Session 2 - 'Sense and Sensibility'

At our March session we discussed Austen’s timeline for writing the six novels. She had two periods of intense creativity and work: firstly writing drafts of what later became Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey  between 1795 – 98. Then again nine years later , between 1810 – 1817, when she wrote the final versions of her three drafts and the three new novels Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion.

We discussed the characters in Sense and Sensibility and how they mirrored some of the “Pseudo Gentry” she had lived with at Steventon when she was a girl. The book explores the social responsibilities of  finding a life partner and marriage for men and women of those times and that class. Some were cheated and abandoned, others matured and had more tolerable marriages. It was all about money, grand estates and dowries. Love was an afterthought.

We watched the first half of the 1995 film of the novel, sumptuously produced, including Hugh Grant as Colonel Branson, Emma Thompson as Elinor and Greg Wise as the perfidious Willoughby. A romantic comedy version that excluded the satire and sharp observations of the novel. Worth watching though.

Session 2  Notes - 'Sense and Sensibility'

April : We will finish watching the film and start our discussion of Pride and Prejudice.
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Meg Dillon  convenor.