#160;

Literature Review

Before the 1980s, Jane Austen did not receive enough attention in China in that the range of life about Jane Austen critics criticized was narrow and subject matter was trivial. In the 1990s, the research on Jane Austen developed rapidly in China. Chinese scholars have further abandoned the prejudice of Jane and affirmed the value of Jane in the literary creation. The feminist literary criticism and Jane's research of art of in this period are the application of the new criticism method. Moreover, in the 1990s, an increasing number of Austen#8217;s novels were retranslated, including Sense and Sensibility. There are several China's main perspectives on the significance and tendency of Jane Austen and her novels.

First of all, since all her novels are about marriage. The opinion that Austen holds is that a good marriage should take sincere emotion and economic strength into account. For example, an essay titled The Rationality of Women#8217;s View on Love in Sense and Sensibility (2012) in Anhui literature. The author of this article discussed this question from two aspects: the perfect ending of rational love and the tragedy of love. Wang holds that women ought to attach more importance to the rational love and be more brave, independent and rational. More significantly, women should deny and fight with unfair treatment to them in society.

Secondly, more and more researchers applied feminist literary criticism and their thoughts mainly focus on the exploration and writing of female consciousness. Guo Ruiping and Li Junjie mentioned their views on Jane Austen#8217;s ecofeminism in Journal of Hebei University. The paper, named Transcendence and Originality--On Jane Austen#8217;s Ecofeminism(2012), exposed that the charm of Austen depends on her capability to show innovative and creative ideas in her novels.

In order to make a more accurate analysis of the beauty of human nature in this work, I have read many papers about the work as well as doing a lot of work in aesthetics. Du Zhendong published the paper named A Comparison of the Aesthetic Expression of the Concord between China and the West(2008) to discuss the different views on aesthetics and aesthetic expression of Chinese and western people. It is universally acknowledged that beauty of human nature belongs to aesthetics. Therefore, it gives me a more accurate grasp of the beauty of human nature, especially western aesthetics. What#8217;s more, the word ”taste”#160;has always been one of the important concepts of Western aesthetics. However, there#8217;s little to be heard about Jane Austen#8217;s view of the ”taste”. In fact, the dispute of the ”taste”#160;between Marianne and Elinor is not an isolated aesthetic issue. In the novel, the argument seems short-lived, but it reflects Austin's reflection on the 18th-century British Sentimentalism. This argument is also closely related to the issue of ”mental cultivation”, which was of great concern to British society at the time. He Chang wrote an article named ”the dispute of taste”#160;among Marianne and Elinor(2016), which was divided into three parts. The writer analyzed the taste of two sister respectively and then probed into the cultural deep meaning behind the view of the ”taste”.

In abroad, the study of Jane Austen and her works is earlier than China. However, there exist few comments and critics because her novels were not in line with mainstream literary. Even in this way, this phenomenon wouldn#8217;t affect people#8217;s worship of her. Henry James regard her, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Henry Fielding as the fine painter of life. In modern times, the researches on her and her novels has been deeply developed. Since possessing different political beliefs and viewpoints, scholars understand and study her novels from completely different angles, such as feminism, conservation, homosexuality and anti-feminism.

The majority of researches on Jane Austen and her novel still focused on love and marriage. For example, Hannah Eberle published an essay titled How Jane Austen Uses Marriage to Get What She Wants#160;(2011) on the Journal of Undergraduate Research. In the article, she pointed out that marriage was viewed as a market in which wealth and social status are commodities. She concluded that Jane Austen#8217;s novel is the fusion of romance and criticism. Every reader of her novel enjoyed romantic love and learned a indelible lesson. At the same time, I referred to an article written by Chinese author, which also centered around love and marriage. The paper named A Brief Study of Jane Austen#8217;s Point of View on Marriage#160;(2010) suggest that a good marriage is based on true love and mutual understanding. Meanwhile, the writer analyzes#160;Austen#8217;s attitude towards marriage, money and class through studying this work carefully. Therefore, I could analyze beauty of human nature indicated by leading characters when they handle with marriage and money, etc.

Apart from discussing about marriage, other articles also got me into deep thinking. For example, Contrastive Analysis of Two Sisters in Sense and Sensibility#160;Based on ”Melancholy Philosphy#160;(2014) written by Chen Yuanun mainly talk about the difference between Marianne and Elinor in the way of handling with love and other things, as well as sister love among them. After reading this article, I got a lot of inspiration and I seemed to know how to analyze beauty of #160;human nature among characters in this work.

Another article I refer to is written by S.P.Guna Sundari, M.A, M.Phil in India, The Theme of Love and Marriage in Jane Austen#8217;s Novels: Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility(2011) put forward the opinion that love and marriage is the most significant and basic component of people#8217;s life. On the other hand, she found that Jane Austen laid emphasis on the independence of women and women#8217;s economic and social status wouldn#8217;t be improved if they always depend on men.