Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Flawed And Beloved: The Spiritual Teachers Of Romola And George Eliot, Kathryn Mogk

Global Tides

Victorian novelist George Eliot presents a paradox: her writings seem highly religious and even specifically Christian, but she was an atheist who firmly rejected her Christian upbringing. In this paper, I examine Eliot’s attitude toward religion in the light of her novel Romola. Romola’s conflicted relationship with her mentor, Savonarola, presents a mirror image of Eliot’s own relationship with Christianity. In both cases, a profound message of duty, altruism, and self-sacrifice is presented by a messenger who is flawed by false and contradictory teachings and failure to live up to his own ideals. Romola and Eliot must learn to distinguish …