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Form Affects Content: Reading Jane Austen
- Philosophy and Literature
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 32, Number 2, October 2008
- pp. 315-329
- 10.1353/phl.0.0024
- Article
- Additional Information
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What does it mean to hold that the significant aspects of a literary passage cannot be captured in a paraphrase? Does a change in the description of an act "risk producing a different act" from the one described? Using Jane Austen as an example, we'll consider whether her use of metaphor and symbol really amounts to calling someone a prick, whether her narrative voice changes what it is that is expressed, and whether comedy can hold just as much significance as tragedy without all the heavy breathing.