ABSTRACT
Marilyn Butler is a well-known critic of romanticism, and, more specifically, of the literary and cultural consequences of the French Revolution. Jane Austen and the War of Ideas is essential reading for those interested in Jane Austen's politics. Combining intellectual history with formal reading, Butler argues that Austen must be seen in the context of the post-revolutionary climate of the 1790s. She has irritated a certain line of feminist critics by arguing - as in this chapter from her book - that Austen's sympathies lie with those who dislike the extremism of the French Revolution, and that, in this sense, she is 'conservative.'
