More than a couple are thinking about (or actually) writing on Austen's Mansfield Park. Since I have undoubtedly given random information at random moments to random people, I thought it might make sense to offer a brief compilation of what I think I have said to some but not all of you. Said's chapter on Mansfield Park in Culture and Imperialism remains a key text for those interested in culture, imperialism, economics, postcolonialism, and so forth. The chapter has been frequently anthologized as "Jane Austen and Empire" in several collections. Susan Fraiman offered an interesting expansion of Said's argument by drawing greater attention to gender and the politics of gender. Her essay appeared in Critical Inquiry (?).
On estates and gardens, the key text is Alistair Duckworth's The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels. I believe there is an article version of his chapter on Mansfield Park available in JSTOR. There is also an older article by Ann Banfield on the relationship between moral judgments and aesthetic values in the novel. There's also a more recent article by Mary Chan on the effects of education (a kind of improvement) that ran in Persuasions (the Jane Austen Society journal). A good place to start for a more theoretical view of improvement is the chapter on the morality of improvement in Williams' The Country and the City. (I'm pretty sure you can find most of the book in Google Books.)
I have no doubt forgotten some (if not most), so if you know of other interesting criticism that might supplement our focus on Mansfield Park please feel free to add to this brief list.
On estates and gardens, the key text is Alistair Duckworth's The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels. I believe there is an article version of his chapter on Mansfield Park available in JSTOR. There is also an older article by Ann Banfield on the relationship between moral judgments and aesthetic values in the novel. There's also a more recent article by Mary Chan on the effects of education (a kind of improvement) that ran in Persuasions (the Jane Austen Society journal). A good place to start for a more theoretical view of improvement is the chapter on the morality of improvement in Williams' The Country and the City. (I'm pretty sure you can find most of the book in Google Books.)
I have no doubt forgotten some (if not most), so if you know of other interesting criticism that might supplement our focus on Mansfield Park please feel free to add to this brief list.
If anyone is interested in Nabokov's brilliant and reader-friendly analysis of Austen's style and method in Mansfield Park, and you can't find his book, Lectures on Literature, let me know and I'll copy his essay for you.
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