RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Austen Equilibrium
JF Representations
FD University of California Press
SP 63
OP 90
DO 10.1525/rep.2018.143.1.63
VO 143
IS 1
A1 Banerjee, Trisha Urmi
YR 2018
UL http://rep.ucpress.edu/content/143/1/63.abstract
AB By proposing a quantitative game-theory model of the marriage plot in Jane Austen’s Emma, this essay demonstrates that free-market moral philosophy underwrites Austen’s representation of matrimony and key formal elements of her writing—particularly, matters of verbal profusion. Her famed stylistic “economy” is revealed to be structured by the emerging capitalist economy that Adam Smith theorized in The Wealth of Nations. Establishing the correspondences among several kinds of economy, the essay unites economic and formal approaches to Austen’s work.