Jane Austen (1775–1817) is one of the most famous of all English novelists, and today her novels are more popular than ever, with several recently adapted as Hollywood movies. But we do not have many records of what she looked like. For a long time, the only accepted image of Austen was an amateur sketch of an adult Austen made by her sister Cassandra. However, recently a professionally painted, full-length portrait of a teenage girl owned by a member of the Austen family has come up for sale. Although the professional painting is not titled Jane Austen, there are good reasons to believe she is the subject.
First, in 1882, several decades after Austen's death, Austen's family gave permission to use the portrait as an illustration in an edition of her letters. Austen's family clearly recognized it as a portrait of the author. So, for over a century now, the Austen family itself has endorsed the claim that the girl in the portrait is Jane Austen.
Second, the face in the portrait clearly resembles the one in Cassandra's sketch, which we know depicts Austen. Though somewhat amateurish, the sketch communicates definite details about Austen's face. Even though the Cassandra sketch is of an adult Jane Austen, the features are still similar to those of the teenage girl in the painting. The eyebrows, nose, mouth, and overall shape of the face are very much like those in the full-length portrait.
Third, although the painting is unsigned and undated, there is evidence that it was painted when Austen was a teenager. The style links it to Ozias Humphrey, a society portrait painter who was the kind of professional the wealthy Austen family would hire. Humphrey was active in the late 1780s and early 1790s, exactly the period when Jane Austen was the age of the girl in the painting.
The article states that there are good reasons to believe that a professional painting of a teenager girl is a portrait of Jane Austen and gives three reasons of support. However, the professor explains that the evidences are questionable and refutes each of the author's reasons.
First, the reading states that, in 1882, Austen's family gave permission to use this portrait as an illustration on an edition of her letters. The professor opposes this point by saying that this illustration was authorized after seventy years of Jane's death. In that way, the family members which gave the permission had never actually saw Jane when she was a teenager.
Second, the article claims that the face in the portrait clearly resembles the only accepted image of Austen when she was an adult made by her sister Cassandra. However, the professor contends that even though the face actually resembles the Cassandra's painting, as the lecture says it could be from a Jane's relatives. The Austen family was very large on that time, with a lot of teenagers and some of them could resemble the young Jane. In addition, researches showed that probably the teenager painted on the portrait was a distance niece of Jane.
Third, the reading avers that there is evidence that the portrait's style links to Ozias Humphrey which was active when Jane was a teenager. Conversely, the lecture refutes this point by stating that it was found a label from the blank canvas. The label showed that the canvas was sold when Jane was twenty seven years old, a time when she was clearly older.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 300, Rule ID: EN_COMPOUNDS
Message: This word is normally spelled with hyphen.
Suggestion: twenty-seven
... that the canvas was sold when Jane was twenty seven years old, a time when she was clearly ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, conversely, first, however, second, so, third, in addition
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 10.4613686534 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 2.0 5.04856512141 40% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 7.30242825607 41% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 21.0 12.0772626932 174% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 22.412803532 116% => OK
Preposition: 27.0 30.3222958057 89% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 5.01324503311 120% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1304.0 1373.03311258 95% => OK
No of words: 266.0 270.72406181 98% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9022556391 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.03850299372 4.04702891845 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.46217355271 2.5805825403 95% => OK
Unique words: 136.0 145.348785872 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.511278195489 0.540411800872 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 398.7 419.366225166 95% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 3.25607064018 0% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.23620309051 146% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 21.2450331126 104% => OK
Sentence length SD: 22.4344724822 49.2860985944 46% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 108.666666667 110.228320801 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.1666666667 21.698381199 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.66666666667 7.06452816374 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 4.45695364238 45% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.27373068433 140% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0835291631807 0.272083759551 31% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0358449156224 0.0996497079465 36% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0261484844563 0.0662205650399 39% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0537975723606 0.162205337803 33% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0210169709721 0.0443174109184 47% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 13.3589403974 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 53.8541721854 107% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 11.0289183223 97% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.14 12.2367328918 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.35 8.42419426049 99% => OK
difficult_words: 61.0 63.6247240618 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 10.498013245 103% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 3.33333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.