Janeite
Janeitism did not begin until after the publication of J. E. Austen-Leigh's "A Memoir of Jane Austen" in 1870, when the literary elite felt that they had to separate their appreciation of Austen from that of the masses. The term "Janeite" was originally coined by the literary scholar George Saintsbury in his 1894 introduction to a new edition of "Pride and Prejudice". As Austen scholar Deidre Lynch explains, "he meant to equip himself with a badge of honor he could jubilantly pin to his own lapel". In the early twentieth century, Janeitism was "principally a male enthusiasm shared among publishers, professors, and literati". Rudyard Kipling even published a short story entitled "The Janeites" about a group of World War I soldiers who were secretly fans of Austen's novels.
Becoming Jane
Various commentators have offered opinions concerning the presence in the film of characters and themes from Austen's works, particularly with "Pride and Prejudice". Deborah Cartmell contended that Hathaway's Austen is a "replica of Elizabeth Bennet (with a touch of impetuous Lydia thrown in)," and added that the associations between Austen and Elizabeth are "more explicit than in" any other Austen biopic. Tim Robey of "The Daily Telegraph" declared that the film took "good old "P&P"s storyline and replace[d] Elizabeth Bennet with Austen herself [and added] a real-life pseudo-Darcy from the skimpiest of biographical evidence." "A Companion to Jane Austen" observed that the "physicality" of Jane and Lefroy's kiss was similar to the "passionate kiss" between Elizabeth and Darcy in the 1995 serial "Pride and Prejudice".