62 PERSUASIONS N o. 37 Making Sense of Sensibility INGER SIGRUN BRODEY Inger Sigrun Brodey, JASNA’s North American Scholar for the 2015 AGM, is the Bank of America Distinguished Term Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she teaches in English and Comparative Literature, Asian Studies, and Global Studies and is co-founder and director of the annual Jane Austen Summer Program. She frequently speaks to JASNA and to other international Jane Austen societies. A -   Sense and Sensibility unconcerned with historical context and prompted by cover graphics depicting the head and the heart might assume the title reflects an easy dichotomy. In many ways, the novel supports such a dichotomy; however, the actual meaning of both the words themselves and their function in Austen’s work is a little more complex. In fact, both qualities generate the same adjective: sensible. You can be “sensible” as in having sense, or “sensible” as in responding emotionally to something: therefore a “sensible reaction” could either exhibit common sense or deeply felt emotion. 1 If we look carefully at Austen’s initial descriptions of Elinor and Marianne, the characters also begin to look less dichotomous. Each of the sis- ters has a mix of excellent reason and warm, feeling heart. Of Elinor we hear that she has “an excellent heart;—her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong.” Of Marianne, that her “abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor’s. She was sensible and clever” (6). So why is the dichot- omous understanding of this novel so common? I’m going to argue that if we see the sisters as dichotomous, we fall into a trap Austen builds to ensnare us and, ultimately, to teach us about sensibility. In other words, Austen plays with the cultural assumptions and intellectual fashions of the time for didactic as well as comedic purposes. And some of her jokes are not readily accessible without the historical context. 2 The culture of sensibility was a pan-European intellectual fashion that demoted the importance of “disengaged reason” in moral life and championed t i : :