Why Jane Austen?

rom the first publication of Pride and Prejudice to recent film versions of her life and work, Jane Austen has continued to provoke controversy and inspire fantasies of peculiar intimacy. Whether celebrated for her realism, proto-feminism, or patri¬ cian gentility, imagined as a subversive or a political conservative, Austen gener¬ ates passions shaped by the ideologies and trends of her readers’ time—and by her own memorable stories, characters, and elusive narrative cool. In this book, Rachel M. Brownstein considers constructions of Jane Austen as a heroine, moralist, satirist, romantic, woman, and author and the changing notions of these categories. She finds echoes of Austen’s insights and techniques in contemporary Jane-o-mania, the com¬ mercially driven, erotically charged popular vogue that aims paradoxically to preserve and liberate, to correct and collaborate with old Jane. Brownstein’s brilliant discus¬ sion of the distinctiveness and distinction of Austen’s genius clarifies the reasons we read the novelist—or why we should read her—and reorients the prevailing view of her work. Reclaiming the rich comedy of Austen while constructing a new nar¬ rative of authorship, Brownstein unpacks the author’s fascinating entanglement with readers and other admirers. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/whyjaneaustenOOOObrow WHY JANE AUSTEN? Why Jam Austen? Rachel M. Brownstein COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS N E W YORK COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS Publishers Since 1893 NEW YORK CHICHESTER, WEST SUSSEX Copyright © 2011 Rachel M. Brownstein All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brownstein, Rachel M. Why Jane Austen? /Rachel M. Brownstein. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-231-15390-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-231-52724-8 (ebook) 1. Austen, Jane, 1775-1817—Appreciation. I. Tide. PR4037.B76 2011 823'.7—dc22 2010043421 © Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. This book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in the United States of America c 10 987654321 References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. This age of personality, this age of literary and political gossiping, when the meanest insects are worshipped. . . . When the most vapid satires have become the objects of a keen public interest, purely from the number of contemporary characters named in the patch-work notes . . . and because, to increase the stimulus, the author has sagaciously left his own name for whispers and conjectures! — SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE The truth is that every true admirer of the novels cherishes the happy thought that he alone—reading between the lines—has become the secret friend of their author. — KATHERINE MANSFIELD CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABBREVIATIONS Introduction IX XIII i 1. Why We Read Jane Austen 2. Looking for Jane 3. Neighbors 4. Authors 17 71 121 151 5. Why We Reread Jane Austen Afterwords NOTES 253 INDEX 267 237 195 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I AM OF AN AGE TO HAVE FORGOTTEN MANY OF MY DEBTS and to be haunted by a sense of obligation to people whom I can no longer repay. The influences of my first, best teachers—and generations of students, colleagues, and friends —are legible to me in nearly e