The Expanding Sense and Sensibility Text Universe

This article asks why people are obsessed with Jane Austen’s stories and why her stories are spreading across the globe, across media forms, and across generations? In an attempt to analyse the Austenmania-phenomenon, this article examines various representations of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility in order to discuss what these representations contribute with to the understanding of the source text and to the text universe as a whole. The analysis shows that the re-presentations not only expand Austen’s story and provide insight into the characters and their actions, but also draw attention to historical and contemporary power hierarchies and gender roles.