250 Years After Her Birth, Why Is Jane Austen Still So Popular

This year marks the 250thanniversary of Jane Austen's birth.

To celebrate the occasion, thousands are flocking to Bath, England, in bonnets and top hats this month for the Jane Austen Festival.

Several new adaptations and reimaginings are also in the works during her birthday year: Netflix is producing a new Pride and Prejudiceseries written by Dolly Alderton; Focus Features announced an adaptation of Sense and Sensibility with Daisy Edgar-Jones; and earlier this year, PBS debuted Miss Austen, a series about Jane Austen's sister.

What continues to spur Austenmania two centuries after her birth? It's a question Aia Yousef asks her students.

"I don't know if we've settled on an answer," Yousef said. "She was writing two centuries ago about a small region in southeastern England. And yet somehow, she is still so popular."

Yousef, an advising dean in the College of Arts & Sciences and adjunct lecturer in the Department of English, teaches an undergraduate course on Austen. In the class, students read Austen's six novels, her unfinished seventh and her writing as a young adult, assessing the historical context of the time, her literary style and contributions to the development of the novel. They also examine Austen's enduring popularity, adaptations like Cluelessand what she can teach us today.

"I think students are looking for that space where they can explore some of these questions - what it's like to be a young woman in society, how to make a good decision, how to be a good person, how to grow - and Austen allows them to do that," she said. "Her characters are still relevant. The stories they tell are still relevant."

We asked Yousef why Austen continues to be popular and what the 18th-century satirist can shed light on today. Here's what she said.

Austen teaches us about the world in which she lived.

Austen's final home was in Chawton, Hampshire, located in southeastern England.

Although Austen lived in rural southeastern England, her work illuminates the political and social issues of her day. Mansfield Parkreferences the abolition of the slave trade; her other novels touch on topics like the Napoleonic Wars or gender inequity - the latter of which Austen was familiar.

"Most of my students don't realize Austen herself was economically dependent on her brother after her father passed away," Yousef said. "She wrote, it's safe to assume, because she liked writing, but also because she was hoping to make money.

"This is somebody who understood the importance of financial independence when you're a woman. And she was doing so when there were very limited options for women."

And while Austen was funny and satirical in her writing, her novels reflected concerns about money, Yousef said.

"If you reread a lot of them, there is always some kind of economic anxiety happening with somebody: the obsession with money and standing in the society and who is independent and who is dependent and searching for that independence. It's all over those novels."

Austen's novels are about more than the marriage plot.

A vintage illustration of a scene from Jane Austen's novel, Northanger Abbey.

In Jane Austen's six novels, all of the heroines' stories end in marriage, a convention that influences romantic comedies today, The Atlanticwrites.

And while Austen's novels are about love and courtship, they also examine the practicality and role of marriage, Yousef said.

"There is an interrogation of the marriage plot. What is the role of marriage? What function does it serve?" Yousef said. "Her protagonists always end up with someone that they love, but they're also financially secure, too.

"This is not somebody who is 'throw yourself into love and it will all work out.' [Students] realize Austen was struggling with and raising a lot of questions we still think about now."

Austen is still popular around the world for two reasons.

For one, Austen represents different ideas for different people. The novelist shows up in discourses about feminism, conservatism, diversity in casting period pieces, even white nationalism, Yousef said.

"You can see her being portrayed as this radical feminist at the same time you see her portrayed as this quiet, conservative aunt who doesn't speak out of turn," she said. "She becomes a stand-in for these larger questions and conversations people are having."

Another big reason, Yousef said, is that Austen's writing is rooted in characters who feel real and flawed.

"Regardless of the position they have in society … there's a sense in which their stories still matter. She makes fun of [the characters], they're flawed, but she still respects them," Yousef said.

"I think this acknowledgment that no matter how small your story may seem, you still have worth and deserve to find happiness …. is part of the reason why her novels are still so popular."

A vintage engraving from 1881 of women in the Regency era, when Austen's novels took place.

Yousef also points to Austen's "spirited" female protagonistswho feel relatable today.

"They're independent, they ask questions, they push against the grain, but they're also very flawed," Yousef said of Austen's female characters. "I think that appeals to students now because they realize, you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be an ideal to be an Austen protagonist.

You just have to feel like a real person, a real person who is willing to grow."

We keep watching Austen's adaptations because …

There's a spotlight on women's lives and that their stories matter, Yousef said.

There is also a feel-good element, from the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudiceto 2001's Bridget Jones Diary.

"And they're funny," Yousef said. "I don't think we recognize how funny she is. There's something familiar, comfortable and validating."

Yousef said if Austen were writing today, she wonders if the writer would explore other ways to tell women's stories that don't end in marriage.

"She was this young woman who was so bright and intelligent and had very limited options and was struggling to support herself," Yousef said. "And this is somebody who kept doing what she could to have the kind of life she wanted. There's something very beautiful about that that I think is still important for us to remember and still resonates with students."

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