Showing posts with label Pride and Prejudice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pride and Prejudice. Show all posts

Sunday, April 12, 2009

"It is a Truth Universally Acknowledged...

...that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." Such are the famous first words to Jane Austen's masterpiece, Pride and Prejudice. But what if they read just slightly differently?

Here is the product description to a new take on the classic masterpiece:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies -- "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read.


Jane Austen is the author of Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and other masterpieces of English literature.

Seth Grahame-Smith once took a class in English literature. He lives in Los Angeles.


I don't know quite what to make of this, but am intrigued enough that I just might read it. The cover is very eerie.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Quote of the Day: Pride and Prejudice

I am obviously very far afield from my own little sandbox of antiquity; yet, alas, I teach Pride and Prejudice next week, and I am finding so many a bon mot to put Oscar Wilde to shame (ok...maybe not that many). Nonetheless, it is a very witty book. Here are some arresting lines of love that caught my passing eye (both spoken by Elizabeth Bennet):

I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love. (1.9)

Is not general incivility the very essence of love? (2.2)


What makes the latter funny to me is that its tone in context seems quite serious, whereas the first quote is in a series of witty banter.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

What Would Jane [Austen] Blog?



Next week in my class we will be reading Jane Austen's masterpiece, Pride and Prejudice. In preparation, I came across this site, the Republic of Pemberley, named after Mr. Darcy's estate in P&P. If you go to their shoppe, you will find the true meaning to WWJD: What Would Jane Do? As can be found here.