Why are we still entranced by words written on pages centuries old?
Female classic novelists of the Regency era crafted a plethora of works still ceremoniously consumed today. Media changes and expands, generations come and go, and estate homes become museums, but something keeps these stories thriving through it all. Something keeps people coming back, whether for classroom readings and margin annotations or production companies revitalizing adaptations with a new generation’s chosen actors.
Naturally, these novels explore expansive themes of classism, feminism, romance, marriage, characterization, revenge, inequality, and status. I propose, however, that one core theme that keeps audiences returning has become lost within the onslaught of modern media: the art of yearning.
In an age where the entire world is at our fingertips, a love confession is only a few taps on a keyboard away, and video chatting allows us to feel as if we are conversing in the same room with someone miles or oceans away, this idea of yearning gets lost—swept away in instant gratification. Some may argue this is for the better because it removes the waiting and provides immediate resolution for any emotion, anxiety, or desire.
Yet film adaptations continue to be made, the confessions keep being quoted, and the novels keep being read. In the past year, Wuthering Heights, directed by Emerald Fennell, debuted on Valentine’s Day of 2026 featuring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. Recently, Sense and Sensibility, directed by Fiona Shaw, debuted in October 2026 starring Daisy Edgar-Jones. Now, a new Pride and Prejudice television series adaptation has been announced for Netflix, premiering on December 3.
These adaptations each claim a corner of box-office attendees with the help of creative marketing campaigns and cast press tours, making the Regency-era time period with empire waistlines, English countryside estates, and of course, passionate love confessions in the rain feel accessible to a modern audience.
I recently viewed this genre’s newest installation, Sense and Sensibility, at its premiere in a local Gainesville cinema. I waited in eager excitement for the masterpiece born of Austen I knew I was about to witness, amidst the hum of excitement from fellow theatergoers. As the viewing of these films typically goes, I went through the peaks and dips of an emotional rollercoaster, from cursing out the leads who cannot seem to properly communicate across the miles between Sussex and London, to anticipatorily watching a tension-filled ballroom dance, to clutching my hands at my chest during a long-awaited proposal in the grassy hills. A proposal where, as it goes, he declares his long-developing love for the lead, his pure intentions and honor reflected through his passion and unraveled walls.
Somehow, I cannot seem to get enough of these moments—the ones defined by these quiet certainties. I love the waiting the audience must endure alongside the characters, hoping for the realization of their fate to be together despite years of lost contact and immeasurable distance, especially in a time when carriages and letters were the only forms of communication. And within this waiting, hoping, searching, and changing lies the yearning of the leads.
“My affections and wishes have not changed. But one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love.. I love.. I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.” -Mr. Darcy
The hand flex heard around the world, the quips of admiration for the uncommon trait of women reading, the recognition of her love of walking miles upon miles, and the request for a dance knowing she believes dancing encourages affection, even if one’s partner is barely tolerable: each is a subtle way Darcy’s yearning for Lizzie persists beneath the colloquial extravagance of the Regency era. Within every chance for fate to keep them apart, including Lizzie’s rejection of his first proposal, each discovers their own pride and prejudice they had previously accused the other of solely possessing; months spent apart allowed each to reflect on their own flaws and change for the better. The distance and space only made a deeper sort of affection grow.
In this speech from his second proposal, he shows the change in his own character (a character he had proudly refused to accept suggestions of change from anyone else, not that they had so dared) that he has made for her. Through all these stoppages, barriers, inconsistencies, and uncertainties, Darcy’s feelings have pushed on, despite not knowing if Lizzie would ever want him in return, with all the pride and prejudice he has now come to realize in himself. Walking to her in the early dawn, disheveled and cold through grassy fields, he is unraveled and incandescently in love with her.
Yearning is defined as a feeling of intense longing for something, typically that from which one has been separated or that is unattainable. In these stories, there are hardly any physical displays of romance compared to what we see in modern romance mediums. Instead, there is a true understanding of the other’s character, of their being in its entirety. What must it feel like to understand a person so fully that you can say your souls are born of the same cosmic guidance, designed by the universe to cross paths and intersect in a world where we shall never know the majority of living beings? To look into someone’s eyes and see them completely, and have them see you the same, is a truth that remains immortal despite the impermanence of life.
“I cannot live without my life. I cannot live without my soul…Be with me always. Take any form. Drive me mad. Only please do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you.” -Heathcliff
While Emily Brontë’s classic novel is vastly different from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the new adaptation has introduced new viewers to the dark, gritty, and intense lifelong partnership of Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff. These two may not receive a happy ending like Lizzie and Darcy, but we are shown another side of this everlasting yearning: a love that persists beyond death to become immortal.
Even when Cathy is married, pregnant with another man’s child, and stubborn beyond measure, Heathcliff’s yearning is only emboldened rather than hindered. Nothing will cease his desire for her, even if she is, by the definitions of the time period, completely unavailable to him.
In present culture, we see many who are afraid, even ashamed, to sit in the waiting, opting instead to move on and search for something surely better out there.
As Heathcliff grips onto Cathy’s lifeless body, he utters the unutterable, still pleading with her, still stubborn to let her go. At long last, through all of the revenge tactics and unreceived letters, they are together. At long last, love still persists, even in the face of death.
The greatest love confessions do not happen swiftly, even if you do believe in invisible strings and love at first sight. The greatest love confessions we hope for come with the yearning, with the relief of finally being together at the last moment it seems circumstances may finally break you. If someone whom you have only just met were to say things such as this to you, it would not hold any meaning. Yearning creates meaning and depth within words. And it is not about being chosen, it is about wanting to know yourself well enough to understand that which you truly desire even in the face of it not working out.
I have grown tired of hearing from friends, partners, and social media alike of defining it all through love languages and theories and whatnot. Not everything is meant to be defined; our lives are inimitable and intangible, which is what makes us human beings. I hear many talk about how their love language is “physical touch”. Touch is important, but to say you fall in love through touch and that physical intimacy is a necessity to your comprehension of love simply cannot be true. Some things are too great to be defined by a standard such as that, and by putting yourself in a box as such, you are only limiting yourself. Because are not those moments when you most know yourself, and you sit in your thoughts and reflections and waitings when you fall the deepest?
I want to be yearned for, and to yearn in return. I want to be loved (a very Jo March concession), yet only in the way that I want to be loved. This is a hard concession to make for someone as stubborn as myself, but I return to these stories with these two men, with all of their very human flaws and mistakes, still entranced by their desires to understand intellectual and emotional depths, body and soul, of the woman they love rather than barely scratch the surface.
Go to your local cinema and indulge yourself with these classic stories thousands of times. Release yourself from the bars of what we are told of romance in seeing how a true partnership needs to be and live, temporarily, in the eyes and words of those from a different time. Suspend yourself in the romance and let it overtake your longing as it does theirs. If you let yourself sit in the waiting, one day that grand love confession will be for you, and it will actually hold meaning.
It will come to you. A love that distance only makes grow, that no amount of social media posts can turn their view and that will not feel like a game of deception in misaligned wants. A love where distance and separation does not mean the capability and acceptance of being able to live without the other, but rather a way to live by the other until they may meet again.
Yearning is enduring and timeless in its ability to create that which truly lasts forever that no mortal or earthly hindrances may contain. We return to these stories in our own yearning to understand love, therein ourselves, completely and dynamically. This will allow us to discover and love as close to the soulmate level as possible, and it will not be found in impulsivity, manipulation or forced proximity, but rather in the steady beat of our heart we can hear only in the silence of yearning.