About the very esteemed Miss Jane Austen

(via hubpages)

There is no doubt in my mind the ingenuity of Jane Austen's writing. Her voice, her prose, is so deeply embedded into every novel, as if making a very distinct symphony run through every page.But, (much thanks to this research), we can now see that she was a rather neophyte in the grammar world. But isn't that what editors are for? As long as such writing does not construe the intended meaning, does grammar and punctuation have to be weighted as much as the message of the novel?

I think one of my pet peeves is elementary school teachers putting the importance of punctuation and spelling in front of everything else. Of course, it is importance, but a student should not be taught to focus on such concrete subjects for long periods of time. To me, grammar is like a stolid thing, whereas true writing is creating and stirs from the brain. Let kids run and reach for abstractions out of thin air. Let them paint the sun green and the grass pink! Really, who cares except for the stupid rigid rules of society? In any case, this is certainly foreshadowing of how I will raise my children. They shall be fluent in the language of Puccini, Degas, Wagner, Duchamp before they pick up anything technical.

The heart of the argument is that children should be exposed to everything, not just what is deemed "appropriate" for their age. Many freak out at the sight of a nude sculpture; their vision gets so blurred by the nakedness of the very thing in front of them that they don't realize the beauty the sculptor put into it. See the dewy skin? The fair complexion? The subtle smile? No. Fine, proceed to worship the television to hours of Disney Channel. I'm sure there are metaphors in Camp Rock.

This, of course, is intertwined with citations in papers. Yes, I know exactly how important it is to say the source certain information comes from, but when was it that MLA, or Chicago Style, or whatever the hell style is popular in the literary world today, reigns supreme? Really, will one single dot/period (or lack of period, for that matter) differentiate between a true work cited and plagiarism? Life would be so much easier if we pasted hyperlinks, ripped pages from magazines, and photocopied book material. But, life will never be easy, will it?

Well, without nit-picky grammar and works cited pages enforced upon in academic writing, how else are we supposed to satisfy the sweet, syrupy independence of our own writings? I guess, we wouldn't know freedom if there wasn't constraint.