E.J. Clery, from “Austen and Masculinity”
In this essay from A Companion to Jane Austen, E.J. Clery argues that the gendered view of Austen as a “feminine” writer commonly held by nineteenth- and twentieth-century literary critics overlooks the realism and narrative power of her male characters and their importance in driving her novels’ plots. In portions of the essay largely omitted here, Clery goes on to perform close readings of the men’s roles in Mansfield Park and Persuasion.