Reception history of Jane Austen a responsible land-owner taking care of his family's ancient estate and Emma Woodhouse symbolising wealth cut off from any sort of social role. David Kaufmann in his 1992 essay "Propriety and the Law" argued that Austen was a classical liberal in the mold of Adam Smith, who felt that virtue was best exercised in the private sphere of the family life rather than in the public sphere of politics. Kaufmann rejected the claim that Austen was influenced by Edmund Burke, arguing that for Austen, virtue was not something passed down from time immemorial from a landed elite as Burke would
Styles and themes of Jane Austen [her] nothing that does not either vex or weary [her]. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all—it is very tiresome". Austen's juvenile parody of Oliver Goldsmith's "History of England" is "authored" by "a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant Historian". In such statements, Austen suggests that history is a masculine fiction and of little importance to women. Feminist critics also focus on the role of the female artist in Austen's fiction. For example, Claudia Johnson views Emma as a powerful heroine, an artist