Did Jane Austen write romances?

It’s a more complicated question than it may appear on the surface.

In some ways it is unfair to ask this question of Austen. “Romance” as we know it is a relatively recent genre and was not considered a separate category in Austen’s time.  However, the “romantic” genre of literature was in full flourish, as exemplified by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake and other poets who privileged expression of internal thoughts and imagination, valued connection with the natural world, and rejected social convention and industrialization.  Elements of this kind of romanticism can also be seen in novels that Austen read, like The Castle of Otranto, The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Monk, etc.

Literary scholars tend to see Austen as eschewing romanticism in favor of advocating for rationalism and common sense over heedless emotion and complete rejection of social convention.  But, of course, the case is not so clean cut.  In Northanger Abbey, Austen makes fun of Catherine’s flights of fancy brought on by excessive novel reading, but she also defends novel reading vociferously.  And elements of romanticism crop up in her novels even if we might not say they were romantic in genre.

So where does this leave Austen vis-à-vis romance?  The Romance Writers of America says a romance must contain two elements: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.

Certainly, all of Austen’s books meet the second criterion. They all end happily and satisfactorily, at least regarding the main characters.  So, the question is:  how well do her books meet the first criterion: a central love story?  That a is a much harder question to answer and it varies according to each book.

Certainly in Northanger Abbey, the love story is central.  Catherine likes Tilney from the beginning, and the question of whether they will get together is the primary source of suspense. I would say this is also true of Persuasion. It is true to a lesser extent in Pride and Prejudice and Elinor’s story in Sense and Sensibility. In those stories the primary romance protagonists spend far less time together and today we tend to see spending time together as an essential part of getting to know each other and forming a romantic attachment.  But in P&P and S&S the question of whether the heroine will marry the hero is still the primary driver of the plot.

I do not believe that is true for Mansfield Park or Marianne’s story in S&S. (I won’t discuss Emma; it’s been a while since I read it).  In my most recent re-reading of Mansfield Park I was struck by the extent to which Edmund and Fanny’s marriage was tacked on as an afterthought.  While the question of whether Edmund would marry Mary Crawford and if Fanny would marry Henry Crawford occupies huge swaths of the plot, the amount of time Edmund and Fanny spend alone together is very limited, and they never discuss anything remotely romantic.  My copy of Mansfield Park is 851 pages long and their marriage first comes up on page 844.  The narrator mentions in a very offhand way, saying that she will not tell the reader the exact date or time of the proposal but leave it up to the reader’s imagination.  I don’t know how Austen could have been more direct in telling us that the story we just read wasn’t really about Fanny and Edmund’s romance; their marriage just ties up a loose end and guarantees the happiness of the two most deserving characters in the book.  In some ways it is the opposite of Northanger Abbey.

Marianne’s romance with Colonel Brandon is similar. Their marriage is mentioned at the end of the book, but their romance is not really described. The narrator notes they waited a couple of years to marry until Marianne was older.  While Marianne’s romantic attachment to Willoughby has been an important driver of the plot, her relationship with Brandon happens mostly offstage. And their marriage simply gives a happy ending to deserving characters.

Here I want to make it clear that I am speaking specifically about Austen’s books and not any kind of adaptation.  There are some wonderful (and not so wonderful) movie adaptations of her novels which all tend to emphasize the romance in the stories.  But, I would argue, this is imposing a modern sensibility on Austen.  Today’s adapters and the audiences are primed for romance, so that is what we notice and cherish most about Austen’s work.

However, I’m not sure that Austen herself would have regarded romance as one of the most important elements (or maybe she would have, there’s no way to know).  But she certainly would not have thought of her books as romances the same way we think about books by Nora Roberts, Julia Quinn, or Eloisa James.  And that, I would argue, is one of Austen’s strengths.  I have nothing against romance (it’s the primary genre I read and write), but because Austen was focused on so many other elements of storytelling she created very rich worlds that gave us so much fodder for various re-imaginings of her stories.  Ironically most of these re-imaginings are romances.  And I think that’s okay.

Although I think Austen would be startled by some of the variations on her stories, she would also be flattered and amazed. I believe she would also recognize that people read romance because they want more hope, optimism and love in their lives. Certainly her novels offer those qualities in abundance.

Did you know you can buy Jane Austen toothpaste?  Or Pride and Prejudice confetti?  Or would you prefer an Austen air freshener?  I write about odd and interesting Jane Austen merchandise in my Austen Authors blog.  Found here.

This is re-posted from my Austen Authors’ blog:

In an earlier blog, I had written about the history of the novel and how Jane Austen played a role.  I thought that in today’s post I would address the simple question: what genre of fiction does Austen fit into?  But answering that question turned out to be a lot harder than I expected.

I had actually expected the question to be fairly easy to answer.  She was a…Well…she wrote like a…Okay, her style was….  The fact is that Austen’s genre is hard to pin down.  Today many people would consider her genre to be historical romance, but of course, that category didn’t exist in her day, and her books wouldn’t have been considered historical when she was writing them.  The idea of “romantic” doesn’t necessarily fit either.  Romantic literature at that time often had to do with prioritizing human emotions and imagination—as well as emphasizing the beauty of nature.   It didn’t have the same connotation that it does today: primarily concerning romantic/erotic love between two human beings.  Thus Austen’s readers would have considered Wordsworth’s poems, Walter Scott’s novels, or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to be examples of romanticism; but they would not necessarily have given that label to most of the novels we consider romances today.

Another label that has been suggested for Austen’s works is comedy of manners, which is exemplified by Restoration comedies or Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.   Yet, those plays have a brittle humor not demonstrated by Austen’s works and lack her seriousness of purpose.  In those works, poking fun at social convention is the primary goal and the happiness of the characters is secondary.  Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is also called a comedy of manners; and Elizabeth and Darcy sometimes resemble a Regency era Beatrice and Benedick.  However, both Much Ado and Austen’s works have more drama and a greater seriousness of purpose than many of the typical comedies of manners—so I would not say it is an entirely accurate description.

Since the novel itself was still a relatively new literary form when Austen was writing, it was still quite malleable and without as many established traditions as older forms.  Still, many novels had been written before Austen herself started to write.  Many of the novels Austen read were in the “sentimental novel” tradition—which valorizes “fine feeling” and emphasizes scenes of distress and tenderness—and many others were in the gothic tradition—full of crumbling castles, thrilling villains, and trapped heroines.  Austen’s novels (particularly Northanger Abbey and Emma) famously poked fun at these genres, but she was not free of their influence either.   Her novels do feature women who face distress and tenderness and threats to their virtue or who are trapped by social circumstances, if not by portcullises and moats.  So her novels can be said to have elements of these genres while not fully belonging to them.

Austen herself often saw her books fitting into a genre of realism which had a slender yet noble tradition that included Daniel Dafoe (Robinson Crusoe), Henry Fielding (Tom Jones), and Samuel Richardson (Pamela).  All of these novels were considered to have greater realism—often greater psychological insight—than other novels of the era.  Yet, even in this tradition, Austen stands out.  These “realistic” novelists tend to pick sensationalistic subjects and larger-than-life characters.  Austen described ordinary people in everyday situations:  dances, walks in the country, dinners, polite conversation.  One critic calls this approach “social realism.”

And there is yet another candidate for Austen’s genre; there is no doubt that her stories are comedies or that that describe romances. So “romantic comedy” seems like an obvious label.  Yet Austen’s books don’t exactly follow the familiar formula from today’s romantic comedies.  Much of Austen’s comedy, for example, comes from social satire of the people around the hero and heroine, rather than that typical romantic comedy staple: humorous situations that the couple find themselves in.  In fact, I find Austen’s use of comedy strikingly specific—as if humor helped to leaven the criticism that Austen, a woman, was aiming at a male-dominated world.

Maybe the answer is that it’s impossible to actually categorize Austen into a specific genre.  Perhaps because she started writing when the novel was so new and unformed, Austen’s work doesn’t easily fit into a specific category.  Or maybe Austen is so hard to categorize because she’s a genre unto herself.