"Misreading" Emma

The most intriguing characteristic of twentieth-century Austen studies is its consensual blandness. While sustained marvels of her language and ineffable nuances of her irony and affirmation insure continued discussion, Austen's stature has itself long since transcended inquiry, immune to both peril and reward.' In her own century debate was lively and her reputation an open question, answered both by those who, like Macaulay, Lewes, and Tennyson, would compare her to Shakespeare and by those who found circumscription her most striking attribute.2 But twentiethcentury criticism has resolved this debate with a compromise: repeatedly praised for her faultless execution, for accuracy with which she represents her subject, Austen is simultaneously faulted for her choice of that subject or, to be precise, for its psychological shallowness and social narrowness. Like Ben Jonson she is victim of what Eliot called the perfect conspiracy of approval: To be universally accepted; to be damned by praise that quenches all desire to read book; to be afflicted by imputation of virtues which excite least pleasure.3 Such consensus and approval yield curious phenomenon of diminutive greatness, what Ian Watt has called the enduring problem of Austen criticism: scale versus stature; slightness of matter and authority of manner. 4 Solutions to this problem are manifold, but they invariably reduce to argument that Austen's perfection is made possible by a refusal of risk, by a reach that does not exceed her grasp. Her significance is said to depend not on breadth or depth but on proportion.5 We cannot fault this solution for being, like all solutions, shaped by terms of problem posed. But we can fault choice of terms, ongoing attempt to justify her art in terms of a mimetic poetics. Valuing form for its transparency to content and content for its real

Art · History · Irish and British Studies

• Gossip, Letters, Phones

  Ned Schantz•Gossip, letters, phones•2008

  Add to list