Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility assignment
Due in class 2/17 (if you aren’t presenting that day)
You have three options for this short essay. (Please note that, over the course of the semester,
one of your short essays will have to be an OED essay and one will have to be a database essay.
The attached explanations of each option are relevant for each of the novels you’ll be writing on,
so hold onto those even if you aren’t writing on S&S.) Your final short essay should be between
750-1000 words.
Option 1: OED essay
Using the Oxford English Dictionary, write a short essay that considers the significance of the
title words (“sense” and “sensibility”) to the novel. You will also want to look up variations of
those words (like “sensible” or “sensation”).
Option 2: Database essay
Austen originally composed Sense and Sensibility as an epistolary novel: a novel written in the
form of letters. Using the Eighteenth-Century Collections Online database, take a look at some of
the epistolary novels that Austen would have been familiar with. How do you think the novel
would have been different were it to have been told in epistolary form? What is possible in the
novel that we read that wouldn’t have been possible in epistolary form?
Option 3: Close reading
Write a close reading of a conversation between two or more characters. The passage you choose
should be no longer than two pages (the shorter, the tighter and more focused your analysis will
be). In your analysis, pay attention to what isn’t being said explicitly (that is, what’s being
implied) and how we can tell what’s actually going on beneath the surface. What indications
does Austen give to alert us to the fact that the conversation has multiple levels? And how does
the conversation help us understand the characters involved better?