I am writing to you in order to discuss what I feel would be a worthy reference point in a reprint of Jane Austen's "Emma." Making a note of Amy Heckerling's film "Clueless" in the prologue would add depth to a responder's view of this text, as Heckerling's appropriation resonates with the known - and this would be a wonderful opportunity to allow the responder to experience the known reflecting on the new.

The different contexts surrounding both texts are apparent immediately. Meaning is thought to be produced or constructed by us as a result of the culture that surrounds us. In relation to "Emma", we are aware from the outset that the text is very much a product of the `realist' era that Austen was a part of. The text is in fact a representation that refers to `the cultural' world Austen inhabited -...