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The last pages of Emma: Austen's epithalamium. (Miscellany).(Jane Austen's ode to marriage)

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From: Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal
Date: 20010101
Author:Emsley, Sarah

AT THE JANE AUSTEN BICENTENNIAL CONFERENCE held at the University Alberta in 1975, George Whalley gave a paper in which he suggested that Austen is a poet. In saying this he wasn't merely stating the obvious, which is that she did write verse, but instead he was arguing that it is something about the power of her prose that makes her a poet. He writes,

I should like to suggest that Jane Austen is a poet in two senses: (a) in her craftsmanship in language; and (b) in the conduct of the action within each novel. In the first sense, we need to consider fine-grained detail with ...

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