Brush Up on Your Jane Austen

Jane Austen's strength is, of course, that of the humorist. And this is not all. The foibles, illusions, self-contradictions, and absurdities of human nature are not just a joy to her for their own sakes, but also because through action they lead to results which may be serious but may also be comic. Just like in Erasmus' Praise of folly, we find countless citations of humor, we also find in all of Jane Austen's six novels a treasure trove of humor: webs of errors, misunderstandings, and absurdities, which in the end redeem the characters, not by their creator, or Fortune, or some Providence, but by their own efforts. Years before Gustave Flaubert and James Joyce, Jane Austen stood to the side "pairing her fingernails," leaving her creatures to fend for themselves.