ABSTRACT
This chapter reveals in new ways the depth of Jane Austen’s engagement with contemporary fictional genres in her rewriting of masculinity. In Emma, she presents her most radical and explicit celebration of authentic, internalised masculine identity and its enabling power for feminine agency. Although often read as a wartime hero who can save the nation, George Knightley’s real power lies not in what he can offer England, but in what he can offer Emma Woodhouse, who refuses to compromise her individualism, influence, or agency by entering a traditional marriage. In Emma, Austen rejects the conservative sexual ideologies embedded in the national tales of Sydney Owenson and Maria Edgeworth, which she reflects in the relationship between the young, jaded Englishman Frank Churchill and the accomplished, sexualised heroine Jane Fairfax. By contrast, Austen draws inspiration from Jane Porter’s The Scottish Chiefs, domesticating and Anglicising William Wallace’s passion for the active, vibrant, and empowered heroine, Lady Helen Mar, in the modern marriage she constructs between Mr Knightley and Emma Woodhouse.
