"Northanger Abbey", or, the passions of anti-structure: liminal Politics and Poetics in Jane Austen

This essay attempts a political reading of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey through its treatment of Gothic imaginaries. By working through an associative coupling of social naivety and literary sensibility, it is argued that the novel articulates a counter-model of interpersonal ethics whilst implicitly staging a criticism of hegemonic values and power relations. In this context, the notion of communitas – as developed by British anthropologist Victor Turner – offers a valuable tool for the critical examination of Austen’s text and historical conjuncture.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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