“Lost in Austen,” Found in Regency

Authors : Ela İpek Gündüz

Pages : 39-55

Doi:10.47777/cankujhss.1429495

View : 54 | Download : 54

Publication Date : 2024-06-30

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :The charm of Jane Austen’s writing and the historical context of the Regency era are so appealing that even in the 21st century, Austen texts and contents have continued to be produced through adaptations. These adaptations that function as re-visitings of the Austenian Regency have presented visual realms where we voyeuristically gaze and miss the Austenian past with nostalgic feelings. Austen, as a keen observer and social critic of her time, occupies such a place at the heart of the cultural heritage that she has become the symbol of Englishness whose works are the tools to remind longed notions of perfection and innocence lost after the Industrial Revolution. With the reflection of the romance plot, in these adaptations, the remote space of the Austenian Regency has become a “heterotopia” where past and present coexist simultaneously. In this article, I assert that the ITV mini-series Lost in Austen (2008), directed by Dan Zeff as an example of current adaptations, compares the Regency and the contemporary in such a way that it leads the forthcoming 21st-century adaptations to evolve into neo-Austenian phase that evokes a postmodern sense of nostalgia.
Keywords : Adaptasyon, Lost in Austen, neo Austenian, heterotopya, Naiplik