ABSTRACT
The analysis of the formal features of a work of literature was once central to literary criticism; after a period of decline, it is now once more important to the discipline. After tracing that history, this chapter surveys the careers of three significant contemporary theorists of literary form: Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, and Franco Moretti. Whereas Eagleton’s and Jameson’s interests in genre and ideology are still largely explicitly indebted to their original Marxist orientations, Moretti’s interest in form has been materially altered by his embrace of digital humanities (DH) methods of extracting and analyzing data from large sets of archival material. This chapter then applies various methods of formal analysis to novels by Jane Austen and Ian McEwan, as well as to the ongoing vogue for filmic adaptations of Austen’s work.
