Although I did not know it until quite recently, this past year (2025) was the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. I guess that would make her a year older than our nation. She died in 1817, at the age of 41, which makes her significant literary contributions all the more remarkable. Her six completed novels are universally recognized as foundational and timeless classics of English literature, introducing a number of notable developments, such as free indirect discourse, deep psychological realism, and sharp social satire, turning away from the melodrama of 18th-century novels and dwelling on everyday domestic life. For all of these reasons and more, Jane Austen’s books have remained in continuous publication since 1833, being studied worldwide by academic institutions and enjoyed by countless general readers.
Anyway, my wife and daughters and daughters-in-law, as well as many friends over the years, have often commented on their love for Jane Austen, and as I’ve been working my way through various works of classic literature I was prompted to listen to her novels in the course of my driving to and fro over the past couple of months. I finished the sixth novel (Persuasion) a week or so ago, around the same time as a Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility tea party that I attended with a couple of my daughters and a couple of my granddaughters. Somewhat by coincidence, I also came across a quote from C.S. Lewis’ inaugural lecture at Cambridge University in 1954, De Descriptione Temporum (“A Look at Time and Its Divisions”), in which he comments that the gap and difference between Jane Austen and the 1950s was greater than the gap and difference between Jane Austen’s era and ancient Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Lewis identified the Industrial Revolution and the birth of machines as the true dividing line of history, locating Austen at the tail end of the old world. He saw himself and his audience as belonging to a fundamentally altered, post-traditional, and increasingly post-Christian psychological landscape.
C.S. Lewis was a more profound literary scholar than I will ever be, but I was also struck by the contrast between the social world of Jane Austen’s novels and our present day and age. The books are everything I should have expected: well-crafted stories with distinctive and well-developed characters. The humor hits just the right note, while the moral and ethical considerations are poignant – and still timely, despite the great gulf between the early 1800s and the 2020s. I also appreciated the fact that each of the novels has its own narrative arc and unique qualities, rather than being a variation on the same theme. So, too, the stories have a depth and complexity that I have not found in many contemporary books.
Along with these various aspects of the novels, one of the things that stood out for me most consistently was the formal and structured courtesy, decorum, and etiquette that govern the interactions between the characters throughout the narratives. I found that so refreshing, and frankly so enviable, in contrast to the sort of crass and often careless discourse that permeates so much of our present culture, both on the internet and in many daily interactions. There are exceptions, to be sure, but we do not possess – far less practice – the carefully structured rhythms and parameters of communication and relationships that characterize the cultural “rules of engagement” in all of Jane Austen’s books. There’s safety and wisdom in that sort of structure, as well as the very sort of “boundaries” that people are often looking for today. Especially in the interactions between men and women – and in the exchanges between people who are at odds with each other – the courtesy, decorum, and etiquette of communication, and the formalized ceremonies of social life preserved a laudable civility and helped people to navigate hard conversations.
In the case of certain characters, their exercise of courtesy, decorum, and etiquette reveal their inner qualities and worthiness (or lack thereof). However, I also noted that some characters have the outward behavior down pat, though their inner qualities are flawed and eventually come to light in other ways. In this respect, too, we have something to learn from Jane Austen in approaching life together, both within the Church and in relation to our neighbors. Our outward conduct and ceremony ought to express and reveal our faith in Christ Jesus and our love for God and man in Him. Curbing and training our behavior is good and right and beneficial, but apart from the conversion and regeneration of our hearts it is a sham. Let us rather regulate our words and actions as an expression and exercise of loving care for each other.