ABSTRACT
Publishers, film studios, and TV executives love sequels, since they seem to guarantee a readymade audience. In theoretical terms, however, the sequel is a more adventurous if not radical departure from the expectation of closure and the boundedness of the text. The desire for a sequel is part of the impulse to hear stories and to tell reader, the desire that they never come to a definitive end. William Shakespeare gratifies this curiosity to a certain extent in his history plays, both English and Roman, but he, like Jane Austen and any other talented portrayer of character, leaves much unresolved and open to speculation. Austenians maintains a lively conversation, in person and online, about sequels, continuations, adaptations, and completions. More recently, the question of originality and essence has been articulated by Judith Butler in terms that combine philosophy and the history of sexuality.
