Lectures For Lifelong Learners!

Classical literature was male literature, written by, for, and about men. In Austen’s day, novels were at the bottom of the generic hierarchy as stories by, for, and about women. Austen challenged the hierarchy by having women star in the most famous stories of classical literature. An ambitious writer, she drew on Vergil’s Aeneid for Sense and Sensibility, dressing Oedipus in the costume of a snippy miss, and turning the Odyssey’s hero into a minor character.