Regarding Jane Austen

Regarding Jane Austen  

 

Jane saw through “it” all, that is, the empire, the aristocracy, the patriarchy, the navy, even “Britishness.” Saw it, in the light of the erotic, for what it was and what it wasn’t. It is only in the absence of the erotic that Lady DeBoerg (?) looks like and can be considered a lady, the woman of quality the aristocracy claims her to be. In that absence, she doesn’t look and act like the controlling shrew she actually is. 

Strauss argued early on that the Republic abstracts from eros. I have wondered about that. Perhaps: it’s the absence of eros that makes possible the constructions, political and otherwise, of the Republic. It’s only in the absence of eros that philosophers would rule. But without eros, philosophers wouldn’t be philosophers. Perhaps they’d be intellectuals or sophists. The latter taught for pay and to empower their students, that is, for their own and their students’ “advancement” or acquisition, for fame. 

Did “The Crown” series do a pretty good job of illustrating the absence of eros among the British elites and the monarchy, and the consequences of that absence? For example, Diana’s fate? Elizabeth’s fate? Charles’s fate? Needed : erotic foils like those created by Jane Austen. “There are facts and there is truth and you better make room for both.” Or: there is fact and there is fiction and you better make room for both.