Sessions will be facilitated by Eric Stull.

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Has anyone observed character and manners in language more crisp than Jane Austen has?  Has anyone made prose fiction more precise?  Part of her great artistry must surely be in making her characters not less, but more, lively and real for their ability to converse in accents as bright as those in which she writes.  Somehow her characters can sound like Jane Austen and still be themselves.  Can anyone ever have spoken like this?  Can anyone reading her care, so long as they get to hear more of it?  Like some reading Desdemona, we “devour up (her) discourse.”  In her treatment of the real work of human happiness as taking place on the ground where the sexes meet, she must be almost unmatched in coupling charming drollery of speech with the moral drama of composing soul-bursting passion into ardor’s fulfilled articulation.  

Imagine, as she does, a woman and a man deeply in love but prevented from expressing it, conversing both frankly and feelingly about which sex is more constant in its love toward the other, the man citing the weight of evidence in literature, the woman saying that men have had the advantages of education, “the pen has been in their hands.  I will not allow books to prove any thing.”  All the while, the man, talking with her while writing, seemingly to somebody else, has been writing to her the expression of his love, the presence of which in an envelope amid other papers on the table, he must, on a sudden, wordlessly signal to her as he departs the room, the fate of them both dependent on a few mute characters on a page of stationery.  The woman, directing her eyes toward the envelope and seeing her initials on it, and thereby instantly apprehending the import of the man’s silent sign, also instantly knows, “On the contents of that letter depended all that this world could do for her!”  She finds among the contents of the absent man’s words, “You pierce my soul.”    

Won’t you come and converse with Jane?  She's good company -- on a Friday night, or any night.  Come for one, two, several, or all.  Pick the ones you like, but don’t count out the ones you don’t know.  Richness and beauty fill them all. 

Online seminars in this series will take place on Thursday evenings, 5:30-7:00PM Pacific Time. Attendees will be sent books in order. Sessions will be facilitated by Eric Stull. Groups will be limited to 16 participants and no prior knowledge is required. Teachers will be offered CEU credits for participating. Each book in the online series is offered as stand-alone or can be grouped into a set for a discount.