Beauty Of Balance--On The Application Of The Principle Of Balance In Austen's Novels

What is beauty?Beauty is harmony. This point of view was put forward by Greek aesthetes more than two thousand years ago. From then on, it was inherited and developed constantly by the later writers,artists and aesthetes. The English woman writer, Jane Austen, was one of them. The thesis is divided into five parts in the analysis of the application of the principle of balance in Austen's novels.The introduction gives a short review of how the Greek theories on harmony have their influence on Jane Austen. The novels embody a beauty of balance both in the contents and in the forms. This beauty of balance, as a matter of fact is an inheritance and development of the ancient Greece's beauty of harmony. Chapter one discusses balance between the differences of concepts and unity of opposites. It contains two aspects:One is the balance between money and feelings, the other is the balance between sense and sensibility. The second chapter is concerned with the complementary balance of sense and sensibility. The characters in Austen,s novels are usually mutually complementary in personalities. These show in two aspects:One is the contradictory unity of sense and sensibility in characters; the other is the complementarity of sense and sensibility between characters. They not only oppose each other but also complement each other. All the protagonists whose personalities are contradictory become harmonious protagonists after months of interacting on each other. Chapter three is devoted to the harmonious balance of structural layout and contrast. Austen,s novels are evenly distributed in contents and symmetric in structure. The plots of her stories are ingeniously conceived. Each novel develops under a common theme. She systematically forms different stories into a series of well-knitted and harmonious narrative system .In dealing with the characters, relationship, She profusely adopts the skill of contrast to reveal the thoughts and emotions of the characters and stick out their striking personalities. This plays a role in balancing the structure and fulfilling the author,s intention of writing novel as well, with the result that the contents are perfectly in combination with the forms. Chapter four gives a survey of the pool efforts of the era and individual. It respectively probes into the reason why the principle of balance was applied in Austen,s novels from the causes of the era and the causes of the individual.Austen is a great writer. Her works enrich the literature of world. Up till now, they are still literary and cultural resources which should be dug up and savored further.