MARY ELLEN BERTOLINI
(Middlebury College)
“THE GRACE TO DESERVE: WEIGHING MERIT IN JANE AUSTEN’S PERSUASION“

Following Waterloo, rich naval officers vied with impoverished aristocrats for position and importance. Against this political drama, Jane Austen unfolds her story of Anne Elliot, who pines for Frederick Wentworth, the Naval Captain she rejected. Wentworth’s final words in the novel, “I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve” are no coincidence, for the idea of deserving, of earning one’s blessings, is at the very core of Persuasion, Austen’s last completed novel.

Read here  on Mary Ellen’s blog, her comments on her talk to us last week.

Sunday, 1 March 2009
2:00 p.m.
Champlain College
Hauke Family Campus Center (375 Maple St.)
Burlington, VT

free and open to the public ~ light refreshments served