Yet the needlework of these needle eyes
-- Speaker (Line 5)

Importance: This line early in the poem layers multiple meanings into the word “needle”, and the double usage creates strong parallel sounds that give the line a musical quality. The word “needlework” refers to domestic activities popular with women during the time in which Jane Austen’s books were written — a deceptively safe, banal task. Yet the second usage of the word gives the image more dimension as the speaker conjures the author as someone with a sharp, cold gaze. Thus, the word “needlework” comes to mean the work of assessing and communicating the characters in her stories.

Mr Knightley’s Were she your equal in situation
-- Speaker (Line 8)

Importance: This line refers to a pivotal scene in the novel Emma, which takes place between the title character and the gentleman George Knightley. Knightley admonishes Emma for her cruelty towards a woman of lower social class, and...