A Year of Reading Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility
presented by the Westport Library in partnership with the Jane Austen Society North America, CT Region.
A Year of Reading Jane Austen:
Discuss Sense and Sensibility with Dr. Mark Schenker
Mark J. Schenker has been at Yale College since 1990. He is currently a senior associate dean of the College and dean of academic affairs. Born and raised in New York City, he received his Ph.D. in English Literature from Columbia University and has taught at Columbia, New York University, and Trinity College (Hartford). Dean Schenker has led book discussion series in public libraries and other venues in Connecticut for over 25 years and lectures frequently on literature and film for public audiences. He was the recipient of the 2001 Wilbur Cross Award for Outstanding Humanities Scholar, presented by the Connecticut Humanities Council.
Two sisters of opposing temperaments but who share the pangs of tragic love provide the subjects for Sense and Sensibility. Elinor, practical and conventional, is the epitome of sense; Marianne, emotional and sentimental, the embodiment of sensibility. To each comes the sorrow of unhappy love: Elinor desires a man who is promised to another while Marianne loses her heart to a scoundrel who jilts her. Their mutual suffering brings a closer understanding between the two sisters — and true love finally triumphs when sense gives way to sensibility and sensibility gives way to sense.
From LitLovers
I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself.
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
