Book Review
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen is a novel of manners that depicts in great detail the late eighteenth-century English high society. This book is a favorite among teens and adults alike because of its richly rewarding storyline and beautifully realized characters.
The story follows Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, sisters who must leave their family estate, Norwood, after their father’s death. The girls and their mother decamp to a meagre cottage on a distant cousin’s property in Devonshire where they meet the proper Colonel Brandon and charming Mr Willoughby.
Elinor’s good sense, her willingness to observe social forms, and her readiness to be a reasonable person contrast with Marianne’s warm but excessive sensibility, her impulsive candour, her inability to control herself. The sisters’ parallel experience of love and the threat of loss is a catalyst for the development of both their values and attitudes.
Sense and Sensibility is often seen as a witty satire of the sentimental novel, a popular genre in Britain throughout the 1790s and the Regency. When it first appeared in 1811, the words “sensibility” carried significant cultural weight beyond the confines of the novel and into both popular and learned discourse.
