Jane Austen and Narrative Authority [Hardcover]

In Jane Austen and Narrative Authority, Tara Ghoshal Wallace argues that far from embodying ideological and technical serenity, Austen's novels articulate a range of anxieties about authorship and authority. The novels experiment in different ways with possible sources and the ultimate failures of authority, always returning to the compromised figure of the narrator. Wallace suggests that Austen's novelistic output can be read as a theory of interpretation, thematizing problems of narrative authority and readers' resistance.Acknowledgements - Abbreviations - Introduction: Lady's Susan's Progeny - Northanger Abbey and the Limits of Parody - Sense and Sensibility and Feminine Authority - Getting the Whole Truth in Pride and Prejudice - The Family Plot of Mansfield Park - Emma and the Inept Reader - Straight Talk in Persuasion - IndexTara Ghoshal Wallace