The Lord is so good to me! The other day, as I was finishing Mansfield Park, Jesus told me to read some literary criticism of Jane Austen. I wanted to cry, "Really? You think so too?" =)
Well, duh, He's the one who crafted us around a dream of His heart. He's the one who knows the exact avenue to tap to infuse our hearts with a holy passion for His dreams. But when He opens up those doors into wider spaces of dreaming, I'm still taken aback! He is just so good!
He said I didn't need to read anything terribly heavy--just some materials to supplement my own readings, studies, and musings about Jane Austen. He said simply that if this is what I want to study, I need to accumulate as much foundational knowledge as possible. I'm sooo excited to dive into it. Last year, I wrote a paper on musical and non-musical characters in Jane Austen. I picked up a book called The Innocent Diversion: A Study of Music in Jane Austen's Life and Writing. It was so fun, but I intentionally skipped over the portions that related to novels I had not yet read. So, I'm going back and reading that.
Another topic that I find so intriguing is the role of the clergy in Jane Austen's novels. She was the daughter of a clergyman, yet her representations of clergy in her novels range from Mr. Collins to Mr. Henry Tilney and Dr. Grant to Mr. Edward Ferrars. Anyways... there are a lot of positive and negative representations, I'm excited to look at them. So I got a book from the library called Jane Austen and the Clergy. That one is going to be especially good =)
I also am getting a book that compiles her personal letters. From the quotes I've seen in my little Jane Austen journal, they should be very fun. I love her letters to her sister Cassandra.
And as if those aren't enough, one of my bestest friends got me a great birthday present. It's Jane's satirical History of England which she penned at only 16 years old. Oh goodie!

If you couldn't tell... I'm a little excited about this!
You can look forward to quotes, anecdotes, and morsels of things about "Jane."
This is going to be grand... I'm so glad He knows what's best for us =)

Ok. The library just informed me that my books are ready, so, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read =)