00:00A woman far ahead of her time, armed with nothing more than a pen, paper and her imagination.
00:06The world around her barely noticed, but the world we inhabit today cannot imagine literature
00:12without her.
00:15Each of her stories has all of these rich heroines.
00:18Jane Austen can teach us so many things about human relationships.
00:25She lived without a celebrated romance of her own, yet gave generations of readers some
00:30of the most enduring love stories ever told.
00:34The question remains, what was her secret?
00:36What did Jane Austen truly know of love?
00:41It's the year 1775.
00:44In a quiet, wintry Hampshire town, a child is born, a little girl.
00:49No one could have guessed that this girl would one day reshape the course of literature.
00:55Jane grew up in a bookish family.
00:58Education was highly valued in the household.
01:00Jane began experimenting with writing novels around the age of 12.
01:05She never married nor had children, but she finished six novels before she died at just
01:1041 years of age.
01:15Back in the present, we meet with Dr. Shelley Golpen, a lecturer at King's College London
01:21in culture, media and the creative industries.
01:24With a keen eye for period dramas, she has explored why Austen's portrayals of Romans remain relevant
01:31to this day.
01:33When we think about the past, we maybe have this sense that they didn't think about love
01:37the same way that we do.
01:39But I think really when you read Jane Austen, you cannot believe that.
01:44You realise that it's not.
01:46She writes about love, I would say, exactly as we experience it today.
01:52Falling in love, the excitement, the worry, the confusion.
01:58It's incredibly universal, I think.
02:01So I think she knew a lot about love.
02:03I don't know where she got that knowledge from, but I think she communicates it exceptionally
02:08well.
02:09Let's start with the men in Jane's life, or should I say the lack of them.
02:17But there are three men who are worthy of an honourable mention.
02:22The first, a young clergyman she met on the coast of Devon.
02:26A brief spark cut short by his sudden death.
02:29The second, Harris Bick Wither, who proposed to Jane.
02:33She accepted at first, but ended the engagement the next morning.
02:39And the third, Tom Lefroy, the charming Irishman long rumoured to be the love of her life.
02:45After Jane's death, her sister burned most of her letters to avoid gossip.
02:49As a result, the true role these men played in her life remains a mystery.
02:57Women's stories live off the wit, virtue and charm of their heroines.
03:03Women and their social struggles are at the heart of Austen's novels.
03:08All of her heroines go on a journey.
03:14Someone like Emma, the whole thing with Emma is like, she's perfect.
03:21And that's kind of her sort of selling point, but her journey is about learning that actually
03:25she's not perfect, you know, that she was naive, she was young, she had things to learn
03:29about the world and sort of coming and being a better person by the end of it.
03:36All of them are strong women who bend but do not bow to society's rules.
03:40They mirror the struggles of their time to marry for status and security, while also expressing
03:46a timeless desire to marry for love.
03:50Jane's stories resonate to this day.
03:53Since 2001, people have celebrated her legacy with a pilgrimage to the English city of Bath,
03:59in typical Regency fashion.
04:01Today, the Jane Austen Festival draws around 3,500 participants from all over the world.
04:07Jane Austen teaches us that we're all deserving of love.
04:13I think each of her stories has different women with extroverted personalities, women who
04:20are a bit shy or have anxiety.
04:22And so each of her stories has all of these rich heroines who people connect with time and
04:30time again.
04:31Jane Austen says a lot about different types of love, whether that be romantic, but also
04:35the love of family and sisterhood and kinship and friendship.
04:41Jane's wit shaped her characters.
04:43Her longing for love shaped her novels.
04:45And her voice gave women space, both on the page and beyond.
04:49And this echoes until today.
04:52In the end, Jane's deepest loves were not men, but the women around her and the words she
04:59left behind.
05:05End of time, a little bit.
05:07Draper in the last one.
05:09She said, oh, I got an ì ë§ bad example.
05:12What are you going to do?
05:13Do you see that it's not really bad.
05:15You're going to get to be a moment when you go off.
05:18I'm going to get to the moment.
05:20I've been confused about how do you flip this in the world.
05:22Honestly, when you come back, you're trying to have a moment where it may be.
05:23So I don't know what I'm going to do before.
05:26You will see anythingås of what you can do.
05:26I can't wait for you.
05:28I'm on the front ones.
05:29It's on the back one.
05:30It might be a moment.
05:32It might be a moment.
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