ABSTRACT
Jane Austen's writing shows a complicated relationship, or relationships, with Johnsonian style, and some major adaptations of and divergences from it. The idea that Austen was influenced by Dr Johnson has a long history; it begins with one of the earliest pieces of writing about Jane Austen, her brother Henry's 'Biographical Notice', which he wrote just after her death: 'Her favourite writers were Johnson in prose and Cowper in verse'. And the critical consensus has continued to the present. Myers explored the Johnson-Austen connection in 1994,4 and Bannerjee in 1992 described Jane Austen as 'Dr Johnson's daughter'. In thinking about Johnson's syntax and its influence on Austen's writing, the situation is essentially similar to questions about Burney or Richardson, or any other major influence on and component of Austen's own style. The passage is thoroughly Johnsonian, in its crafted quality and its multiplied parallelisms and antitheses.
