An Austen Afternoon

My daughter and I attended a Jane Austen lecture, tea, and film showing this afternoon at our downtown public library. The lecturer spoke on the subject of "Austen and the Stormy Sisterhood," a reference to a famous criticism of Austen by Charlotte Bronte. (Bronte believed Austen to value reason over passion to a deplorable degree.) Although I did not agree with all of the lecturer's assessments, I was intrigued by the whole of idea of famous authors critiquing one another's works. I know my favorite criticism quotation is Jonson's of Shakespeare when Jonson said, "Sufflaminandus erat," that is, "He ought to have been stopped." Of course, I humbly but heartily disagree with Mr. Jonson.