click on image to enlargePersuasion is a fascinating and accessible novel with rather less typical Austen aspects, such as love lost and rediscovered, that provide students with an interesting and fascinating read; it provides also, if they are more widely read, an interesting counterpoint to her other, perhaps more famous, works.
A feature of this teaching guide is to provide plenty of exemplification, through the close textual analysis of Persuasion, looking at aspects of language, form and structure as well as context, genre and comparison.
Each section of the guide will give an overview of each part of the novel, with some exemplification of textual analysis for some parts in order to allow you to assist your students with studying and describing the effects of language, structure and form in the context of the novel.
All page references are to the Wordsworth Classics (2000) edition.
Volume 1: Chapters 1 to 6
The following scheme of work assumes that you have studied an overview of the novel and given your pupils a secure context for the detailed study of language, structure and form in this section.
Chapter 1
Overview and Context
Chapter 1 is an introduction to the social and cultural milieu of a certain section of Regency England. It opens, fittingly, with Sir Walter Elliot’s obsession with social status and money and concludes with the importance of maintaining this status, despite the necessity of ‘retrenching’ due to his spendthrift tendencies. This structural decision by Austen seems to indicate that these are…
