On 5/31/08 we luckily had Paul to take us to Winchester, Dorest and Stonehenge. The Winchester Cathedral was quite beautiful, the architecture was amazing. It seemed to set a calming tone for the rest of our visit. As our walk continued in Winchester we arrived at Jane Austen's House. We were unable to visit inside of the house, because it was currently occupied, but we still received an idea of what the town meant to her. As we walked around the grounds of the cathedral it was nice to take a moment to enjoy the scenery and walk the same grounds that Austen once did. We were able to have the opportunity to see her were she spent her last days and heard a reading in the same garden she woke up to every morning.
With this said, it is easy to see why Austen was so compelled to write her novels with such detail about everything that surrounded her from the houses to the gardens and paths around the town. The passage that I read from Austen's Persuasion showed her attention to detail and demonstrated how she looked at her surroundings closely. She described the house of the Musgroves' with detail so the reader can picture the home as Austen did. While we were there I could not help but wonder did she include a house from the town of Winchester? Could we have walked right by a house she wrote about in her novel?
Winchester was also noticeably less of a tourist attraction as the other places we had visited, such as Wordsworth's home. It was also interesting to see that the home of Austen was lived in, instead of being used as a museum to attract more visitors to the town. If you continue to compare the sights we have seen so far, you will remember Austen also used the town of Bath in her novel Persuasion with great detail as well. My next thought is will the quiet town of Winchester become more of a tourist attraction as the years continue on once the current occupants of the house leave? Or will the town stand against it and let it remain the same?
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1 comment:
I loved the feel of this town and the fact that it wasn't a tourist attraction. Knowing that things are still very similar as far as the atmosphere to the time when Jane Austen was writing was very important to my experience. As a Jane Austen fan, I also appreciated that her house was still being lived in. Her presense was still very much alive to me and this made her books come even more alive.
-Tish
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