Jane Austen's Emma

E.M. Dadlez is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Central Oklahoma. Her work focuses on the philosophy of art and literature, and on topics at the intersection of aesthetics, ethics and epistemology. She is the author of various articles on aesthetics and feminist ethics, as well as What's Hecuba to Him? Fictional Events and Actual Emotions (Penn State Press) and Mirrors to One Another: Emotion and Value in Jane Austen and David Hume (Wiley-Blackwell).

• Series Editor's Foreword, Richard Eldridge Contributors Introduction, E.M Dadlez1. Love and Friendship: Achieving Happiness in Jane Austen's Emma Neera Badhwar and E.M. Dadlez 2. Emma's Pensive Meditations Cynthia Freeland3. Emma and Defective Action Eileen John 4. 'A danger at present unperceived': Self-Understanding, Imagination, and Social Relations in Emma Richard Eldridge 5. The Many Faces of Gossip in Emma Heidi Silcox and Mark Silcox 6. The Reconstrual of Imagination and Romance Peter Knox-Shaw 7. Misreading Emma David Davies8. The Dilemma of Emma: Substance, Style, and Story Peter Kivy

What distinguishes this anthology is that it connects Jane Austen's literary masterpiece to a number of classical and contemporary philosophical texts and viewpoints. The result is a fresh set of insights into a novel whose textual ambiguities have met with wide disagreement among literary critics over how to make sense of the many subtleties Austen has woven into her literary tapestry. An equally penetrating critical spirit extends toward the philosophy side. And not just because literary works frequently convey complex narrative situations that enrich the store of truncated examples more abstract works of philosophy are able to provide. But also because literary presentations themselves often presuppose philosophical views...