant social themes and information while still allowing room for entertaining storytelling.
And doing history right is all about telling stories.
Also, go watch the 2020 adaptation of Emma.
Here’s proof that it might just be the most relatable adaptation of Austen yet:
Historic (C)Links 