"Pride" in Byte and "Prejudice" in Bits: A Medievalist's Perspective on Jane Austen's Novel

It is well known that many of the moral aspects, concepts, and themes that can be found in Jane Austen's novels are based on the eighteenth-century tradition of moral instruction, which, in itself, is part of an older, and in many respects Christian, tradition of moral philosophy and spiritual guidance. In this paper I wish to demonstrate by means of a computer-aided close reading of the novel, supplemented by a comparative approach as well as several interpretative hypotheses, to what extent Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice mirrors, in a secular context, important elements that are characteristic of the Christian tradition of moral instruction and spiritual guidance. It will be seen that the majority of these elements can be traced back to the mediaeval moral paradigm of the Seven Deadly Sins, with the sin of pride usually heading the list. The seven deadly sins--together with their "remedies," the Seven Virtues--constitute the subject matter of numerous mediaeval handbooks of religious instruction written in Latin and the vernacular for both clerics and laymen. A word list of Jane Austen's novel will help to identify lexical items that refer to moral concepts. Together with "pride" and "prejudice" these items clearly indicate that Pride and Prejudice is eminently suitable for a critical reading on the basis of the mediaeval moral paradigm of sin and virtue.