Classics and trash: reading austen in the 1990s

Abstract

This essay investigates the interaction between high art and popular ulture as it affects the reception and the status of Jane Austen as a cultural icon of he 1990s. Austen's writing contains its own version of this discordant elationship. In particular,Mansfield ParkandEmmaare texts which draw attention to the act of reading and highlight the embedded scripts of other, popular narratives and genres which inform them. The discrimination between reading practices and communities thus constitutes a site of debate common both to Austen's contemporaries and to the 1990s. In this context current controversies surrounding “Austenmania” are examined with reference to a range of populist approaches to Austen's fiction, including discussion groups on the World Wide Web, sequels to the novels and analysis of two cinematic adaptations ofEmmawhich adopt divergent interpretative positions.