Why Jane Austen's lessons in love remain timeless classics

DW (English)

Although she never married, Jane Austen wrote about love and romance like no other. Born 250 years ago, the author is still relevant today. What can she teach us about the mystery of love and independence?

Transcript

00:00She lived without a celebrated romance of her own,

00:04yet gave generations of readers some of the most enduring love stories ever told.

00:09The question remains, what was her secret? What did Jane Austen truly know of love?

00:15Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy.

00:18Romance may look different today, but thanks to Jane Austen, it has never truly gone out of style.

00:24Where shall we begin? Maybe here in Bath,

00:27which was known at the time as a good hunting ground for husbands.

00:30Let's start with the men in Jane's life, or should I say the lack of them.

00:34But there are three men who are worthy of an honorable mention.

00:40One was a young clergyman she met by the Devon shore,

00:43a fleeting acquaintance cut short by his sudden death.

00:48Another was Harris Big Wither, the man to whom Jane was engaged for a mere 24 hours.

00:57I'm 27 years old.

01:00I've no money and no prospects.

01:02I'm already a burden to my parents, and I'm frightened.

01:07At almost 27, Jane accepted Big Wither's proposal, then ended it the next morning.

01:13And of course there was Tom Lefroy, the charming young Irishman, often rumored to be the love of her life.

01:21After her death, her beloved sister burned most of Jane's letters to protect her reputation,

01:27so these men's importance isn't clear.

01:29What remains certain is that Jane never married, but there's one man whose importance is undeniable.

01:36In a world where the yearning man is constantly trending,

01:39we should not forget about the father of all yearning.

01:45I felt an itch in my fingers.

01:47Mr. Darcy isn't just Mr. Right, he's something even more intriguing.

01:51A man written by a woman.

01:53Austin-crafted men who were more than just their estates.

01:57Socially secure, yes, but also emotionally sincere.

02:01They embodied what women longed for then and now.

02:04Maturity, kindness and the capacity of real love.

02:08The enduring fantasy isn't wealth, but being truly seen and valued.

02:16We meet with Dr. Shelley Golpen, a lecturer at King's College London in culture, media and the creative industries.

02:23With a keen eye on period dramas, she has explored the reason Austen's portrayals of romance continue to feel relevant today.

02:34When we think about the past, we maybe have this sense that they didn't think about love the same way that we do.

02:41But I think really when you read Jane Austen, you cannot believe that. You realise that it's not.

02:48You know, she writes about love, I would say, exactly as we experience it today.

02:54You know, falling in love, the kind of the excitement, the worry, the confusion.

03:00It's incredibly universal, I think.

03:03So I think she knew a lot about love.

03:06I don't know where she got that knowledge from, but I think she communicates it exceptionally well.

03:14There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others.

03:21With the words of Elizabeth Bennet, Darcy's true love,

03:24we turn from the men in Austen's world to the women who truly carry her stories.

03:30Jane's stories live off the vit virtue and charm of their heroines.

03:33The appreciation and acknowledgement of women and their struggles shine throughout all of Austen's novels.

03:43All of her heroines go on a journey.

03:46You know, someone like Emma is, you know, the whole thing with Emma is like, she's perfect, you know,

03:51like, but, and that's kind of her sort of selling point.

03:55But her journey is about learning that actually she's not perfect, you know, that she was naive, she was young,

04:01she had things to learn about, about the world and, and sort of coming and being a better person by the end of it.

04:08All of them are strong women who bend but do not bow to society's rules.

04:13They mirror the struggles of their time to marry for status and security,

04:17while also expressing a timeless desire to marry for love.

04:22In that way, they're not unlike Jane herself, which leads us to the question, where did she get her inspiration from?

04:29Let's travel back in time to learn a bit more about the author.

04:35It's the year 1775. Autumn leaves fall, the winter solstice approaches,

04:41and in a quiet Hampshire town, a child is born.

04:44No one could have guessed that this girl would one day reshape the course of literature.

04:50Jane grew up in a bookish family. Her father owned more than 500 books,

04:54a remarkable library for the time. Education was highly valued in the household.

05:00She was especially close to her only sister, Cassandra.

05:04Jane began experimenting with writing novels around the age of 12.

05:10Back to the present.

05:13We've traveled to Bath. Jane didn't live here long,

05:16but the time she spent in Bath did have a big impact on her life and her writing.

05:24This is where Jane lived. Her father moved the family to Bath, though Jane preferred the countryside.

05:33As an unmarried daughter, she had little choice.

05:35When we came here, somebody came out to give us this.

05:39This is the original key from back in the day. Let's see if it still fits, shall we?

05:44Well, unfortunately, it doesn't. But it used to 225 years ago.

05:57This is the same key that Mr. Austin touched.

06:02Bath changed Jane's life. Here is where her father died.

06:06And during her time here, she had two of her three romantic encounters and faced money struggles.

06:11Experiencing the limits placed on women left a mark on her writing.

06:19The city Jane once wanted to leave is now full of her admirers.

06:24Strangely enough, the setting looks much the same as it did 250 years ago.

06:30Every year, people put on Regency costumes, hoping to recapture the spirit of Austin's world.

06:36Each of her stories has different women with extroverted personalities,

06:41women who are a bit shy or have anxiety. And so each of her stories has all of these

06:47rich heroines who people connect with time and time again.

06:52Her books are set in the Regency era, but they are timeless and they show

06:56principles that stand against time.

07:10Jane taught us more than lessons in love.

07:14She showed us how wit, grit and chasing your passion is relevant to any era.

07:18Two centuries on, Jane's novels remind us that love, romantic and platonic, ambition and the

07:24struggle for independence are timeless.

07:28Jane Austen can teach us so many things about human relationships,

07:33how society treats people differently, expectations of society.

07:38And I think there's ways of overcoming that and still having a happy ending.

07:45Every generation rediscovers Jane Austen, often thanks to a new Pride and Prejudice

07:51adaptation in the pipeline. But Austen offers way more than just matchmaking and courtship.

07:56The fact that she has this sort of roving narrator who can just sort of dip into people's psyches

08:03at will. And so we're kind of getting this like vast array of different characters and their experiences

08:09and the way that they're seeing the world. And I think that that's, that's really powerful.

08:14The question isn't whether marriage would have changed Jane's writing, but rather whether the

08:22longing for a happy one made it even greater and sparked the same longing in her readers.

08:27Jane's wit shaped her characters, her longing for love shaped her novels,

08:32and her voice gave women space, both on the page and beyond. And this echoes until today.

08:37In the end, Jane's deepest loves were not men, but the women around her and the words she left behind.

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