Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets

This elegant and thoughtful work offers an important new way of understanding Jane Austen by defining the fundamental impact and influence of British Romanticism on her later novels. In comparing the earlier and later phases of Austen's career, Deresiewicz addresses an important yet neglected issue regarding her work: the longstanding critical consensus that Austen's last three novels ( Mansfield Park , Emma , and Persuasion ) represent far greater artistic achievements than do her first three (