摘要：The sign of a great writer is surely, as Frank Kermode has often asserted, that there will always remain ‘shadow’ alongside the ‘substance’ of their work; they will always remain alive for new readers while they are still discussed. They stay modern. This is indisputably the case with Austen: the arguments as to whether she is conservative, or radical, or both, remain open; new and exciting scholarship continues, reading her fiction in terms of neuroscience, cognitive science, and evolutionary psychology. Austen can be seen as a global figure, influencing even Japanese novelists. It is in terms of this desire to extend Austen beyond British boundaries that we have this new volume of essays. And, given political and cultural developments, there could be no better time for a study that implicitly suggests that a canonical British novelist can only be fully understood when they are considered in terms of other cultures.
