Associate Professor Carolyn Woodward’s Jane Austen class offers a Readers Theatre presentation of "Lovers Vows," in connection with their study of Austen’s novel "Mansfield Park," on Tuesday, Dec. 1 and Thursday, Dec. 3 in Humanities 108. The event is free and open to the public.
Image: Jane Austen
“In 'Mansfield Park,' the young people get into trouble for putting on a play. Not only that, but it’s clear they should be getting into trouble. It’s not a smart thing for them to be doing,” Woodward said. The play itself, by Elizabeth Inchbald, is a very sentimental 18th century play, she said.
“I thought it would be interesting for us, while studying the novel, to put on the play. We are doing a very abridged version of the play, performing it as the characters in the book would. The students understand the sexual tensions and the problematic nature of these young people putting it on,” Woodward said.
Woodward’s love of Jane Austen (1775-1817) goes back to her graduate studies 20 years ago. She was one of her major authors and, coincidentally, Mansfield Park was the first Austen novel she read.
“I love her because of her sentences; they are like poetry. I love how she is so ironic that it inspires her readers to want to change things. She doesn’t write polemics, but she writes in a way that instills passion,” she said.
As Austen wrote, “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
Besides the Austen class, which is cross-listed in English, Media Arts and Theatre, Woodward teaches courses in Enlightenment, early development of fiction, and women writers. Woodward came to UNM in 1987 from the University of Washington, where her doctoral work centered in the 18th century, narrative and feminist theory, and the writers Sarah Fielding, John Milton and Jane Austen.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu
Posted by cgonzal at November 17, 2009 03:53 PM