Are Jane Austen's books romances or not is a question wrapped up in so much misogyny and bias that it's very hard to answer without a thousand caveats. The almost knee-jerk reaction of some Austen fans to insist that the novels aren't romance is because we are all well aware of the negative associations (romance = stupid girl stuff that isn't worth educated men's time). However, most people who say this, I really believe, mean no offense to romance as a genre that many people love.
And what is romance? Do all the heroines in Austen's novels end up married by the end? Well yes, but lots of books that are definitely not romances end with the main character married. Is Emily Brontë only included in this list because she's a woman, because I read Wuthering Heights as a revenge Gothic tragedy:
A romance or romantic novel is a genre fiction work focused on the relationship and romantic love between two people, often concluding with an emotionally satisfying or optimistic ending. Authors who have significantly contributed to the development of this genre include Samuel Richardson, Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, and Anne Brontë.
I would personally say, and many agree, that a modern romance must have a happy ending (HEA), but the exact definition is hard to pin down even by experts. One of the common things in pulp fiction romance is a hyper focus on the two leads, to the point that most other characters feel two-dimensional. I don't think Jane Austen fits that genre convention at all. She does great side character building and her worlds feel lived-in in a way that makes her stories become real.
Anyway, definitions aside, there are some very real reasons not to call Austen's novels romance, at least some of them:
Emma and Mansfield Park especially don't fit the definition at all, in my opinion. Those novels are far more interested in the growth of the main character than their end romances. They are both coming-of-age novels and not primarily romance
The novels are all heavy on social satire
Just because a novel was written by a woman and is mostly in a female point of view, it doesn't have to be classified as a romance. Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest ends in three marriages and is almost entirely about the relationships between the four main love interests, and yet it's mostly classified as a comedy. "Woman wrote = romance" can be very annoying
It's hard to fully articulate, "Yes, Jane Austen's novels have romance, but they have so much more, like satire and social commentary and women coming of age, so it feels reductive to classify them as only romance, and also, I'm afraid you are shoving her into the box of Stupid Women Novels which is a stupid, false category to begin with, but I don't want her in that box, not that I have anything against pulp fiction romance as a genre, but that is very much not what she wrote." and so you end up with, "Jane Austen didn't write romance" even though, well she did, but-
One of the common things in pulp fiction romance is a hyper focus on the two leads, to the point that most other characters feel two-dimensional.
Just because that's common doesn't mean it's a genre convention, though. I see a lot of people who like romance talking about how much they like fleshed out side-characters, or actively seeking romance with well-rounded characters. If anyone wants a list of romance novels I've enjoyed with fleshed out side characters, I'd be happy to supply some.
Yeah, it certainly does happen. But that's like saying AI slop is now a romance genre convention. It's certainly a presence in the market, but it's not a convention.
(Full disclosure: I write queer romance and tend to put a lot of focus on side characters. I've never had anyone question whether it's romance because of that fact. The requirements, as per Romance.io which catalogues romance novels, are that a relationship is the focus and there's an HEA or a happily-for-now ending. That's it!)
#can we stop acting like modern romance is somehow shallow or awful just because some folks don't like it or because there's some bad books?#there's some awful sci fi too but that doesn't get the same dismissive response#this sounds less like ''let's stop categorizing all books by women as romance'' [which is valid]#and more ''they can't be romance because romance novels are trash and these are Not''#my response#which no one asked for
However, most people who say this, I really believe, mean no offense to romance as a genre that many people love.
I actually like romance and some of my favourite novels have hyper-focus on the main characters. I actually really like that feature personally, I seek it out. Maybe that's why I thought it was a convention. I never said it was negative, I just said Jane Austen didn't do it. I never said romance was shallow or awful, in fact I'm talking about how people don't want to say that while also distinguishing Jane Austen from romance.
I am totally willing to accept that hyper-focus isn't a genre convention, I also said I don't know what the exact definition of romance is. But this post is not anti-Romance or saying all the novels are trash, so please don't put those words in my mouth.
I'm not going to comment on what makes a romance a romance, but I do have some comments on Austen's novels. I've made these points before - I think more than once - but at least someone will not have seen them. Four points, then four discussions:
1. Austen's novels are definitely romances, but only on the surface.
2. I think every one of the six novels is a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story.
3. They are absolutely, positively satire.
4. They are social commentary, increasingly so.
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1. It's not a spoiler to say that every single protagonist ends up with the guy (a) she wants at the start, or (b) figures out along the way that she wants. It's a happy ending because she gets who she wants. Wikipedia even includes Austen as someone who developed the romance novel. I think, however, that Austen used the romantic form for other purposes, because she was a woman in an age when it was difficult to do anything else. Women did write in other genres (e.g., Frankenstein) at the time, but it was really rare. Sorry if that qualifies as misogynistic, as discussed above (it's not intended to be, but the road to hell ... you know), but I really think she was mostly about other things. I don't think this idea is mine - I'm probably parroting someone else, but I can't remember. It also might be wrong, but I just don't think Austen was primarily interested in the romance as a form - for instance, I agree with what OP said above about Emma and Mansfield Park; I think it applies to some others.
2. Every heroine except Elinor Dashwood undergoes some sort of disillusionment. Elizabeth Bennet, Catherine Morland, Emma Woodhouse, and Marianne Dashwood are disillusioned about themselves. Anne Elliot and Fanny Price are disillusioned about others (Lady Russell and family of origin in Portsmouth, respectively). Anne's experience occurs years before the novel starts, and is discussed just after the beginning and at the end; Fanny's occurs late in the novel. The first four above are embarrassed and ashamed of themselves to various degrees once reality intrudes on their illusions about themselves. For instance, after she reads Darcy's letter a second time, Elizabeth Bennet says, "Until this moment, I never knew myself." Only Elinor Dashwood seems to have been born disillusioned - about her mother, her sister, their half-brother, his wife, her brother, Lucy Stone, and herself. Parentified indeed! In contrast, Emma's and Marianne's self-disillusionments are particularly brutal for them, while Fanny gets off easy in this way (definitely not in others).
This, to me, puts all the novels in the genre of bildungsroman, which Wikipedia defines as "a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth and change of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood." (Wikipedia also says that some who study bildungsromans think Pride and Prejudice doesn't qualify. Well, I disagree.) I find that, as someone who has been mentioning this repeatedly here on Tumblr (and once on Reddit), it's interesting that the fandom almost never mentions this or discusses it. Why? It's there in every novel! Why don't Austen fans, who are mostly women, talk about the psychosocial development of young women in these novels? It's especially baffling about fans who are beyond this age, who must have experienced the normal sorts of disillusionments that life gives. As a man, I've certainly dealt with my own repeated self-disillusionments; I think it's normal for most people of any gender.
3. I don't think the satirical aspects of Austen's works need much discussion. They're there in every single novel, popping up over and over, sometimes in action, sometimes in the author's commentary, and they are hilarious.
4. Someone said here on Tumblr a year or two ago (was it OP? maybe it was - not sure) that if one follows the dates of publication of Austen's novels, one sees that they increasingly criticize the social structure of British society. (Not class! That's a Marxist term from 30 years later. It's rank.) It was a great post and I am sorry that I cannot find it. It went through all six novels, showing how Austen's criticisms grew. Those born to their positions in her early novels seem to "deserve" them, while her last book, Persuasion, presents an idiot baronet who is entirely self-satisfied, pompous, superficial, spendthrift, and in love with not only his own visage (six mirrors), he's in love with his own unearned social position (e.g., his repeated reading of The Baronetcy). In contrast, navy men earn their social positions through sheer competence, and totally deserve them (Admiral Croft, and Captains Wentworth, Harville, and Benwick).
Famously, both onions and ogres have layers. Jane Austen's novels all have many layers, as I hope that I have shown. Are they romances? Are they satire? Are they other things? Yes, yes, and yes. Maybe that's why people keep going over this issue. They're a lot of things. She was a genius. That's why we're still talking about her work, two centuries later, and counting.
And if you think I'm wrong about anything here ... okay. Let me know.
At its core, a romance—or more accurately called, a love story—is all about how two people start out apart, and over the course of the story they come together in such a way that the core flaws of the two leads, and the problems born of those flaws, are ameliorated. Part of the essential change each lead undergoes is due to the influence of their fellow lead. One of the common conventions is that the leads come to know themselves better as they come to know each other. The story cannot resolve happily for these two characters if they are apart (in purpose, if not in physical presence) because they make one another better and more complete.
Love is always at the core of such a story, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be romantic love. (Which why I like “love story” better than “romance.”)
For example, I just finished a critique for a wonderful story in which the main character gives up everything, including trashing his relationship with his adult daughter, to chase after the First Love that got away in his youth. The romance is a lovely, tender story, but it’s not the through-line at the center of the novel. The love that’s been lost and needs to be mended between the father and daughter is, and the romance supports the character change that needs to happen to get to the happy ending. It hits all the plot beats and conventions of a “romance,” but not between the romantically involved characters. It’s a love story that fits quite comfortably on the shelf next to the romances.
I would argue that most of Austen’s books fit into different genres. Yes, they all have romantic arcs and social critique in them, but they’ve each got a different set of genre conventions and plot beats.
Pride and Prejudice fits the mold I just described. It’s a romance first because it’s a romance in plot structure. It’s a social commentary second. Mansfield Park is not a romance in any way, even though it ends with the main character married to the man she loves. I agree that it’s got a lot of coming-of-age elements, but it’s almost a tragedy, except everyone lives, just not quite happily. Northanger Abbey is, above all else, a satire (which is not the same as a comedy) with a romantic comedy dressed up as a murder mystery as the supporting plot. Persuasion is a literary drama. It doesn’t have a true romance plot because only one of the leads has to change; Anne just has to endure until he does. Anne becomes healthier and more invigorated as people stop taking her for granted and occasionally consider her needs, but she does not change her values or learn some big lesson beyond, “When you’re right, you’re right. Hold true, and it’ll pay off in the end.” Emma’s plot most closely resembles a mystery, with Emma as the bumbling detective who’s more surprised than anyone when it turns out she’s the one who dunnit to her own self. (The murder victim is Emma’s love life, and the clues are all the other budding romances she blunders around trampling near-to-death.) Sense and Sensibility is a family drama with a love story at its core, but it’s about the love between the sisters, rather than their respective romantic partners.
