Jane Austen, George Eliot and the Reflective Tradition

A common ethical dynamic between Jane Austen and George Eliot and the realist novel, Rose Pimentel argues, both emerged from an emphasis on reflection as introspection that was widespread in the eighteenth century. She reads both authors as part of this reflective tradition, placing their novels in a rich and reflective dialogue that views neither the reflective tradition nor the development of the novel as teleological.