Pride and Prejudice

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First edition of Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813

Pride and Prejudice (Original title: Pride and Prejudice ) is the best-known novel by the British writer Jane Austen . It appeared in 1813.

Pride and Prejudice is a development novel in which the two main characters Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy change through overcoming a few crises in order to find themselves in new humility and insight into their mistakes for a future together. However, this work by the author, who died early, should not only be understood as a romance novel, but above all as a contemporary study of society. The topic of a love story with a happy ending, the way it was edited and our current expectations of literature ensure this work of the century still attracts a lot of attention today. As a result of numerous conditions, some films and even the makeover into a Broadway - Musical (1959) is its content one of the most famous of English literature; around 20 million copies of the novel have been sold worldwide to date.

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The novel describes a little over a year in the life of a small number of young people in the countryside near London at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Bennet family with their five daughters between the ages of fifteen and early twenties is part of the innermost circle of these wealthy to rich and sometimes noble families. The main topic is the successful marriage of three of these young women, who each find an individual balance of love, economic security and class when choosing their spouse. This start into an independent life is shaped and delayed by many intrigues and misunderstandings, just by pride and prejudice .

Bennet family, illustration by Hugh Thomson (1894)

The marriage issue is also of great importance to the Bennets because the Longbourn family estate is, according to its legal form, a Fideikommiss and can only be inherited as a whole and only in the male line (however far related). If the father died, the mother and daughters would lose most of their wealth to the heir.

When the young, single and wealthy Charles Bingley moved into the neighboring Bennets' estate, mother Bennet began to have hopes of his marriage to one of her daughters. Mr. Bingley brings a friend, the handsome, aristocratic, very proud and even richer Mr. Darcy, to his estate, whom everyone, but especially Elizabeth, the Bennets' second eldest daughter at 20, soon finds unsympathetic because of his pride. When Elizabeth overhears during a ball that Mr. Darcy doesn't think she is pretty enough to invite her to a dance, her pride too is hurt and begins to push it with quick-wittedness and irony on the verge of being for a boy Lady allowed to attack. Her older sister Jane (22) is luckier: you and Mr. Bingley fall in love.

A little later, Elizabeth aroused her mother's displeasure, as she turned down the proposal of her cousin - Mr. Collins, who was depicted as a strange person by Austen - and who was soon to turn his admiration to her best friend Charlotte, who was his Proposal in a realistic assessment of her other circumstances accepts: Charlotte looks back on almost 27 years of life and only a small legacy ahead.

Elizabeth approaches Mr. Wickham, an at first sight very attractive officer of a British militia regiment stationed in her hometown. He blames Mr. Darcy, the son of his former patron, for his own financial misery, because he allegedly denied him an inheritance against the will of Darcy's father out of jealousy. Elizabeth - influenced by her prejudice against Darcy - believes this lie. Meanwhile, Elizabeth - completely unnoticed by herself - still attracts Darcy's attention: Her beauty and cleverness - and also her unaccustomed boldness towards him as the best match in the entire county - make him her silent admirer.

When Bingley surprisingly decides to move back to London, although her sister Jane returns Bingley's love very modestly, Elizabeth suspects that his sister Caroline Bingley is responsible for the separation of the two with some intrigue. Elizabeth visits her best friend Charlotte, who now lives in the area of ​​Darcy's aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. There she meets Colonel Fitzwilliam, who tells her that Darcy is responsible for the separation of Mr. Bingley and her sister, she also meets Darcy there, who has meanwhile fallen in love with her and - she falls apart - proposes to her : Despite her lower origins, despite his humiliation associated with marriage, despite her family, which he perceived as embarrassing, and against his better knowledge, he was unable to bring down his love for her.

Darcy courting Elizabeth, illustration by Hugh Thomson (1894)

Again hurt in her pride, she angrily rejects him. Her violent allegations lead Darcy to explain important circumstances in a long letter, to see himself in a new light and to change his behavior. Darcy writes that it was not he who refused Wickham the inheritance, but that they agreed at the time to convert Wickham's right to a job and lifelong income into a one-off payment of a large amount. Wickham's financial misery was later caused by his unsteady lifestyle and his penchant for gambling. He also tried to convince Georgiana, Darcy's only 15-year-old sister and rich heiress entrusted to him as guardian, to flee and marry in secret.

Darcy largely admits his guilt in the Jane Bingley affair, but makes one qualification: he was certain, based on his observations of Jane - Darcy also practices observation as a social art - that she felt little for his friend, and he just wanted to save Bingley from an unhappy relationship. Elizabeth is ashamed of this explanation and realizes how much she herself was biased by pride and prejudice: Up until now she was convinced that she could infer the underlying character better than anyone from an obvious behavior. However, she doesn't regret the rejection of the application and doesn't want to meet Darcy again.

The following summer, Elizabeth travels with her aunt and uncle to the county of Derbyshire , which also includes the Pemberley estate, Darcy's estate with its stately manor. At the request of the aunt they visit the property, the size and design of which Elizabeth is very impressed and - together with the statements of his servants - give her further indications of Darcy's real refinement. The visitors unexpectedly meet the owner, who behaves like a different person towards Elizabeth and her relatives: very polite, very friendly and lovable for the first time. When Elizabeth receives news that her youngest sister Lydia has run away with the officer Wickham, Elizabeth flees with her relatives to help her family through this crisis: a liaison without marriage and possibly an illegitimate child would raise the reputation of the whole Bennet - Destroying the family and significantly reducing the marriage chances of all other sisters.

Darcy, who has to blame himself for not having previously revealed Wickham's real character out of consideration for his sister, is now committed to saving the reputation of the Bennet family - primarily to protect Elizabeth, whom he still loves, of course. He succeeds in finding Lydia and Wickham in London and by paying another large sum of money to persuade Wickham to marry Lydia. When Elizabeth, the only one of the Bennets apart from Lydia, learns of Darcy's interference, she is certain of her affection for him - but unfortunately also of his reawakened rejection of her, in part, morally unstable family. In fact, however, Darcy bears his own moral guilt - again the two main characters have similar weaknesses - in the background and induces his friend Bingley to turn back to Elizabeth's sister Jane. Bingley renews his admiration for Jane and soon proposes marriage to her.

While Darcy is staying in London for a short time, his aunt, the very aristocratic and very arrogant Lady Catherine de Bourgh, comes as a surprise to the Bennets: Rumors had spread to her that her nephew wanted to marry Elizabeth, which she asked for the marriage of her own daughter with Darcy and the honor of their families. In false pride and full of prejudice of class, she tries to wrest Elizabeth from a promise to reject a possible proposal by Darcy in the future. Elizabeth, who in this dialogue formulates the claim to individual happiness more programmatically than anywhere else, confidently lets Lady de Bourgh's traditional concept of life roll off her. However, Lady Catherine does not give up, visits her nephew in London and tells him indignantly about Elizabeth's insolence. Darcy wins new hope for Elizabeth's affection from Elizabeth's resistance to his aunt and visits her in Longbourn. Both finally declare their affection in a kind of mutual, informal, formal request. Sisters Jane and Elizabeth soon marry friends Bingley and Darcy.

Relationships between characters in the novel (in English)

Creation and publication

A first version of the novel Jane Austen drafted at the age of 21 years under the title First Impressions ( First Impressions ). In this form it was offered to a publisher by Jane Austen's father in 1797, but the publisher turned it down. 1809-10 and again in 1812 Jane Austen began work on the novel again, revised it and offered it with the support of her brother Henry again a publisher of the previously well Sense and Sensibility ( Sense and Sensibility ) had published about her. Pride and Prejudice was published at the end of January 1813, anonymously at her request ("by the author of Sense and Sensibility") in three volumes with an edition of 1,500 copies. The book was sold out within six months, and a second edition was published that same year.

Conservatism and timeless modernity

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Elizabeth Bennet, illustration from an 1895 edition

BBC poll: 2nd place

In 2003 the BBC polled the UK's most popular book , the BBC Big Read . Pride and Prejudice , finished in second place behind the Lord of the Rings ( The Lord of the Rings ) by JRR Tolkien . Austen's novel is a media phenomenon: a book from 1813 that made it onto the UK bestseller list in the 21st century.

Obsolete aspects

  • Thematically outdated are z. B. the legal dependency or the disadvantage of women, the domestic perspective and marriage as the life goal of the protagonists, the negative connotation of any form of productive "work", the now decayed social milieu of the landed gentry , the high rank of style and Compliance with social forms that Elizabeth never really transgresses. It is primarily these features with which modern literary criticism in general and feminist approaches in particular demonstrate Jane Austen's conservatism.
  • The narrative looks old-fashioned to the reader who is used to today's entertainment literature, her authorial view with its pointed and ironic evaluations from the " off ".

Timeless aspects

The fact that the novel appears legible and contemporary despite its high age of 200 years is due to a series of timeless demands of the readers, which the author fulfills in her work:

  • The theme of a love story with crises and a happy ending in a manageable and high-contrast figure constellation.
  • A composition that believably develops the events and motifs apart, artfully intertwines the threads of the plot and offers the reader no "loose ends".
  • A style that subordinates itself completely to the narrative with a multitude of gathers and omissions and never gets bored with detailed descriptions of appearance, clothing, furniture, etc. Even the famous first sentence jumps right into the middle of the topic: All over the world it is a foregone conclusion that a wealthy bachelor has to be on the lookout for a woman ...
  • A high entertainment value in a social satire that captivates us with "funny" characters, with many nuances of irony and sparkling dialogues.
  • In addition, the novel has a general value for the reader : It is a primer of small talk and description of a whole concert of politeness, but through it our heroines have to decipher the underlying feelings of arrogance and contempt, envy and jealousy. When choosing a partner, the Bennet sisters and their friend Charlotte find themselves in the existential situation of their young life. Wisdom of decisions is necessary precisely there, where it is often not yet to be found due to age. Jane Austen therefore, with pride and prejudice, wrote a drama about the difficulties of interpreting our world, which is difficult to decipher. There is perhaps no other novel in which the main female character withdraws to reflect so often .

Scientific discussion

Laura Cooner Lambdin and Robert Thomas Lambdin in their book A Companion to Jane Austen Studies , Greenwood, London, 2000 give an overview of the state of the scientific discussion on pride and prejudice and Jane Austen, as well as their other works .

Translations

A complete translation into French appeared anonymously in Paris as early as 1821, which was followed by a series of new translations by 2011. The first Spanish translation was published in 1924 and Mondadori did not publish a translation into Italian until 1932 .

The first German translation by Louise Marezoll was published in 1830 as pride and prejudice in the publishing house CHF Hartmann in Leipzig. In 1939, Karin von Schwab's translation was published by the Frundsberg publishing house in Berlin under the title Elisabeth and Darcy . This translation is incorrect, some passages are completely missing. In 2001 it was reissued by the Aufbau-Verlag in the revision by Isabelle Fuchs. In 1948 there were two new German versions: Pride and Prejudice translated by Ilse Krämer in the Manesse publishing house in Zurich and under the same title the translation by Margarethe Rauchberger in the Schaffrath publishing house in Cologne, which was taken over in 1985 by Insel-Verlag . In 1951 a translation by Helmut Holscher was published by Hera-Verlag in Wilhelmshaven. In 1965 Werner Beyer translated Pride and Prejudice , published by Paul List Verlag . In 1977 the transmission by Ursula and Christian Grawe , who translated all of Austen's works, including their letters, was published by Reclam-Verlag .

Further new translations were published in 1997 by Helga Schulz at dtv , and in 2003 by Andrea Ott at Manesse Verlag . The most recent translation was published by S. Fischer in 2014 and was provided by Manfred Allié and Gabriele Kempf-Allié . Some of these translations were published several times, including as licensed editions.

expenditure

Original editions

  • Pride and Prejudice. A novel in 3 volumes . By the author of "Sense and Sensibility". Egerton, London 1813. [first edition]
  • Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice (= Oxford World's Classics). Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-953556-9
  • Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice . An annotated ed. Ed. by Patricia Meyer Spacks. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2010, ISBN 978-0-674-04916-1

German translations

  • Pride and prejudice . A novel. Loosely based on the English by Louise Marezoll. CHF Hartmann, Leipzig 1830.
  • Jane Austen: Elisabeth and Darcy . Translated by Karin von Schwab. Frundsberg Verl., Berlin 1939.
  • Reissue Pride and Prejudice . Revision by Isabelle Fuchs. Construction Publishing, Berlin 2001.
  • Unchangeable Reprint of the arrangement by Isabelle Fuchs. Anaconda, Cologne 2007. ISBN 978-3-86647-178-8 , two-language edition Anaconda, Cologne 2011. ISBN 978-3-86647-540-3
  • Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice . Translated by Ilse Krämer . Afterword by Mary Hottinger . Manesse, Zurich 1948.
  • Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice . Translated by Margarete Rauchberger, foreword by Elizabeth Bowen . Schaffrath, Cologne 1948.
  • Revised by Elfriede Beyvers-Kern. Insel, Frankfurt a. M. 1985.
  • With illustrations by Hugh Thomson and with an essay by Norbert Kohl. Insel, Frankfurt a. M. 1997. (Insel-Taschenbuch. 787.) ISBN 978-3-458-36200-5
  • Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice . In Dt. transfer and edit by Helmut Holscher. Popular edition edition. Hera Verl., Wilhelmshaven 1951.
  • Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice . Translated by Werner Beyer. List, Leipzig 1965.
  • With an afterword by Erich Findeisen. Kiepenheuer, Leipzig 1990.
  • Also as a Fischer paperback. Fischer-Tb.-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008. ISBN 978-3-596-90004-6
  • Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice . Translated by Ursula Grawe and Christian Grawe . Afterword and remarks by Christian Grawe. Reclam, Stuttgart 1977.
  • Several revisions.
  • Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice . Translated by Helga Schulz. Artemis et al. Winkler, Zurich 2002.

Audio books

  • Jane Austen: Pride And Prejudice . Read by Emma Messenger. Unabridged audio book, English. Trout Lake Media 2013.
  • Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice . Read by Emilia Fox . Unabridged. 11 CDs, Naxos Complete Classics. ISBN 978-962-634-356-2
  • Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice . Translated by Ursula u. Christian Grawe, unabridged, read by Eva Mattes . Audio book on 10 CDs. Argon Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-87024-018-0

Film adaptations

Adaptations

  • Bridget Jones - Chocolate for Breakfast ( Bridget Jones's Diary ) from 2001 contains several references to Pride and Prejudice . Among other things, the male lead actor Colin Firth played the comparable role of Mr. Darcy in the 1995BBC film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice . Helen Fielding , the author of the Bridget Jones film , said her character, Mark Darcy, was inspired by Firth's portrayal in the BBC film. Firth later agreed to take on the role of Darcy in the film adaptation of Bridget Jones .
  • In the 2008 miniseries Lost in Austen , the young and modern Amanda Price , played by Jemima Rooper , unwittingly swaps roles with Elizabeth Bennet , ending up in the 19th century and completely changing the book with the intention of making it run normally.
  • Jane Austen ends her novel with a chapter that very vaguely outlines the life paths of her main characters over more than a year. This has inspired several writers to make sequels:
  • Elizabeth Aston: Mr. Darcy's Daughters . Touchstone, London 2003, ISBN 978-0-7432-4397-1 (first volume in a series of Pride and Prejudice continuations by E. Aston).
  • PD James : Death comes to Pemberley . (OT Death Comes to Pemberley , Faber & Faber, London 2011). From the English by Michaela Grabinger, Droemer, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-426-19962-6 (continuation in which George Wickham is involved in a murder case).
  • Jo Baker: In the Longbourn house . (OT Longbourn , Alfred A. Knopf, New York 2013). Translated by Anne Rademacher. Albrecht Knaus Verlag, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-641-14309-1 (tells the story of pride and prejudice from the perspective of the servants).
  • A parody of the novel published by the author Seth Grahame-Smith in 2009 under the title Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has great success in the USA and Great Britain . The mashup largely retains Austen's novel, but enriches it with elements of modern zombie novels and turns the Bennet sisters into five powerful swordsmen. The book reached number three on the New York Times bestseller list and received positive reviews in England. The film adaptation of the same name was released in 2016 .
  • 2009: Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice . Graphic novel by Nancy Butler (text), Hugo Petrus, Alejandro Torres (drawing), Marvel Comics, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-7851-3915-7 .

Secondary literature

  • Reuben Arthur Brower: "Light and bright and sparkling". Irony and fiction in Jane Austen's “Pride and Prejudice”. In: Willi Erzgräber (Ed.): Interpretations. Volume 8. English Literature from William Blake to Thomas Hardy . Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1970. pp. 167-185.
  • Hanne Birk, Marion Gymnich (eds.): Pride and Prejudice 2.0. Interpretations, Adaptations and Transformations of Jane Austen's Classic. Bonn: Bonn Univ. Press 2015. ISBN 978-3-8471-0452-0
  • Manda Klarić: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife: Three German translations of Jane Austen's novel "Pride and Prejudice" in comparison . Thesis . University of Graz, 2015 permalink pdf

Web links

Wikisource: Pride and Prejudice (English)  - sources and full texts
Wikisource: Pride and Prejudice (1830)  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Pride and Prejudice (English)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pride and Prejudice - Blu-ray Review. ( Memento from January 4, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  2. ↑ Berliner Zeitung. 12./12. January 2013.
  3. ↑ Jane Austen in zombie rampage up the book charts. In: The Guardian. April 9, 2009, accessed August 18, 2015.
  4. ↑ The first impression is wrong - or not? Criticism in the NZZ . January 3, 2004. Retrieved September 19, 2016
  5. ↑ Susanne Ostwald: Jane Austen's “Pride and Prejudice” in a new translation: Reunion with Elizabeth. Criticism. In: NZZ. December 10, 2014, accessed on September 16, 2016.
  6. ^ Sources: Flood, Alison (April 9, 2009). Jane Austen in zombie rampage up the book charts . The Guardian. Retrieved September 8, 2009; BOOK REVIEW Pride and Prejudice and Zombies . March 25, 2009. Entertainment Weekly. Reviewed September 8, 2009.