Retentive Feelings: Adolescence and Emotion in Austen's Persuasion

This essay argues that adolescence plays a crucial yet often overlooked role in Jane Austen's Persuasion on both narrative and emotional levels. Attending both to the risk-taking adolescent figure of Louisa Musgrove and to the "faded and thin" Anne Elliot, I show how Anne's inability fully to grieve the loss of Frederick Wentworth provides the necessary foundation for their rekindled romance. By examining the "retentive feelings" that Austen portrays in messy and often confusing detail, I reveal how her portrayal of a character whose happy ending depends on retaining and rediscovering youthful passion highlights the significance of adolescence in women's lives.