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Though Jane Austen was writing at a time when Gothic potboilers such as Ann Ward Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto were all the rage, she never got carried away by romance in her own novels. In Austen's ordered world, the passions that ruled Gothic fiction would be horridly out of place; marriage was, first and foremost, a contract, the bedrock of polite society. Certain rules applied to who was eligible and who was not, how one courted and married and what one expected afterwards. To flout these rules was to tear at the basic fabric of society, and the consequences could be terrible. Each of the six novels she completed in her lifetime are, in effect, comic cautionary tales that end happily for those characters who play by the rules and badly for those who don't. In Mansfield Park, for example, Austen gives us Fanny Price, a poor young woman who has grown up in her wealthy relatives' household without ever being accepted as an equal. The only one who has truly been kind to Fanny is Edmund Bertram, the younger of the family's two sons.

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In Mansfield Park, first published in 1814, when the author had reached her full maturity as a novelist, Jane Austen paints some of her most witty and perceptive studies of character. Against a genteel country landscape of formal parks and stately homes, the gossipy Mrs. Norris becomes a masterful comic creation; the fickle young suitor Henry Crawford provides an unequaled portrait of an unscrupulous young man; and the complexly drawn Fanny Price emerges as one of Jane Austen’s finest achievements—the poor cousin who comes to stay with her wealthy relatives at Mansfield Park and learns how the game of love can too easily turn to folly. More intricately plotted and wider in scope than Austen’s earlier works, Mansfield Park continues to enchant and delight us as a superb example of a great author’s craft.

作者简介

Though the domain of Jane Austen’s novels was as circumscribedas her life, her caustic wit and keen observation made her theequal of the greatest novelists in any language. Born the seventhchild of the rector of Steventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775,she was educated mainly at home. At an early age she began writingsketches and satires of popular novels for her family’sentertainment. As a clergyman’s daughter from a well-connectedfamily, she had an ample opportunity to study the habits of themiddle class, the gentry, and the aristocracy. At twenty-one, shebegan a novel called “The First Impressions” an early version ofPride and Prejudice. In 1801, on her father’s retirement,the family moved to the fashionable resort of Bath. Two years latershe sold the first version of Northanger Abby to a Londonpublisher, but the first of her novels to appear was Sense andSensibility, published at her own expense in 1811. It wasfollowed by Pride and Prejudice (1813), MansfieldPark (1814), and Emma (1815).

Though the domain of Jane Austen’s novels was as circumscribed
as her life, her caustic wit and keen observation made her the
equal of the greatest novelists in any language. Born the seventh
child of the rector of Steventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775,
she was educated mainly at home. At an early age she began writing
sketches and satires of popular novels for her family’s
entertainment. As a clergyman’s daughter from a well-connected
family, she had an ample opportunity to study the habits of the
middle class, the gentry, and the aristocracy. At twenty-one, she
began a novel called “The First Impressions” an early version of
Pride and Prejudice. In 1801, on her father’s retirement,
the family moved to the fashionable resort of Bath. Two years later
she sold the first version of Northanger Abby to a London
publisher, but the first of her novels to appear was Sense and
Sensibility, published at her own expense in 1811. It was
followed by Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield
Park (1814), and Emma (1815). 
 
After her father died in 1805, the family first moved to
Southampton then to Chawton Cottage in Hampshire. Despite this
relative retirement, Jane Austen was still in touch with a wider
world, mainly through her brothers; one had become a very rich
country gentleman, another a London banker, and two were naval
officers. Though her many novels were published anonymously, she
had many early and devoted readers, among them the Prince Regent
and Sir Walter Scott. In 1816, in declining health, Austen wrote
Persuasion and revised Northanger Abby, Her last
work, Sandition, was left unfinished at her death on July
18, 1817. She was buried in Winchester Cathedral. Austen’s identity
as an author was announced to the world posthumously by her brother
Henry, who supervised the publication of Northanger Abby and
Persuasion in 1818.

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From Amanda Claybaugh's Introduction to MansfieldParkMary Crawford is, or so it seems, the very model of a JaneAusten heroine. Spirited, warm-hearted, and, above all else, witty,she displays all the familiar Austen virtues, and she stands inneed of the familiar Austen lessons as well. Like Elizabeth Bennet,the heroine of Pride and Prejudice (1813), she bantersarchly with the man she is falling in love with, and, likeElizabeth, she must learn to set aside her preconceptions in orderto recognize that love. Like Emma Woodhouse, the heroine ofEmma (1816), she speaks more brilliantly and speculates moredazzlingly than anyone around her, and, like Emma, she must learnto rein in the wit that tempts her at times to impropriety. ButMary Crawford is not the heroine of Mansfield Park(1814)—Fanny Price is, and therein lies the novel's great surprise.For Fanny differs not merely from Mary, but also from our mostbasic expectations of what a novel's protagonist should do and be.In Fanny, we have a heroine who seldom moves and seldom speaks, andnever errs or alters.
"'I must move,'" Mary announces, "'resting fatigues me'." Beforeher arrival at Mansfield, she had made a glamorous circuit ofwinters in London and summers at the country houses of friends,with stops at fashionable watering places in between, and atMansfield she is no less mobile. A vigorous walker, she soon takesup riding, cantering as soon as she mounts. Fanny, by contrast, hashardly left the grounds of Mansfield since her arrival eight yearsbefore, and she is further immobilized by her weakness andtimidity. A half-mile walk is beyond her, a ball, she fears, willexhaust her, and she is prostrated by headache after picking roses.She must be lifted onto the horse she was long too terrified toapproach, and her exercise consists of being led by a groom.
"'Now, do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat,'" says Maryto her listeners, who have not, in fact, caught the joke at all. Sodazzling a talker is Mary that she must serve as her own bestaudience, amusing herself with witticisms the others cannot hear.With a keener eye and a sharper tongue than those around her, Marysets her words dancing alongside the inanities, vulgarities, andhypocrisies that make up the other characters' speech. Fanny, bycontrast, barely speaks at all, and when she does, it is in thesilencing language of moral certainty. "'Very indecorous,'" Edmundsays of Mary's far more captivating discourse, and Fanny is quickto agree and contribute a judgment of her own: "'and veryungrateful.'" There is little that can be said after that.

<div>From Amanda Claybaugh's Introduction to Mansfield
Park
Mary Crawford is, or so it seems, the very model of a Jane
Austen heroine. Spirited, warm-hearted, and, above all else, witty,
she displays all the familiar Austen virtues, and she stands in
need of the familiar Austen lessons as well. Like Elizabeth Bennet,
the heroine of Pride and Prejudice (1813), she banters
archly with the man she is falling in love with, and, like
Elizabeth, she must learn to set aside her preconceptions in order
to recognize that love. Like Emma Woodhouse, the heroine of
Emma (1816), she speaks more brilliantly and speculates more
dazzlingly than anyone around her, and, like Emma, she must learn
to rein in the wit that tempts her at times to impropriety. But
Mary Crawford is not the heroine of Mansfield Park
(1814)—Fanny Price is, and therein lies the novel's great surprise.
For Fanny differs not merely from Mary, but also from our most
basic expectations of what a novel's protagonist should do and be.
In Fanny, we have a heroine who seldom moves and seldom speaks, and
never errs or alters.
"'I must move,'" Mary announces, "'resting fatigues me'." Before
her arrival at Mansfield, she had made a glamorous circuit of
winters in London and summers at the country houses of friends,
with stops at fashionable watering places in between, and at
Mansfield she is no less mobile. A vigorous walker, she soon takes
up riding, cantering as soon as she mounts. Fanny, by contrast, has
hardly left the grounds of Mansfield since her arrival eight years
before, and she is further immobilized by her weakness and
timidity. A half-mile walk is beyond her, a ball, she fears, will
exhaust her, and she is prostrated by headache after picking roses.
She must be lifted onto the horse she was long too terrified to
approach, and her exercise consists of being led by a groom.
"'Now, do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat,'" says Mary
to her listeners, who have not, in fact, caught the joke at all. So
dazzling a talker is Mary that she must serve as her own best
audience, amusing herself with witticisms the others cannot hear.
With a keener eye and a sharper tongue than those around her, Mary
sets her words dancing alongside the inanities, vulgarities, and
hypocrisies that make up the other characters' speech. Fanny, by
contrast, barely speaks at all, and when she does, it is in the
silencing language of moral certainty. "'Very indecorous,'" Edmund
says of Mary's far more captivating discourse, and Fanny is quick
to agree and contribute a judgment of her own: "'and very
ungrateful.'" There is little that can be said after that.
"'I will stake my last like a woman of spirit,'" Mary proclaims
in the midst of a card game that Fanny had been reluctant to play
at all. Mary wins the hand, only to find that it has cost her more
than it was worth, and, in doing so, she reminds us that to act is
necessarily to risk being wrong. Fanny, by contrast, is always
right. "'Fanny is the only one who has judged rightly
throughout'"—this is Edmund Bertram speaking to Sir Thomas in the
aftermath of the theatricals, but it could just as properly be the
narrator at the novel's end. The language of Fanny's right judgment
suggests, however, that her moral certainty is a function of her
passivity: "'No, indeed, I cannot act,'" she had insisted, and the
double meaning of "acting" suggests that Fanny knows not to "act"
in a theatrical sense because she never really "acts" at all.
It is in the contrast between Fanny and Mary that we can most
clearly see that Mansfield Park is, in the words of the
critic Tony Tanner, "a novel about rest and restlessness, stability
and change-the moving and the immovable" (Jane Austen, p.
145; see "For Further Reading"). Mansfield Park is hardly
the only Austen novel to take as its subject matter a pair of
opposed terms, but typically these terms stand in a dynamic
relation to one another, each altering the other until a proper
synthesis or balance is achieved. In Sense and Sensibility
(1811), for instance, the rational Elinor Dashwood and her romantic
sister Marianne must each learn from the other to moderate her mode
of feeling; similarly, Mr. Darcy must modify his pride and
Elizabeth, her prejudice before marriage can unite them. Other of
Austen's novels draw careful distinctions within a single term, as
when Persuasion (1818) establishes a continuum from the most
laudable to the most lamentable instances of conforming to the
wishes of others. Mansfield Park stands alone in this
regard, for it unequivocally endorses one set of terms and
unequivocally condemns the other. Rest has, in this novel, nothing
to learn from restlessness, and restlessness can in no way be
redeemed.
</div>

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