Material Mobility and the Horse-Drawn Carriage in the Age of Austen

My project presents an original theorisation of the horse-drawn carriage by examining its dual position as both ‘object’ and ‘space’ in the works of Jane Austen. Using a rigorous interdisciplinary methodology, I analyse the carriage itself, and Austen’s engagement with it as a vehicle and material object, through the exploration of two distinct but interconnected theoretical avenues that shape the two parts of my thesis: eighteenth-century material culture, and literary and social geography. Scholars have long noted that the rendering of material solidity is rarely a priority in Austen’s work in comparison to its prominent role in other Georgian texts. However, my thesis makes exciting connections between two major bodies of scholarship within the Romantic period – Austen studies and material culture studies – to unearth the key role of objects in Austen’s fiction. My research adds to the current corpus of material investigation by Jennie Batchelor, Barbara Benedict, Lynn Festa, and Bruno Latour (among others), but closes a gap in knowledge by championing an object (the carriage) hitherto overlooked by Austen studies and elided by the academy altogether. Throughout my thesis I contextualise Austen and her carriages among the literary vehicles of writers such as Henry Fielding, Frances Burney, and Thomas De Quincey, underscoring Austen’s unique manipulation of the carriage as a spatial entity. Concurrently, my thesis also extends current scholarship on Enlightenment and Romantic notions of movement and emotion by Sara Landreth, Miranda Burgess, and Danielle Bobker. By addressing questions concerning the relationship between the carriage’s provision of mobility and the psychology of emotion of Austen’s characters, my project rethinks how we read the material and spatial meanings of her texts.