Jane Austen

I listened to a biography of Jane Austen by Carol Shields. It was a short, well-researched straightforward work about a short, sad, brilliant life. Then when I got up from my desk, after finishing it and feeling rather sad, I came across a new DVD we just got in at the library. It was "Becoming Jane" about a very brief incident in her real life of an attraction to a young man. It would have to be very much glamourized in the film because there was almost nothing to the real romance as I had just found out. Of course, I immediately went and put a hold on it. And there are the mystery novels based on the Jane Austen character like, "Jane and the Stillroom Maid" by Stephanie Barron, which I love.
All this leads me to wonder, why are we so compelled to look into a beloved writer's life for the same kind of brillance in her novels? It's never there. Real life is banal and often petty, just as Jane Austen's was. All the artistry went into her novels and not into her life. There were no real Darcys there and no brilliant marriages or beautiful Pemberlys with shining lakes to move into.
I wonder also if perhaps putting all this beauty and imagination into your writing saps your life a little. Shakespeare was probably just a little hack playwriter who deserted his family and never had any real adventures himself.
All this seems depressing a little, except when I think of the beauty created on paper. The words put together in magical even mystical ways. It seems totally worth it.