Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen

novel of manners

novel dominated by social customs, manners, convention and habits. Fiction focused on everday routine and life

Gothic novel

a style of writing that is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom, as well as romantic elements such as nature, individuality, and very high emotion

conduct books

a genre of books that tries to educate the reader on social norms and ideas

chaperone

an older person, especially a woman, who stays in public with and takes care of a younger woman who is not married

direct characterization

a method of describing the character in a straightforward manner: through their physical description, their line of work, and their passions and outside pursuits

indirect characterization

a type of literary device that reveals details about a character without stating them explicitly

country gentry

people of high social status or high birth

private sphere

the realm of family life

public sphere

free discussion, open discourse

picturesque

peculiar kind of beauty, agreable in the picture

intertextuality

when a text implicitly or explicitly refers to another text

metafiction

writing about imaginary characters and events in which the process of writing is discussed or described