Living without Insects in Jane Austen's Emma: A Horizontal Reading

Abstract:What happens when we read an Austen novel "horizontally"—that is, in opposition to the vertical framing established by the author? This essay answers this question by examining the case of absent insects in Austen's Emma. After a review of how a traditional, humanistic reading of the novel unfolds, the essay proposes an alternative view to explore how the novel has omitted vital biological agents and processes in favor of a particular androcentric viewpoint, one in which humans not only reign supreme, but also display a high degree of separation from and imperviousness to the natural world. The essay argues that, in the wake of Covid 19, this mythic (if highly pleasurable) view of the human warrants critical reexamination. Thus, while the essay demonstrates an alternative reading practice to a canonical text, it also proposes new, biologically informed approaches to teaching such texts in the literature classroom. In other words, it suggests that literary study has much to gain from newer biological definition of that it means to be human.