"While her novels are mostly domestic dramas set in drawing rooms, Austen was captivated by the world around her and was a cultural savant in her own right, explained Isobel Grundy, professor emeritus of women's literature at the University of Alberta. "She wasn't entirely a country mouse. She went to London, the theater and exhibitions," Grundy said. "I think that she felt like it's her own kind of humor and felt a kindred spirit with that.""
""You can kind of even see that happen today with a new style of music, for example. At its peak, when that music is most popular, is also when it's most ripe for satire. And that's the kind of treatment that we see the picturesque getting during the period when Austen was writing her novels and when Doctor Syntax shows up," Wiebracht said."
Jane Austen's novels are domestic dramas set in drawing rooms, but she engaged with broader cultural life including London, the theater and exhibitions. Her fiction frequently alludes to the picturesque, with characters like Marianne Dashwood admiring landscape beauty. The picturesque became a target for satire at its popular peak, exemplified by Doctor Syntax, which later fell into obscurity when the aesthetic went out of fashion. A modern critical edition of Doctor Syntax was produced in 2023 with students as designers, editors and researchers, yielding an annotated text explaining period vernacular and links to Austen. A student reported newfound respect for copy editors and how texts change over time.
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