Word: noblewomen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...endless round of parties that constitute an Austen novel. As she speaks her wry epigrams, she brandishes a smile that suggests wisdom gaily bestowed on lesser mortals. Though it crinkles with warmth, it is exactly one shade too pleased with itself. Emma could be one of nature's noblewomen, if only she would stop trying to stage-manage other people's lives. Graceful and witty, she is a goddess whose comic flaw is that she wants to play...
...fanciful literary tropes seriously. Ovid's Ars Amatoria is often cited as a major source of misreadings, its instructions followed, its ironies ignored. Other prime suspects include the 12th century troubadours in Provence who more or less invented the Art of Courtly Love, an elaborate, etiolated ritual for idle noblewomen and aspiring swains that would have been broken to bits by any hint of physical consummation...