LITERATURE - Jane Austen 

"Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings" - Jane Austen

Jane Austen also teaches us not to be to tough on introverts, they turn out to be her most worthy characters.

These videos have opened my eyes to the beauty of philosophy and literature. It's such a comforting feeling to learn that the questions and often sad thoughts in my head have been thought of and so thoroughly worked on by these great men and women in the past. In the past two weeks since I've started to watch these videos, I have seriously reconsidered many topics and views I have on life. It's a shame American core curriculum doesn't require the teaching of philosophy and reasoning. If more people learned and discussed these issues, it could make our societies and lives so much more fulfilling..

Her stories have so many layers starting from personal level to big societal projections.The ease with which she shifts and covers from self reflection/ personality analysis to commentary on huge social concerns like misogyny- economic security- marriage - gender roles-social status-education - accomplishments and double standards. All her characters have imperfections which is beautiful 💞 The way the standard protagonist traits are to her second leads shows her uniqueness of writing

I am thoroughly convinced that only the deepest love shall induce me into matrimony -Elizabeth 'Lizzie'

As a writer, she's my inspiration, and I'm not a professional writer, but I do love writing!!

J. Austen ,Pride and Prejudice is the first novel i read when i learned english, i still found it difficult but beautiful as i improved. i was mesmerized at her writing , how well she could work on the carachters. thank you for making a video of her life, she was amazing writer

School of Life is one of the most humanistic channel on RU-vid.

Can you make more videos about women, please? (Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Wolf, George Eliot, Harper lee, the Bronte sisters, etc)

I am SO thankful (to Jane of course) that she never married; selfish on my-part of course (and on a good many of you reader's out there) for if she had her whole life would have been given over to her husband and children. We would certainly have lost some of the greatest of English literature. I credit Jane for this presence of mind. Her book's are easy and beautiful reading.

yes, her novels" make us laugh." Don't forget to emphasize how witty and funny Austen is.

Make one about Oscar Wilde

Make a video about the Brontë Sisters as well

Its official ladies and gentlemen: Miss Austen is now the worlds most popular author ( really a literary juggernaut with latest spate of movies!) She's zoomed ahead of Shakespeare. Her timeless witty wise works are as contemporary today as when they were written. Brava!

Ayyy!!!! This is what I've been saying about Jane Austen. This is where her genius lies. We all like to have a better since of what we *ought* to do, and Austen gives it to us in her context, and with memorable characters. For me, when I first read 'Northanger Abbey' and realized how Catherine essentially matures on Isabella's back, I was furnished with the idea of 'reading people' as a life skill. And even though I do it poorly, I try to do it consciously (as opposed to subconsciously). Her dad may have been the preacher of God's effectual grace, but I suspect her writing has done more to cultivate relational warmth and discernment across the English-speaking world. Thanks for this, TSOL. Great work :)

I love hearing you guys talk about literature. I was never able to articulate my fondness for Austen so well as your description of why she is such a loved writer, but that's absolutely a key point in my adoration of her. So, thanks for the words for the feeling. =]

An absolutely wonderful presentation. And this is so true. She was a stern moralist. And that's a good thing. And that's something we can definitely use today. More people need to read her in that light. She was a daughter of a vicar, for God’s sake. If we all take some of her lessons to heart, we can lead a better life.

Kudos to the animators of all the episodes. I don't think they get nearly enough appreciation :)

I was actually named after Jane Austen

This sole video has tought me more about relationships than any advice from anyone i have ever talked to ;D thanks school of life , keep it up !

What's even more crazy is that Jane Austen wasn't formally recognized as a great writer until the 1920's! During her life, people did not largely read her work, and it wasn't until many decades later when a Harvard Scholar wrote a seminal paper on her work did she finally get attention!

I love her depictions of the outsiders. One can really relate to her characters because we've all felt on the outside of some situation at some point In all of our lives. The well off yearning to be Rich. The beautiful wanting to be perfect. Wanting to be loved by all when we are already loved by some.

A very informative piece that made me reconsider reading Jane Austen again. Thank you for this brilliant and thoughtful production, this high standard and in general the effort the entire team puts into each and every video. Thank you School of Life!

I truly appreciate your work.

Hi, just wanted you to know that I stumbled upon this video a couple of years ago after a Literature lesson in which we were tasked to read P&P. I didn't like it. But the 1st advice from Austen you present here, sticked with me for a reason. It is now, on my 10th year anniversary with my boyfriend that I can see why. You see, I had a best friend who only made me hate myself more by the minute because I would never be able to be what she wanted me to be to the point I could not bear to voice my likes and dislikes to anyone just in case they were the same as her. Her way of thinking was so engraved into my mind that she had became the norm. Until one day, this insanely great guy came into my life. He taught me how to love myself, how I don't have to sell myself short, that I'm worthy of all the good things that happen to me and it's okay to like videogames, anime, kpop (it may sound silly, but repressing your passions and the things you like is like renouncing to your identity to me) and that I shouldn't be ashamed of not being like others. And I found that there were more like me hidden between those others. He opened up my mind to so many worlds just so that I could feel comfortable with myself. God, he loves ME and I love HIM!! I'll spend the rest of my life by his side, still learning, and trying my best just so that I can "improve" his life as much as he has improved mine. Thank you

I honestly don't understand how this channel is not more popular. While I don't always agree with the attitudes or conclusions of your videos, I still find it interesting to get other people's perspectives on specific topics. It helps me grow as a person through viewing things from angles I may have never thought to even consider if not for your channel. So thanks you for that :)

Excellent video. She writes with elegance and subtlety, clear-headed and warm-hearted. Her work is timeless :)

I think Mansfield Park satisfies all of Jane's teaching goals

You are the best literary analysis writers/presenters on RU-vid! I love you guys and I hope you gain more subs

Austin does indeed do all the things you say and yet she also has one more very important trick up her sleeve, and that is to chronicle the English gentry's final transition out of the Age of Enlightenment and into the Romantic era. What's more, she seems to be somewhat skeptical of each paradigm. For example, we see these two world views embodied and contrasted in Sense and Sensibility's Elinor and Marianne. In the story, each is in her own way an incompletely developed personality until experience and reflection change them and bring each a little closer to the other in thinking and behavior.

This video was just beautiful! Thank you for making it!

"You taught me a lesson" Yeah, get 'em, Elizabeth.

I have been watching this channel since that Marx video had less than 30k views. I adore your work, it really helps me in my day to day life. So thanks for that. I would really appreciate a Franz Kafka video please, no one on youtube, but this channel can do him justice. Thanks.

thanks for Portuguese captions.

I remember being introduced to her work in high school, I was totally disinterested. I just wanted to get home and watch wrestling or play video games. Now that I'm 33 I understand, seems silly to think a 17 year old boy would appreciate the fine delicacies of social commentary.

Make one about Charlotte Brönte :)

really enjoying the Literature series, would love to see more!

what a great thinker ,really her ideas and beliefs regarding love are fascinating !!!

Novels with a didactic purpose that indicate how man's prevailing vices may be circumvented are true classics. Thanks tremendously for synthesizing such practical principles! xx

One of my favorite authors.Love her very much

I never had a chance to read her novels but her perspective on life is truly one to behold.

I love jane austen and have read most of her novels but this has made me appreciate her at a much higher level

Jane Austen is such a great author I simply love her books. My favorite is Emma.

OMG! I wait for this episode for a long time . Thanks the school of life :D (Dung Leo)

I watched The Jane Austen Book Club today and after watching this video I decided to read Pride and Prejudice. I am happy to report that I have read a significant amount of pages and am enjoying it.

Make a Tolstoy video, please!

Wonderful writer, timeless and charming.

Thanks for this Jane Austen Crash Course!

this is synchronicity bebe. I was reading Austen when I got the message

One of the true and rare pleasures of my life.. work of Alain de Botton. My ultimate teacher and guide in understanding the mechanisms of life. Thank you :)

Now we need a similarly excellent video on the life & work of George Orwell!

pleaseeee make one about Oscar Wilde, Dostoyevsky, Hesse, Kafka, Stendhal..... pretty pleaseeeee

Dang I love this!!! Totally want to read this book again :) it was beautiful. And I felt so mature. That I could not grasp it at a young age.

My pastor taught me this. And he suggests Jane Austen too. Amen. That's what got me and gets me back into Austen. :)

Thank you for this educating video. Although she had a little fame during her life, her work gained enormous popularity after her death.

Thanks for this wonderful piece

Mate you have the most encouraging intro, it's like from a scene from Dr. No (1962) where they're dancing on a tropical island whilst conducting an undercover investigation

I think a video about JD Salinge would be nice. :)

I really love this channel. I just subscribed the other day abs I can't get enough. I was just wondering, could you guys do a series on music, like you have for art and literature? Specifically an episode on Miles Davis? Again, thanks so much for what you do!

I dare you to make a video about Nabokov

Could you please do more videos on literature? The parts that you highlight in these classic authors are truly enjoyable. Thank you!

I LOVE Miss Austen! thanks a lot

This was wonderful!

Best Jane Austen ever: 'Amy and Amiability'... No, wait, that was Blackadder!...

It's strange to hear that people read Austen's novels as dramas of manners; in fact, most read them for the moral lessons and serious conversations found in them. And to me they seem all essentially alike, in that unusually intelligent and verbal women and men find each other over time, overcoming misunderstandings and the social meddling of "loved ones," such as Elizabeth Bennett's horride mother. If Austen weren't the great writer she was, any of her novels would be enough, so similar are they. As for the importance of money; we must consider the time and settings - she was down to earth and above class-based judgments, downright revolutionary. Another, later writer in her mold was the American Edith Wharton, who deserves similar attention.

Excellent video... I dont know anything abt jane austen except her name... Looking for sth that allows me a glimpse into her world and your clip has done this perfectly. I m very much tempted to read her work now.

Can you do Geoffrey Chaucer?

It would be great if you do videos on Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde.

Great. Thanks for the recommendation, Raimund.

Brilliant video!!

I humbly beg you guys to do a video on Thomas Hardy. I have recently read Tess of the D'urbervilles, and even though it is not my first Hardy novel, it left such a mark in my soul and made me want to know more about this man

hello, firstly your videos are simply fascinating. I'm still looking forward to more literature figures like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Stephan Zweig, Jack London, Agatha Christie, there are plenty of them!!! overall thanks a lot for all the videos!!!

Maybe a video about Dickens, a Christmas carol is one of my favourite books, with the morals of money and philanthropy.

" 'having money's not everything, not having it is' -jane austen" -kanye west

Love how beautifully you've put this content together. +The School of Life the What animation/ video edition program are you using?

I find it fascinating when comparing Pride and Prejudice, and Persuation, how different the tones of the two novels are. I feel like in P&P, even though the Bennets are in a fairly dire situation, their problems aren't dwelt upon with the same melancholy as is evident in Persuasion. In P&P, Elizabeth condems Charlotte for marrying Mr. Collins, and to the modern reader (with very little knowedge of the times) the Charlotte's desicion seems silly and even unfeeling. In contrast, In Persuation, Anne is suffering because of her desicion not to marry when she could (something also seen in Emma). This last point is particularly interesting because Austen recived a proposal of marriage, accepted it, then turned it down the next day. She never got romantically involved after that.

The collage on 2:26, is it a reference to 'playing charades'? It made me remember a scene from Jane Eyre where Mr. Rochester and Blanche Ingram pose 'scenes' in the drawing room (complete with props and curtains for the entr'acte) and the audience guess the word it supposed to represent. It's supposed to be a fashionable drawing-room entertainment at that time. And the reference of marrying without enough money brought the memory of Lydia Bennet and George Wickham's marriage in Pride and Prejudice; although the marriage is based on folly on the other side and compromise on the other... Great job on the video as always; I've only read Pride and Prejudice, but now I want to read them all! :D

This is a fantastic channel. Please make *a video on Chanakya* (philosopher, economist, statesman) and other Asian + Indian philosophers.

Love this handsome woman!

Jane Austen did not write/revise six novels, about 900,000 words, bent over a little round table, at Chawton Cottage. Instead she wrote her novels on a portable writing desk given to her on her 19th birthday, by her father, and which she carried about with her the next 20+ years. The round table would have just been a support table-Jane placing and unfolding the writing box/ portable writing desk;(currently at the Library)-on the table. And it would be placed by the dining room window to give her sufficient light to write by.

Is there any chance of a video on Tolstoy? I feel like he's pretty important for philosophic literature, and life in general

It isn't Julia who gets married to Mr Rushworth :) Maria, her sister is the one who does. But this is indeed very informative!

She is the one that makes me engage in literature

Great! If I could make videos about Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Paine, Lord Byron and Kafka that would be even better

Can we get a video on William Faulkner or F.scott Fitzgerald. I feel American lit deserves more representation

Great one, make a video of "Omar Khayyam," I mean, not all eastern philosophers are chinese!

Could you please do a video on George Orwell? He is a great novelist but also an excellent essayist! I think it would be really interesting if you guys did a feature on his ideas, imperialist point of view and his influences.

I wish you could create videos as fast as I watch them.

Jane Austen is the best teacher of our world.

Please please please do more literature videos!

Well done and beautifully presented. Minor edit that it’s Maria Bertram (not Julia) who married James Rushworth.

I love her books

I'd love to see you do a video on E. B. White!

I have three books about JANE AUSTEN and i love them,PRIDE AND PREJUDICE,EMMA and JANE AUSTEN S life.

Hey Schooloflife, perhaps an interesting idea for a video might be the dutch 'gezelligheid'? It's one of those cultural things you need to be part of to fully understand, but it would be nice to see it explained by you.

please do a series for modern authors also!

Thank's! I like a video about writers. And this video is my English lessons) Thank's a lot!

George Eliot, plz!

I frankly appreciate and foremost enjoy your work! however, would you guys mind making a video on Franz Kafka ? I believe he is an inspirational figure and certainly profoundly interesting.

Do a video on Herman Hesse