Please refer to glossary below for definitions to underlined Regency Era terms
March 25, 2014
My Dear Colleagues,
My students and I are rejoicing in Jane Austen’s Regency Era
masterpiece, Pride and Prejudice, and celebrating the grand letter writing
tradition of her time. Immersed in Austen’s lush and occasionally high
flown prose, yet fancying ourselves fly to the time of day, we have endeavored to
compose our own epistolary short stories with a decided air of modernism. We
have therefore used social media forms to convey our narratives.
It gives me greatest pleasure to report that we have passed our time most
agreeably, developing rich, original storylines through fictional emails, text
messages, Vlogs, and Facebook posts. While I confess that Austen would
likely find our crafted characters altogether loose in the haft, to say that students
created masterpieces of their own would be no Spanish coin. Indeed, several
of our seniors may now add epistolary short-story writing to their myriad
accomplishments, including painting watercolors, speaking French, fancy
sewing, and playing the pianoforte.
For your reading pleasure, I have attached samples of work by two regular
out and outers, M.J. Carpio and David Estrada. The first is a
narrative developed through emails on the most unfortunate predicament in
Ukraine; the second, a richly imagined, brilliant adaptation of the novel The
Great Gatsby through Facebook posts and text messages.
Of course, with the conclusion of our story writing has arrived a natural loss of
pleasure and anticipation, and it is now consequently necessary to fix our hopes
and wishes on another period of felicity. We have therefore decided to create
personal dating profiles for fictional suitors of the Bennet sisters, in the
manner of modern social media.
Finding myself confined for time, I must conclude, as I cannot be long for
my dear students.
Yours,
Emily (Khan) Austen (I wish)
Regency Era Glossary (in the order in which words appear above):
high flown prose: extravagant and lofty writing
fancying: imagining
fly to the time of day: aware of the ways of the world
epistolary stories: epistolary stories are stories told through letters, newspaper clippings, diary entries,
Facebook posts, and other documents. Pride and Prejudice is an epistolary novel because much of the
plot advances through letters written by the characters to each other. Our seniors composed epistolary
short stories through modern forms of communication such as Facebook posts and text messages. (This is
not really a Regency-Era term, just a literary term. )
loose in the haft: morally loose, acting with impropriety
Spanish coin: false flattery
regular out and outers: people of enviable ability and skill