Любимая тема и наблюдение, почти не требующее напряжения: Остен писала свои романы во время наполеоновских войн, но в них нет войны. ... или есть? Что общего между миром Джейн Остен и войной?
Ссылки, извините, на английском...
Рассказ Киплинга "Джейниты" (Janeites), в котором артиллерийская батарея в Первую Мировую читает Остен:
ghostwolf.dyndns.org/words/authors/K/KiplingRud...Статья Мэри Фавре "Чтение Остен во время войны":
www.rc.umd.edu/pedagogies/commons/novel/favret....Показательный кусочек из статьи."Look at Henry Tilney teasing his sister and Catherine Morland for the fears they have absorbed, presumably from their reading of gothic novels:
"And you, Miss Morland—My stupid sister has mistaken all your clearest expressions. You talked of expected horrors in London, and instead of instantly conceiving, . . . that such words could only relate to a circulating library, she immediately pictured to her self a mob of three thousand men assembling in St. George's Fields, the Bank attacked, the Tower threatened, the streets of London flowing with blood, a detachment of the 12th Light Dragoons (the hopes of the nation) called up from Northamptonshire, to quell the insurgents, and the gallant Capt. Frederick Tilney . . . knocked off his horse by a brickbat . . . . " (OJA 5: 113).
[...] R. W. Chapman notes that there is a factual bit in Henry's flight of fancy: because of the war with France, cavalry barracks had been built in Northampton in 1798 (though the 12th Light Dragoons were nowhere near, having been posted to Portugal in 1796) (OJA 5: 291). More crucially, in the years when Austen worked on this novel (1798 and 1803), England was, in fact, subject to two serious (and other minor) invasion scares. The press—encouraged by the Pitt Administration—broadcast Napoleon's intention to invade England, take over the Bank of England, and flood the streets with English blood. In other words, gothic novels and circulating libraries were not the only sources for these alarming scenarios; and Catherine and Eleanor were not alone in their fears."Книга "Братья Джейн Остен - моряки" (два адмирала, между прочим):
www.mollands.net/etexts/jasb/index.html