Austen, Jane
Austen, Jane (1775–1817),English novelist. Although some commentators have found structural resemblances between Pride and Prejudice and Much Ado About Nothing, Austen's engagement with Shakespeare is most visible in Mansfield Park (1814), which takes its three daughters from King Lear and elements of its love plot from All's Well That Ends Well (hence its hero's surname, Bertram). Henry Crawford reveals his insincerity by the skill with which he reads aloud from Henry VIII in his attempt to court Fanny Price, though Austen clearly endorses his identification of Shakespeare as ‘part of an Englishman's constitution’.
Nicola Watson
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