Jane Austen’s Romantic Medievalism

Jane Austen, that product of Georgian refinement and restraint, seems far removed from medieval romances abounding in valiant knights rescuing beautiful maidens from ferocious dragons. Yet, Jane Austen’s Romantic Medievalism traces her knowledge of the medieval tradition of courtly love and happy endings through medieval authors, through Shakespeare, and through the influential essayists, novelists, and poets of her day. Understanding Austen’s novels as romantically rooted helps answer vexing questions about her representation of gender and happiness. As Austen reflects on courtly love, she upends traditional gender roles, portraying women not as fine ladies but as rational creatures. Situating Austen within the romantic tradition helps readers understand her happy endings. Like the medieval romancers, Austen believed in a benevolent providence who offers gracious deliverance and perfect happiness; the comic narrative of Christianity supported and shaped the narrative of her own stories. Of course, Austen famously ironizes romance, criticizing emotional excess and downplaying conventionally romantic scenes. But her irony is both destructive and creative and actually aligns her with the medieval theological tradition, a tradition rooted in the paradoxes of Christianity. Austen’s ironic, providentially arranged romances educate her readers into wisdom and joy.