Jane Austen and Her Legacy

The first jane austen book i ever bought was Emma... I've only gone through a few pages and that was it. I couldn't understand a single sentence without reading it several times all over. When i saw in the Astro program that they were showing Emma. I wasn't sure if it was the book adaptation. Apparently it is - eversince 1996, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. So i decided to rely on the movie instead :P

Emma wasn't the first movie I saw of Jane Austen's work. I've heard of her books every once in a while. Her famous 'Pride and Prejudice'. When the book was to be made into a movie, i quickly jumped at the chance to watch.

and i officially became a huge fan of jane austen afterwards.

After Emma, i came to see Sense & Sensibility and to which all three i fell in love with. Not just the storyline but the whole setting of late 18th century - the literature, culture and fashion and customs! They were so... proper :P

I saw Becoming Jane - an autobiography movie of the late Ms. Austen. And i immediately understood where she got her inspirations from. I thinks she places herself in her books that had happy endings that she could not have.

Later, i decided to dig in further if there are more adaptations of her book since my lack of English literature comprehension prevented me from reading her excellent books. I found out there was another movie just recently made... even more recent than Pride and Prejudice that starred Kiera Knightley.

"Persuasion"

It wasn't widely publicized as it was only aired in British television network. However, i find this movie/ book is my favourite before Pride and Prejudice and Emma.

There was this one part in the movie which i liked best - which is the letter that Captain Wentworth wrote to Anne Elliot.

Dear Ms. Elliot,
I can bear this no longer. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years ago. I have loved none but you. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. - Have you not seen this? I can hardly write. I must go, uncertain of my fate. A word, a look will be enough to decide. Tell me not that I am too late that such precious feelings are gone forever.

But in the book has perhaps a longer version of the letter. Back then, rather than finding love, the culture is to marry well. Perhaps that was what jane austen wanted... both love and marry well.

and which she has all successfully conveyed through her books - her legacy.