2014 Archive

December 6th | Jane Austen Birthday Tea

• Mary Crawford’s harp is arguably the most famous musical instrument in Jane Austen’s novels. Even first time readers of Mansfield Park can appreciate how the exotic novelty of the harp disrupts the quiet rural harmony that is set up as an ideal in the novel, just as Mary and her brother Henry bring a disquieting energy to the Bertram family.

• Scholars and critics from Tony Tanner to Juliette Wells have cogently discussed Mary’s harp as an instrument of vanity and seduction, a symbol of urban sophistication and questionable morality. This interpretation is undeniably correct, but I suspect there might be more to say about Mary’s harp.

• In this talk, I would hope to demonstrate that the harp had a rich and complex cultural context in Austen’s time, as she herself must have appreciated.