Quiz: Only English Majors Can Identify These Jane Austen Lines

It may be hard to find someone who has never heard of Jane Austen and her books, but it can prove difficult to find people who know more than just Pride and Prejudice or Emma. Unless, of course, you are a Janeite, an English major, or both, you probably don't know much more than the basics of the Regency-era author.

If you've read all six Austen novels, not even including her unfinished works, you know how realistic and alive her characters feel. But, even if each character has a unique personality and identity, their words can blur together in even the sharpest of minds. Think you're an expert in all things Austen? Take the quiz below to see if you can match the line to the book it comes from!

How did you fare? Was the quiz just "barely tolerable," or do you feel as if you're Elizabeth Bennett seeing Pemberley for the first time? If you loved this trivia and want to challenge yourself some more, check out our other quizzes. Also, if you are an English major, you will find so many articles to dive into in our literature and history sections.

More Quizzes:

The Skills of Jane Austen

While Jane Austen's most famous work is Pride and Prejudice, her other novels and writings can't be overlooked when discussing her literary talent. It is not just that Austen's books were popular. They have rightfully become classics because of her expertise in several different literary techniques.

Austen was one of the first to write flawed main characters. Many novels before her time were morally black and white, but Austen portrayed characters who felt real and alive due to their flaws and personalities. Her characters learn and grow throughout the novels, and that in-depth character development changed the way future writers would portray their characters.

Free Indirect Style

Another literary technique that Jane Austen made famous was "free indirect style." This is where third -person narration and the thoughts of a character blend together throughout the novel. Rather than limiting the readers to a single point of view or giving the readers too much information with an omniscient narrator, Austen combined the two styles seamlessly.

This allowed Austen the freedom to keep secrets from the readers until it was time for them to be revealed, but still tell the stories of multiple characters. Northanger Abbey is a great example, as Austen wrote it to parody Gothic romance novels but also as a coming-of-age tale.

Catherine Morland, the heroine of Northanger Abbey, is obsessed with Gothic novels and convinces herself that she's stumbled into a real Gothic romance. The readers are given enough of her thoughts to wonder if the situation really will end in horror, but also given clues from the narrator that Catherine is viewing the world through a skewed lens. Austen was able to immerse her readers in the mindset of a teenage girl and also give them an objective view of the novel's world.

Austen really was a master of her craft. Her works are studied centuries after they were published because of the different techniques and styles she used. Each of her novels is unique in its themes, characters, and tone, and each is a work of art in literature.

You May Also Like: