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Program Description
Event Details
Dr. Linda Zionkowski explores the humorous role of complainers in Jane Austen's work. Austen's novels censure characters who are truly insensible to the pains and misfortunes of others, those disturbed by a minor illness, a poorly cooked meal, or a drafty window fall into her group of whiners. This well-populated category of individuals is distinctive to Austen's fiction, but not unique among critiques of high life in her time. James Beresford's best-selling treatise, The Miseries of Human Life (1806), delighted readers by detailing the art of whining in all its varieties. Beresford's focus on complainers offered a model for a wholly original source of comedy—one that Austen incorporated to perfection in her work.
Dr. Zionkowski earned her PhD from Northwestern University and is a Samuel and Susan Crowl Professor in English Literature at Ohio University, specializing in Eighteenth-Century British Literature. She has written numerous scholarly articles on the work of Jane Austen and is the author of Women and Gift Exchange in Eighteenth-Century Fiction: Richardson, Burney, Austen (2016). Teens also welcome.