Jane Austen and Leisure

This text identifies leisure and its use as a central characteristic of Jane Austen's work, by examining her life and by looking at the range of leisure pursuits in her novels.

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Jane Austen's novels portray a leisured society of gentlemen and ladies who do not need to work. Even the men with professions, such as sailors and soldiers, are almost never seen working; though leisure was not meant to be an excuse for idleness. The proper uses of leisure are to fulfill duties, to read and think, and to pursue social relations in a world where family and marriage for the propertied were of central importance. The activities pursued in Jane Austen's novels, and the way they apply themselves to them, are significant to the understanding of her characters and the roles they play. The working of society depended on a round of visits, dinners and evening parties. Bath and other spas were active centres of entertainment of all kinds; and the seaside resorts were growing in importance. Jane Austen experienced these and put them to use in her novels; but she also registered the fact that quiet, solitary pursuits such as reading, walking or needlwork might be more to the taste of a Fanny Price or Anne Elliot.
Male characters enjoy their leisure in a number of sports, often glimpsed off stage - John Thorpe drives his gig wildly through Bath and Tom Bertram is nearly killed by a fall at Newmarket. This text identifies leisure and its use as a central characteristic of Austen's work.