My thoughts on "Jane Austen - The Rise of a Genius"

Have you seen the new BBC documentary, "Jane Austen - The Rise of a Genius" yet? 

The two-part documentary, commemorating Jane Austen 250, is an accolade to Jane Austen and discusses her significant influence on modern literature and growth as a writer. The production explores the events in Jane Austen´s life that had a profound effect on her and the people that she knew who influenced her writing.  

For the documentary, the BBC have chosen a range of "experts" to discuss Jane Austen, some of whom are more questionable than others! I thought it was interesting to hear what the biographer, Paula Byrne, had to say about Jane Austen, but Cherie Blair may have been a less relevant expert on the topic. 

Dr Paula Byrne

Cherie Blair

There were several familiar faces from Jane Austen adaptations, such as:

Greg Wise (Willoughby in S & S 1995)

Charity Wakefield (Marianne in S & S 2008)

Sam West (Mr Elliott in Persuasion 1995) 

Tamsin Greig (Miss Bates in Emma 2009)

The dramatisation was well carried out, however the casting was not to my liking - I much preferred the Jane Austen of the recent "Miss Austen" series. 

It was interesting to hear first-hand about the euphoria that authors feel when their book first gets published. The authors interviewed shared how Jane Austen would have felt when she first got her books published and the empowerment that she felt when she earned her own money through writing. 

I thought it was interesting how the documentary described how Jane Austen fitted in her time period and the radical ideas that she had under cover. The documentary claims that Jane Austen was essentially a political novelist who wrote about money, class and movement and was against treating people as commodities, whether they were slaves or unmarried spinster women. Jane Austen used the novel to bring about inequalities in her society, highlighting the disparity in wealth and the responsibility that people with money had over others. The documentary shows how these issues were close to Jane´s own heart, having been somewhat of a commodity in the marriage market herself and been at the mercy of her father and brothers throughout her life. In her novels, Jane Austen makes references to things that her contemporaries would have found radical but modern readers can often be oblivious to, such as her choice to name her book "Mansfield Park" (after the abolitionist judge, Lord Mansfield). Some of these themes were also discussed by Helena Kelly in her novel, "Jane Austen the Secret Radical", which I read recently. 

Although the two-part documentary didn´t teach me anything new as such, I thought it was a well-researched introduction into the world of Jane Austen and her journey to develop her unique style. I feel that the documentary could be helpful for students who are learning about 19th century literature and Jane Austen in particular. I also feel that critics of Jane Austen could benefit from seeing the documentary, as it brings out the best in Jane Austen and really highlights her significance and influence in so many areas.