Jane Austen’s Romantic Medievalism

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 i