‘The Ruins of the Face’: The Aesthetics of Ruin in Austen's <i>Persuasion</i>

Abstract This article investigates Jane Austen's network of bodily metaphors in Persuasion , re‐examining ‘bloom’ the context its pair, ‘ruin’. While novel is traditionally understood as a progress narrative that moves from Anne's self‐description being ‘in ruins’ to restoration her ‘bloom’, examines inconsistency around appearance and throughout novel, contending rather than presenting progression, stages problematics physiognomy, reading body an index internal feeling. I argue by situating within picturesque writing on ruins ‘roughness’ William Gilpin Uvedale Price, we can conceive weathered, worn out, broken, pierced, ruined bodies rough texture animates .