With my body I Thee worship: Joe Wright's erotic vision in Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Abstract

Film and literary critics are sharply divided over the merits of Joe Wright’s 2005 Austen film adaptation, Pride & Prejudice. My essay bridges this divide by suggesting that the director projects an erotic vision which simultaneously draws on venerable literary sources and popular youth culture. Wright’s stated intention was to make “a youth film” that captured the spirit of youthful excitement he felt in reading Austen’s novel for the first time. However he highlighted the theme of young love and at the same time gave his Pride & Prejudice poetic depth and gravity by alluding intertextually to the erotic tropes that were immortalized in Romeo and Juliet and that had their roots in ancient myths and tales of romance. This essay situates Wright’s filmic vision within a wider feminist cultural and theological project of speculation on erotic desire, sexual embodiment and “the holiness of the heart’s affections.”