Poor Jane! Nobody
trivializes Dickens or Shakespeare that way.
Nor, come to think of it, do I refer to them as Charles or William. Maybe it’s because she’s a woman? But we don’t seem to have any Talk Like
Charlotte Bronte Days… At any rate, not
to worry. Jane Austen admitted, in her
famous defense-of-the-novel aside in “Northanger Abbey”, that one of her goals
was “well-chosen language” and she chose very well indeed.
Nobody will talk like Jane
Austen.
Granted, no one will ever talk like Jane Austen. But I must venture to disagree respectfully with the idea that it's trivializing her to aspire to do so. I try to talk like JA as often as possible--and I hope that both my speech and my writing are the better for it.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, maybe we *should* have a Talk Like William Shakespeare Day. (I'd start with characterizing a few well-chosen individuals in the public eye as "naughty varlets.")