Jane Austen’s Romantic Medievalism
eBook - ePub

Jane Austen’s Romantic Medievalism

Courtly Love and Happy Endings

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Jane Austen’s Romantic Medievalism

Courtly Love and Happy Endings

About this book

While Jane Austen is often regarded as an author who embodies Georgian refinement and restraint, this book argues that her work was deeply engaged with the medieval tradition of courtly love and its investment in happy endings. Revealing the influence of romance on Persuasion, Emma, and other novels, this study provides new insights into Austen's narrative style, representations of gender, and complex interest in happiness as both an affective and moral state. As Austen reimagines courtly love in her own idiom, she upends traditional gender roles, portraying women not as fine ladies but as rational creatures. Drawing on the structures of Christian narrative, she also illuminates the centrality of providence as a virtue that bestows grace on her characters, offering them deliverance and happiness. To be sure, Austen famously ironizes romance, criticizing emotional excess and downplaying conventionally romantic scenes. This study nonetheless finds creative power in her irony, showing how Austen's critique of romance is rooted in the paradoxes of Christian theology, which allow for both human suffering and divine order. In reframing key ethical and generic conventions of the medieval past, Austen's ironic, providentially arranged romances educate readers into wisdom and joy.

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Yes, you can access Jane Austen’s Romantic Medievalism by Tiffany Schubert in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Literary Criticism for Women Authors. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Introduction
  7. Chapter 1: Romance and Chivalry in the Eighteenth Century
  8. Chapter 2: Jane Austen’s Medieval Reading
  9. Chapter 3: Romance in the Novels
  10. Chapter 4: Emma as Medieval Romance
  11. Chapter 5: Redefining Courtly Love and Winning Perfect Happiness in Emma
  12. Chapter 6: Providential Romance in Persuasion
  13. Chapter 7: Austen’s Medieval Irony: Marriage and Pasturage
  14. Chapter 8: Joy and Happiness: A Romantic Education
  15. Conclusion
  16. Bibliography
  17. About the Author