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Literary significance and criticism[edit]
Main article: Reception history of Jane Austen

As Persuasion is popular in literary criticism, many writers and scholars have written various articles and books about Austen's novel, characters, and plot.

Novel
A. Walton Litz, in the essay titled "Persuasion: forms of estrangement," gives a concise summary of the various issues critics have raised with Persuasion as a novel. (8)"Persuasion has received highly intelligent criticism in recent years, after a long period of comparative neglect, and the lines of investigation have followed Virginia Woolf's suggestive comments. Critics have been concerned with the 'personal' quality of the novel and the problems it poses for biographical interpretation; with the obvious unevenness in narrative structure; with the 'poetic' use of landscape, and the hovering influence of Romantic poetry; with the pervasive presence of Anne Elliot's consciousness; with new effects in style and syntax; with the 'modernity' of Anne Elliot, an isolated personality in a rapidly changing society."Susan Morgan, in her 1980 book on Austen, challenges Litz on naming Persuasion as a novel showing Austen's assimilation of the new romantic poetry, as this raises difficulties. Morgan notes Litz's comment on "the deeply physical impact of Persuasion"; he remarks that "Mansfield Park is about the loss and return of principles, Emma about the loss and return of reason, Persuasion about the loss and return of 'bloom'.' Litz acknowledges the crudeness of these formulations and we recognize that he is attempting to discuss a quality of the novel which is hard to describe. But such summaries, even tentatively offered, only distort. The few brief nature scenes in Persuasion (and they are brief out of all proportion to the commentary on them), the walk to Winthrop and the environs of Pinny and Lyme, are certainly described with sensibility and appreciation. And in Anne's mind they are just as certainly bound up with 'the sweets of poetical despondence'." (11)

Persuasion is the first of Austen's novels to feature a woman who, by the standards of the time, is past the first bloom of youth as the central character. The British literacy critic Robert Irvine writes that Persuasion "is in many ways a radical departure" from Austen's earlier novels. (12) Austen biographer Claire Tomalin characterize the book as Austen's "present to herself, to Miss Sharp, to Cassandra, to Martha Lloyd...to all women who had lost their chance in life and would never enjoy a second spring." (13) Irvine notes that alone of Austen's novels, a "non-event" at the beginning of the novel where Anne did not marry Captain Wentworth shapes the rest of the plot as the hero and heroine must defeat the consequences of their shared history. (14)

The American scholar Adela Pinch writes that Persuasion has been called the most lyrical of Austen's novels; "Its emphasis on memory and subjectivity has been called Wordsworthian, its emotional tone has been likened to Shelley and Keats, and its epistemological strategies compared to Coleridge's conversation poems. Its modernity has been hinted through allusions to the lyric fiction of Virginia Woolf." (34)

A recurring debate held in 18th century Britain concerned the power of books over women; namely were women more susceptible to the power of reading than men, and if so, was reading a benign or malign influence on women? (35) Austen had first taken up this question in Northanger Abbey where reading Gothic books has comic effects on Catherine Morland, but also gives a more acute sense of reality and to understand people. (35) Pinch wrote that Austen returned to this theme of the power of books on women in Persuasion, but in a more mature and probing manner, where as the novel is concerned with "... what it feels like to be a reader. It does so by connecting this feeling to what the presence of other people feel like. It explores, that is, the influence reading can have on one's mind by comparing it to the influence of one person's mind over another's." (35) Pinch wrote that Austen is more concerned with spatial matters as various families, especially the Musgrove family, are portrayed in terms of the amount of space they take up and the amount of noise they generate. (36) Likewise, Captain Wentworth and Elliot are divided at one point from embracing by grossly obese Mrs Musgrove or Sir Walter comments after seeing some Royal Navy sailors are "fit not to be seen" as Austen more concerned than usual with how people look and the brain registers visual information. (37) Pinch described Persuasion as a novel of "... repetitions, of things happening within a strong context of memory." (38) Elliot is so often lost in her own world of thought that a recurring phrase throughout the book is "Anne found herself." (39) Concerning Elliot's walk at Winthrop on a November day, Elliot ruminates on various aspects of her life and of the books she has read, where Austen seems to suggest that reading books is insufficient consolation for a woman's pain, but also unavoidable if one wishes for her comfort. (40)

The novel is described in the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition as a great Cinderella story. It features a heroine who is generally unappreciated and to some degree exploited by those around her; a handsome prince who appears on the scene but seems more interested in the "more obvious" charms of others; a moment of realisation; and the final happy ending. It has been said that it is not that Anne is unloved, but rather that those around her no longer see her clearly: she is such a fixed part of their lives that her likes and dislikes, wishes and dreams are no longer considered, even by those who claim to value her, like Lady Russell.

Characters
The literary scholar Stuart Tave, in his essay concerning Persuasion 's main character Anne Elliot, notes the melancholy qualities of her reality in her world after she turns away the original proposal of marriage from Captain Wentworth. For Tave, Austen portrays Anne as a character with many admirable traits, usually exceeding the quality of these traits as they are found in the other characters which surround her. Tave singles out Austen's portrayal of Anne at the end of the novel in her conversation with Captain Harville where the two discuss the relative virtues of gender and their advantages compared to one another. Tave recognizes Anne as a depiction of remarkable intelligence. Tave quotes from Virginia Woolf, in her book A Room of One's Own, where Woolf states, "It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex." Tave applies Woolf's insight to Persuasion when he continues: "All histories are against you, Captain Harville says to Anne in their disagreement about man's nature and woman's nature, 'all stories, prose and verse.' He could bring fifty quotations in a moment to his side of the argument, from books, songs, proverbs. But they were all written by men. 'Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story,' as Anne says. Persuasion is the story told by a woman." (9)

In her book on Austen, the critic Julia Prewitt Brown found significance in the comparison of Persuasion to Austen's earlier novel Emma regarding Austen's ability to vary her narrative technique with respect to her authorial intentions. As Brown states:"The coolness to the reader (conveyed by Austen's narrative) contrasts with an intensity of feeling for the characters in the story, particularly for the heroine. The reason for this contradiction is that Anne Elliot is the central intelligence of the novel. Sir Walter is seen as Anne sees him, with resigned contempt. For the first time, Jane Austen gives over the narrator's authority to a character almost completely. In Emma, many events and situations are seen from Emma's point of view, but the central intelligence lies somewhere between the narrator and the reader, who together see that Emma sees wrongly. In Persuasion, Anne Elliot's feelings and evaluations correspond to those of the narrator in almost every situation, Falthough there are several significant lapses...It seems that this transfer of authority placed a strain on Jane Austen's accustomed narrative tendencies and that she could not maintain it completely. (10)"Unlike Austen's other heroes who are either part of the gentry, the aristocracy, or the Church of England, Robert Irvine writes of how Captain Wentworth is a self-made man who has become rich via prize money won allowed to those who served in the Royal Navy of that era.(15) Sir Walter disparages naval officers like Wentworth and Croft because they "spoil" their complexions outside on the sea and says theses men have risen "too quickly" in social status. However, Sir Walter is portrayed as financially incompetent, having squandered his inherited wealth, whereas Wentworth uses his prize money won via his victories at sea wisely. Coming right after Britain's victory in the long wars with France, Sir Walter's dismissal of the navy men who played such a prominent role in finally defeating Napoleon sounds very unpatriotic and ungrateful.(16) The scholar Gary Kelly suggests that Sir Walter is a stand-in for the notoriously spendthrift and snobbish Prince Regent George–a man whom Austen deeply disliked–as the Prince of Wales was infamous for his womanizing, gambling, drinking, and inability to pay his colossal debts. (17) At the time, there was a widespread belief that Britain had defeated France despite the debauched Prince Regent rather than because of him, and Kelly argues that a character like Sir Walter–who did nothing to defeat Napoleon–attacking someone like Wentworth was Austen's way of expressing her frustration at the Prince Regent taking credit for defeating Napoleon. (17)

Anne and Wentworth, once married, do not become part of the land-owning gentry, with Austen stating the two were destined for "settled life." (15) Irvine states that the sailors in Persuasion are the "most subversive characters" in all of the Austen books as they possess "national importance" only by the virtue of their role in defeating Napoleon and do not own land nor do they ask for social recognition from the gentry. The Royal Navy in Persuasion is a meritocracy where one rises up via one's talents rather than through birth and land, which Irvine writes makes Persuasion the most radical of all of Austen's novels. (15)

Irvine notes that the gentry characters in Persuasion are an "unimpressive lot" as Sir Walter Eliot is portrayed as a vain, pompous windbag incapable of providing love for his children while the Musgrove family are lacking in class and elegance. (18) Sir Walter obsessively reads books relating only to the baronetage; the Musgrove family is relentlessly philistine in their tastes. (19) In its turn, the narrowness of vision and taste from both the Musgroves and Sir Walter serves to highlight the heightened state of Anne's consciousnesses. (19) Admiral and Mrs. Croft are not planning on buying an estate, being content to rent Kellynch Hall, and the two are described as taking better care of the estate than Sir Walter, whose family has owned Kellynch Hall for three generations. (20) Charles Musgrove, though friendly and respectable, is portrayed as unsuitable for Anne as his only interests are guns, hunting, dogs, and horses. (21) In British fiction at the time, it was a normal plot device for women–who were portrayed as being more sensitive and poetical than men–to improve someone like Charles Musgrove and show him that there was more to life than hunting, but Anne rejects this role, and the narrator suggests that she was right to do so. (22) The marriage of Anne's parents is presented as such a match with Anne's mother attempting to "improve" Sir Walter, and her life becomes thoroughly miserable as a result. (23) However, the possibility of such a marriage seems to exist for Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove as the narrator notes "he would gain cheerfulness and she would learn to be an enthusiast for Scott and Lord Byron." (23) Benwick and Anne are similar characters, who have a profound sense of loss, but Anne's heart still belongs to Captain Wentworth although Benwick is described as "younger in feelings, if not in fact; younger as a man. He will rally again, and be happy with another." (23)

Irvine writes of the differneces between the Elliot sisters and Austen's other sibling relationships. In contrast to the Dashwood sisters (Sense and Sensibility) and the Bennet sisters (Pride and Prejudice), Anne is not close to her sisters. (31) Lady Russell persuades Anne to reject Captain Wentworth's first offer of marriage when Anne was younger. Lady Russell never expresses any guilt about breaking up Anne's relationship with Wentworth as Austen describes "her heart reveled in angry pleasure, in pleased contempt." (19)

John Wiltshire notes that Wentworth is a man of action as opposed to words, which makes Anne the only self-reflective character in the novel. (19) Wiltshire writes that Anne becomes steadily more assertive, telling Mr. Elliot at one point: "My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company." (32) The climax of the book where Anne speaks of love, knowing that Wentworth is listening, is unique in the Austen novels Wilshire claims, in that the heroine in a certain sense proposes marriage to the hero. (33)

Plot
According to Irvine, Persuasion's plot depends upon the main characters remaining the same, and the need for the characters to remain true to themselves, to cherish the memory of the ones they love, is emphasized by the signs of social decay around Anne; the gentry characters neglect their estates and treat the values they are supposed to uphold. Anne's love for Wentworth is the only fixed point in an otherwise fluid world. (23-24)

Irvine writes that key moments in Persuasion occur when a third party overhears somebody's else conversation, whereas conversation are a means for members of the elite to confirm their membership of a common group n Austen's other novels. (25) Louisa Musgrove discusses Admiral Croft's carriage driving with Wentworth, which leads her to say "...If I loved a man, as she loves the Admiral, I would be always with him, nothing should ever separate us, and I would rather be overturned by him, than driven safely by anybody else." (25) Irvine states that overhearing this conversation brings back Anne's memories of her love for Wentworth and brings her sorrow as she fears that he is falling in love with Louisa. (26) Another overheard conversation is during the climax of the novel when Anne debates with Captain Harville about the respective capacity for faithfulness of men and women, which Wentworth overhears. (27) Realizing that Wentworth is listening in, Anne says "All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone." (28) The narrator notes that after saying this "She [Anne] could not immediately have uttered another sentence; her heart was too full, her breath too much oppressed." (28) As Captain Wentworth fears a second rejection by Anne, much of the novel is concerned with incidents that bring the two together and relies upon relating Anne's psychological state as she comes close to the man who once proposed marriage to her, making more of a psychological study. (30)