Why Jane Austen’s leading men are such enduringly popular heartthrobs

In Ang Lee’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility (1995), the handsome cad Willoughby (played by Greg Wise) rescues Marianne (Kate Winslet) on horseback in the middle of a raging storm. Pathetic fallacy has rarely looked so good.

Marianne locks eyes with him and falls passionately in love. In Austen’s version, though, it is Marianne’s mother and sister who first register his attractions. “The eyes of both were fixed on him with an evident wonder and a secret admiration … his person, which was uncommonly handsome, received additional charms from his voice and expression.”

Willoughby has “exterior attractions” that the two women quickly notice. Once Marianne can master her own confusion, she rapidly constructs him in her mind as the ideal romantic protagonist.

“His person and air were equal to what her fancy had ever drawn for the hero of a favourite story … Her imagination was busy, her reflections were pleasant, and the pain of a sprained ankle was disregarded.”

Yet despite such auspicious beginnings, by the end of the novel Willoughby has proved to be feckless, shallow and passively cruel. The actual leading man turns out to be the respectable, yet taciturn, Colonel Brandon (played in the film by Alan Rickman).

In his introduction to the 1895 edition of Sense and Sensibility, the poet and essayist...

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