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Austen's music in popular culture

The current global popularity of what writer Kirsten Olsen describes as "all things Austen," has renewed cultural interest in Austen's music of the Regency era. Throughout her life, Austen was known as an ardent music fan and often mentioned the topic in her personal letters, including correspondence with her sister Cassandra. In a letter dated Wednesday, December 28, 1808, Austen writes to her sister, "Yes, yes, we will have a pianoforte, as good a one as can be got for thirty guineas, and I will practise country dances, that we may have some amusement for our nephews and nieces, when we have the pleasure of their company." In her biography of her Aunt, Caroline Austen says that Jane Austen sang and played her own pianoforte and would practice every morning, "Aunt Jane began her day with music - for which I conclude she had a natural taste; as she thus kept it up she chose her practising time before breakfast - when she could have the room to herself - She practised regularly every morning - She played very pretty tunes, I thought - and I liked to stand by her and listen to them [...] Much that she played from was manuscript, copied out by herself - and so neatly and correctly, that it was as easy to read as print." During this time, Austen, her sister, and her mother lived at Chawton Cottage . Music professor and Jeanice Brooks says that Austen's novels are "full of musical scenes," and Austen's musical interests are reflected in many of her popular novels, including Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, and Emma, where the plots often involve music and the characters have varying musical talents.

With help from Austen's descendants and the Jane Austen Memorial Trust, which controls "18 albums of the Austen family's music," modern researchers have collected over 600 pieces of sheet music, many pieces written in Austen's handwriting . In 2015, a University of Southampton research team lead by Brooks, began digitizing Austen's complete musical catalogue to make it available online and free for public use. According to Brooks, the Austen music catalog "provides music historians with a unique glimpse of the musical life of an extended gentry family in the years around 1800." Diane Bilbey a representative of Jane Austen's House Museum says, “We are delighted that this collection can be shared with so many through digital means, and that its availability will benefit researchers and musicians alike.” The release of Austen's music collection is in "anticipation of the 2017 bicentenary of Jane Austen's death."

The popularity of Austen's music has also influenced several CD compilations marketed as Jane Austen's favorite Regency period music available through online retailers, like Amazon (link) and for download through Apple iTunes (link). The popular titles are Jane Austen's Songbook published by Albany Records in 2004, Jane Austen Entertains in 2007, and Jane Austen's Piano Favorites in 2011, both publibshed by The Gift of Music. The music from the Jane Austen Entertains CD was recorded in the Chawton Cottage's drawing room where the modern musician played on a pianoforte similar to the one Austen owned. (cite)

Improvements to article

In improving the "Jane Austen in popular culture article," I am planning on adding a section headed "Austen's music in popular culture," as it relates to Austen, since the existing article only deals with film adaptations and has omitted other areas of popular culture, which definitely includes music. My research has revealed that Austen was a big fan of music and it played a major role in her personal life and in her novels. To that end, there are several trends in popular culture regarding specifically Jane Austen's music and Regency era, in general as it relates to Austen. One of the popular trends is the recreation of a musical catalog based on the Regency era music that Austen and her family more than likely listened to. There has recently been a digital release of Austen inspired music onto the internet. Additionally, there have been several CD's available on online music platforms, like Amazon and Apple itunes. These CD's are collections of Regency era classical music that is marketed as Jane Austen's favorite music. There is one CD compilation that was actually recorded in Austen's home, Chawton Cottage, on a pianoforte similar to the one that Austen owned. There are several movie soundtracks from the recent Austen movies that have also been popular among Austen fans. Austen has moved into popular music as well. A 2010 Australian band that calls itself The Jane Austen Argument takes the name of the author due to an ongoing argument between the band members related to Austen and her novels.

Proposed bibliography

Baker, William. Critical Companion to Jane Austen : A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work. Facts on File, Inc, 2008. Facts on File Library of World Literature.

Brooks, Jeanice. “In Search of Austen’s ‘Missing Songs.’” The Review of English Studies, vol.  67, Issue 282, 1 November 2016, p. 914+.

SAĞLAM, Berkem. "Becoming Jane: The Romanticisation of Celebrity.”  Journal of Faculty of Letters, vol. 34, no. 1, June 2017, pp. 147-157. 

Sandock, Mollie. "'I Burn with Contempt for My Foes': Jane Austen's Music Collections and Women's Lives in Regency England." Persuasions: Journal of the Jane Austen Society of North America, vol. 23, 2001, pp. 105-117. 

Simons, Judy. "Jane Austen and Popular Culture." A Companion to Jane Austen, Claudia L. (ed.) Johnson and Clara (ed.) Tuite, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 467-477. 

Weber, Brenda R. "For the Love of Jane: Austen, Adaptation and Celebrity." Adaptation in Contemporary Culture: Textual Infidelities, Rachel (ed. and introd.) Carroll, Continuum, 2009, pp. 186-196. 

Wilson Kimber. "Jane Austen's Playlist: Teaching Music History beyond the Canon.” Journal of Music History Pedagogy, vol. 4, no. 2, Spring, pp. 213-230. 

Zionkowski, Linda, and Mimi Hart. "'Aunt Jane Began Her Day with Music': Austen and the Female Amateur." Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal, vol. 37, 2015, p. 165+.

Proposed references

"Jane Austen's Music Collection Made Available Online." 15 December 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-35112465 Retrieved 1 November 2017.

"The Jane Austen Argument" https://thejaneaustenargument.bandcamp.com/ Retrieved 31 October 2017.

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Article Evaluation

Jane Austen in popular culture - Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

The material is relatively relevant to the article topic; however, there are some facets of popular culture that the article did not address. For example, it mentions Austen in video games but not in more likely areas of pop culture, like music. This was a little distracting and gave the article a feeling of incompleteness. Additionally, there are sections in the article that are not balanced. There are extremely long paragraphs in some sections and much shorter paragraph in others. Also, some section headings do not clearly introduce the material in that section. For instance, the section "Austen in India" primarily discusses Austen's influence in India and Bollywood. It is much later in the section that Austen's influences in Asia are finally discussed. It would appear that this section needs better organization.

- Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

The beginning of the article has some rather biased claims when it says that Austen "masterly" uses free indirect discourse. This statement is making more of a conclusion rather than stating a fact. This statement also contains one of many grammatical errors that appear throughout the article, and are extremely problematic and at times makes the article difficult to understand.

- Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

The sections titled "Issues in film adaptations" and "Austen in Asia" are overly long and need better organization for content, since some of the section headings are not relevant to the material contain in that particular section. Additionally, there are sections that are underrepresented and need additional information. This makes the article extremely unbalanced and difficult to follow.

- Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

The links do work and the source material appears to support most of the claims that the article is making. However, there are several citations to just one source, which could be problematic if this source is biased. There is no link to this particular citation, so it could not be verified.

- Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

Each fact is not referenced with a reliable reference. There is some information that does not detail where the information comes from. The sources appear neutral, but there are a few that are over cited, and might be biased. Also, there are several charts that compare the Austen adaptations throughout time periods. There are a few references in the first chart, but no further references are made, and these sources cannot be verified.

- Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

The information seems to be current, but there are several charts that compare the time period of film adaptations; however, citation information is missing. Also, there are note information on some of the film adaptations, but no information on others.

- Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

The main comments on the "Talk" page are on how the article is organized. One editor mentioned that he/she organized the dates of Austen's works in a more chronological order. The editor also edited the "Filmography" section, since the article had both film and television listed in this section. However, the editor does not mention any of the other errors in the article, but it might be a work in progress.

- How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

The article is not part of any WikiProjects and it is not highly rated.

-How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Our class has not had a chance to discuss Jane Austen in popular culture; however, the primary issues that I had with this article was the topics that it selected to discuss. The realm of popular culture contains many more areas than just television and film and the article was not developed enough to cover all these areas.