A Literary Looking Glass: Pride and Prejudice as an Early Renaissance Text Michael Clyde Craddock Jr College

Interpretations of literature will always fluctuate between authors, critics, and readers alike. Literature is a looking glass that reflects many different images, thoughts, and messages for the reader. The beauty of looking into this mirror is that every viewer sees a different image, a different interpretation of what is initially there. Pride and Prejudice is no exception to this observation. Jane Austen’s novel appealed to many literary audiences of many centuries because this book, in many ways, is a social commentary about manners. Her work is officially classified as a realist novel that was made popular during the Romantic period. While the novel found success in its time period of the early 1800s, the work needs to be examined in the Early Renaissance period that began around the 1400s. Seeing the novel in a different time period can be helpful to see if any of the novel’s original content will still be in place. If Jane Austen’s novel was written during the Early Renaissance period, there would be many stylistic and content changes to her work. These changes would be influenced by the notable Early Renaissance texts and authors such as Baldassare Castiglione, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Thomas More. There is no...