[Austen] was committed to the
ideal of "intelligent love," according
to which the deepest and truest
relationship that can exist between
human beings is pedagogic. This
relationship consists in the giving
and receiving of knowledge about
right conduct, in the formation of
one person's character by another,
the acceptance of another's guidance
in one's growth. The idea of a love
based in pedagogy may seem quaint
to some modern readers and repellent
to others, but unquestionably it
plays a decisive part in the power and
charm of Jane Austen's art. And if
we attempt to explain the power and
charm that the genre of the novel
exercised in the nineteenth century,
we must take full account of its pedagogic
intention and of such love as a
reader might feel was being directed
towards him in the solicitude of the
novel for his moral well-being, in its
concern for the right course of his
development.
- Lionel
Trilling,
Sincerity and Authenticity (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1971), 82.
