ABSTRACT
In this essay, Rachel Canter situates her study of Austen and translation within literary criticism of Jane Austen’s novels in the Anglophone world, which spans a wide spectrum. Over the course of literary history, Austen has variously been categorised as the domestic ‘dear Aunt Jane’, as a writer of subtly subversive political commentary, and as a canonised English literary figure. In contrast, critics such as Valerie Cossy and Lucile Trunel have pointed out that Austen’s reputation in France remains limited to that of a sentimental novelist. In this paper, Canter builds on Cossy and Trunel’s work to argue that Austen lacks critical prestige in France because she was translated too early. Isabelle de Montolieu’s ‘translation libre’ of Austen’s Persuasion was published in 1821, nearly one hundred years before free-indirect discourse, a literary technique which Austen is often lauded for developing in its early stages, was identified as a literary critical term.
