Great Books

Her mind was less difficult to develope. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news. p. 7

"You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room," p. 13

The former was divided between admiration of the brilliancy which excercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as to the occasion's justifying her coming so far alone. The latter was thinking only of his breakfast. p. 33

What do these quotes have to do with each other? Nothing - except that they make this novel perhaps the most enjoyable "text" I have yet read in PLS. I feel like a 7th grade girl who just got asked to her first dance. I'm going to leave that statement as is. Austen's writing is drastically different from anything we have yet read: her language is very crisp, the dialogue bounces back and forth, and her omniscient narrator seems reveals characterizations that are far more introspective (I think that's the wrong word) than any author we have yet read. Austen is an author - we have read poets, philosophers, and theologians, but I don't think we have yet read a text in Sem that is intended by the author primarily to entertain.  Austen loves dropping in wise and witty aphorisms, but this is through and through a novel. While Gulliver's Travels is very entertaining, (I would say) it is clear that Swift wrote it primarily to educate, and secondarily to entertain. So my question is simple: What makes Pride and Prejudice a "Great Book?"