The Clerical Character in George Eliot\u27s Fiction

Writing to Blackwood in November 1856 to introduce Scenes of Clerical Life, G.H. Lewes promised, tales and sketches illustrative of the actual life of our country clergy about a quarter of a century ago; but solely in its \u27human\u27 and \u27not at all\u27 in its \u27theological\u27 aspect; the object being to do what has never yet been done in our Literature, for we have abundant religious stories polemical and doctrinal, but since the Vicar and Miss Austen, no stories representing the clergy like any other class with the humours, sorrows, and troubles of other men. Oliver Lovesey\u27s new study is an overdue attempt to examine the value of Lewes\u27s claim, placing Eliot\u27s presentation of the clergy in the context of contemporary social history and prevalent literary practice, whilst also throwing in some examination of fictional theory as a sop to those not content with the works of Eliot per se

Maggie\u27s Sisters: Feminist Readings Of The Mill on The Floss

The view that Eliot presented her female characters with only very limited possibilities for self-realization in either marriage or martyrdom, and that Eliot herself \u271ived but did not write the revolution is one that has dominated the feminist assessment of George Eliot. This tradition regards Eliot as an author who served unintentionally to bolster a reactionary, phallocentric ethos. Further, Eliot is suspect as she has been, particularly since F. R. Leavis gave her prominence in The Great Tradition a part of the accepted literary canon. Nevertheless, as Elaine Showalter, for example, has pointed out in The Greening of Sister George, George Eliot\u27s life and work has had enormous impact on women writers and theorists. The tension between these different attitudes is an indication of the vitality of feminist writing in general, and it has produced perhaps the most stimulating new reading of Eliot\u27s work. Here, I wish to examine recent feminist critical discourse on The Mill on the Floss, and to attempt to demonstrate that significant aspects of the novel have been consistently overlooked. A crisis in feminist criticism has been noted by a number of critics.! One of the major causes of this crisis is the very acceptance of feminist writing and of many feminist ideological positions. To a degree this is understandable as the very attempt to create a feminist poetics or a female canon was based on the model of traditional canon production.2 American feminist criticism has attempted to address this problem, and to investigate all areas of female experience, including the political, sexual and economic, necessarily ignored in the traditional canon. Much French feminist writing has examined women\u27s writing using a Marxist or psychoanalytic framework, and has been questioned for employing such value-laden methodologies. The problem of discovering a I\u27 ecriture feminine, that is not biased by the patriarchical structures embedded in language, has dominated much feminist writing. Finally, the very notion of an inviolate, autonomous voice for feminist criticism, or gynocriticism, has been regarded with suspicion. The diversity of approach and perspective in feminist criticism, the plurality of voices, and the on-going analysis of the very methods and goals of the feminist programme demonstrates a vitality in the field which can only be hinted at here to indicate the foundations upon which some of the feminist writing on George Eliot is based. Feminist literary criticism is wary of the standards and values of traditional criticism, and refuses to ignore biographical information and such notions as authorial intentionality, and the historical context of a work\u27s production in considerations of a text. There is an inherent difficulty in defining feminist literary criticism in that its relationship to dominant modes is problematic and as it uses approaches ranging from legislative and theoretical criticism to applied criticism. Two recent studies by Jennifer Uglow and Gillian Beer have examined Eliot\u27s work from different feminist perspectives. Gillian Beer demonstrates how a certain type of feminist interpretation of Eliot has become a critical orthodoxy, and, in the light of a perceptive critical formalism, and with the aid of much new material, particularly about Eliot\u27s close activist friends, she provides a new feminist reading of the novels. Jennifer Uglow\u27s aim is not to examine Eliot\u27s use of language, or to locate her in a female tradition, but to examine the interplay between Eliot\u27s life and work. The difference in their approaches may be seen in their treatment of The Mill on the Floss

The Victorian Newsletter (Fall 2004)

The Victorian Newsletter is sponsored for the Victorian Group of the Modern Language Association by Western Kentucky University and is published twice annually."Eternal honour to his name": Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington and Victorian Memorial Aesthetics / Anna Jane Barton -- Deviance in The Law and the Lady: The Uneasy Positioning of Mr. Dexter / Mary Rosner -- Sympathy and Discipline in Mary Barton / Melissa Schaub -- Victorian Sisterhoods and Female Religious Vocation in Margaret Oliphant's Chronicles of Carlingford / Oliver Lovesey -- Catharsis in George Meredith's Essay on Comedy / Jacob Korg -- Books Receive

The Clerical character in George Eliot's fiction

Bibliography: p. 310-325