Flirting 101: an examination of courtship and romance in Jane Austen’s novels

Abstract

The objective is to examine how Jane Austen represents courtship and romance. If her novels remain so popular with readers even nowadays, it is because they resonate with us despite the seemingly insurmountable temporal and social distance. To find out where the uniqueness of her romance resides, it has employed eighteenth-century conduct manuals, particularly Dr. Gregory’s, and Jane Austen’s own novels and letters as primary sources, from which it was drawn an analysis helped by the theories discussed in critical essays, most especially essays discussing the forms of courtship, love, and sexuality. The aim is to shed some light upon Austen’s representation of romantic relationships and on the elements that make it transcend the boundaries of time.O obxectivo é examinar como Jane Austen representa o cortexo e o romance. Se as súas novelas seguen tan populares ata hoxe en día, é porque resonan connosco a pesar da aparentemente insuperable distancia temporal e social. Para descubrir onde está a singularidade da súa novela empregáronse manuais de conduta do século XVIII, particularmente o do Dr Gregory e as novelas e as cartas de Jane Austen como fontes primarias, desde as que se elabora unha análise axudada polas teorías discutidas en ensaios críticos, a maioría dos cales discuten sobre todo as formas de cortexo, amor e sexualidade . O obxectivo é dar luz sobre a representación de Austen das relacións románticas e sobre os elementos que o fan transcender os límites do tempo.