NO MORAL EFFECT ON THE MIND: Music in Mansfield Park with Gillian Dooley

This talk will firstly talk about the way Austen uses music and musicianship in Mansfield Park to illuminate but not to define her characters, and how 18th century ideas about women’s education feed into the novel. Secondly she will discuss the Austen family music collections, particularly the music manuscripts in Jane Austen’s hand, and the music that she played and sang.

GILLIAN DOOLEY is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in English at Flinders University, Adelaide, where she is also Special Collections Librarian. She has published extensively on Jane Austen and a range of other novelists. Her latest book is J.M. Coetzee and the Power of Narrative (2010).

Rose Adélaïde Ducreux (France, 1761 - 1802), Self-portrait with harp, circa 1791, collection Metropolitan Museum of Art New York Citybequeast of Susan Dwight Bliss, 1967.55.1