Comparative Literature Commons^™

Review Of The Life Of George Eliot: A Critical Biography, Nancy Henry

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The literary biographer's most difficult task is to find plausible, sophisticated ways of connecting a human life with the art that emerges from it. In the case of a major imaginative artist like George Eliot, the accumulated weight of previous biographies and critical studies only makes that task more challenging. Nancy Henry confronts this situation head-on in The Life of George Eliot. Her book is not just another re-telling of the familiar narrative, written as if it were starting anew. Instead, Henry has grappled with what a genuinely 'critical biography' might mean on a number of different levels. She interrogates …

Review Of George Eliot: Interviews And Recollections, K.K. Collins

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In his introduction to this fascinating collection of accounts and comments by those who met George Eliot, K. K. Collins points out that modem biographies draw on about forty recollections that have come to form a canon of reminiscence. To this canon his volume adds a large number of unfamiliar sources, arranging more than two hundred items in sections which follow the chronology of her career, with subdivisions for the years of her fame under headings such as 'Sunday Gatherings at the Priory' and 'Eton, Cambridge and Oxford', and with full and helpful annotation of names and details. Of the …

Review Of The Art Of Comparison: How Novels And Critics Compare, Catherine Brown

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This book is a defence of comparative literature in theory - if it has a theory - and in practice by concentrating on three novels - Daniel Deronda, Anna Karenina, Women in Love - which are structurally similar in various respects, most obviously in employing double plots focusing on two couples, and thematically related in terms of their interests and concerns. The book is clearly derived from a doctoral dissertation and has some obvious features of the genre: a thesis which it endeavours to make persuasive by argument and supporting evidence, reference to much previous criticism on the subject, a …

Review Of Modernizing George Eliot: The Miter As Artist, Intellectual, Proto-Modernist, Cultural Critic, K.M. Newton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This distinguished work by a major Eliot scholar is the product of decades of reading, writing and reflection on her fiction and thought. It brings together in revised, homogenized form a series of essays from 1972 to the present day, including new material; and further, it engages with and amplifies two of Newton's earlier monographs on Eliot, as well as his collection of essays by other critics on Eliot utilizing modem literary theory. Despite dealing with complex philosophical ideas, Newton's writing is clear and lucid throughout, bringing to light new insights without the unnecessary jargon that occasionally taints modem criticism. …

The George Eliot Review: Journal Of The George Eliot Fellowship- 2012 No. 43, Beryl Gray, John Rignall

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

CONTENTS

Notes on Contributors .............................................................. 5

ARTICLES Josh Moats: Deronda and the Tigress: Buddhism, Compassion, and National Consciousness in Daniel Deronda (Prize Essay)....................................................... 7

Joanne Shattock: Models of Authorship: Margaret Oliphant and George Eliot...................18

Marianne Burton: 'There is no such thing as natural barrenness in natural women': Childless Marriages in Silas Marner and The Lifted Veil..................... 31

Melissa Raines: Knowing Too Much: The Burden of Consciousness in the Lifted Veil ........................................................................................... 39

Andrew Lallier: 'The generations of ants and beavers': Classical Economics and Animals in The Mill on the Floss................................................................. .4 7

Peter A. Brier: From George Eliot to her …

Review Of Landscape And Gender In The Novels Of Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, And Thomas Hardy: The Body Of Nature, Eithne Henson

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

At the heart of Eithne Henson's book is a comment made by George Eliot when she reviewed Ruskin's Lectures on Architecture and Painting in 1854: 'To a certain degree, all artistic interpretation of Nature is conventional' (p. 75). Henson's concern is with the precise nature of the conventions on which Victorian novelists were able to draw in their representations of landscape, and the extent to which those conventions were gendered. But Henson also asks: who is looking? From what position or perspective? The result is a rich study of what we might call the 'painterly' eye of Victorian narrative. Henson …

Review Of The Business Of The Novel: Economics, Aesthetics And The Case Of Middlemarch., Simon R. Frost

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

With excellent research available on the publication history of Middlemarch, including work by John Sutherland, N. N. Feltes, Carol Martin, David Finkelstein and others, it may seem surprising that an entire book has now been devoted to the topic. But as the title of Simon R. Frost's The Business of the Novel: Economics, Aesthetics and the Case of Middlemarch suggests, this book takes Middlemarch as a case study to illustrate and test some larger theoretical claims and methodological practices. In his introduction, Frost admits that most of the material on Middlemarch has been covered by other critics, but that he …

Review Of Silas Marner On Bbc Radio 4

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Unheralded in the Radio Times and elsewhere, Silas Mamer, dramatized by Richard Cameron, was broadcast as the Classic Serial on Radio 4 in two one-hour instalments on 16 and 23 October 2011. I was pleased that I spotted it. George Eliot has been favourably treated on radio and television, especially in the past twenty years or so. We've had televised versions of Silas Mamer, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda. Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, The Lifted Veil and Daniel Deronda have all been serialized on the radio. Radio 7 recently repeated a broadcast of Silas Mamer with the late …

Deronda And The Tigress: Buddhism, Compassion, And National Consciousness In George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, Josh Moats

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Many scholars have written about George Eliot's treatment of Judaism in Daniel Deronda (hereafter DD), but no one has yet explored why George Eliot includes Buddhism in the novel. Eliot engages with Buddhism most explicitly in chapter thirty-seven when Mirah compares Deronda to the Buddha: 'Mr Hans said yesterday that you thought so much of others you hardly wanted anything for yourself. He told us a wonderful story of Bouddha giving himself to the famished tigress to save her and her little ones from starving. And he said you were like Bouddha. That is what we all imagine of you' …

Chairman's Annual Report 2011, Jphn Burton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

It was a good year for the Fellowship. Our membership numbers held their own, and although some older members have difficulty getting to events, we have attracted new members who have been enthusiastic in their support.

The theme for the year was Silas Mamer, which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2011. The first event of the year was the AGM, which we had hoped to expand with a keynote lecture to start the year by Barbara Hardy. Unfortunately, Barbara had to cancel due to ill-health but undaunted, we arranged a review of the previous year and had useful discussions about …

From George Eliot To Her 'Rabbi': An Epistolary Find, Peter A. Brier

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I cannot be easy without writing a word or two this morning for I am conscious that I made myself more disagreeable than nature obliges me to be by my hard quips to you. They were not warrantable by anything but a strong personal and impersonal interest in that sensitive being of yours, which holds what may be very precious things in its keeping. And even with that warrant it will be a proof of your fondness if you quite forgive me.

You look wretched - and I have now so much of that subtle misery which can be explained …

'There Is No Such Thing As Natural Barrenness In Natural Women': Childless Marriages In Silas Marner And The Lifted Veil., Marianne Burton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

'There is no such thing as natural barrenness in natural women' wrote the eminent French psychologist Eugene Becklard in the 1840s, and, in general, physicians agreed with him. Certainly in mid-nineteenth-century literature children were the sine qua non of a successful marriage; courtship novels rarely ended at the altar, happy endings demanded babies. Unlike lady novelists who wrote silly novels, George Eliot thought marriage, with its complications, compromises, and lack of easy exits, was quite as interesting as courtship, and childless marriages were generally more interesting than generative ones. The two childless marriages' in Silas Mamer and The Lifted Veil …

'The Generations Of Ant And Beavers': Classical Economics And Animals In The Mill On The Floss, Andrew Lallier

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Before any named characters find their way into The Mill on the Floss, the narrator introduces us to two sets of animals (aside from a human driver): white ducks dipping their heads into the stream and horses pulling a covered wagon. The ducks are characterized as being 'unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above' (24). This characterization serves a comic purpose, indicating a disparity between the mentality of the unreflective animals and the implicit judgement of the narrator's gaze. By contrast, the horses seem to possess a surprisingly developed interiority (however conditioned by the narrator's …

Models Of Authorship: Margaret Oliphant And George Eliot, Joanne Shattock

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This article is about the profession of authorship in the nineteenth century. More specifically it is about the writing lives of two women novelists. Margaret Oliphant's (1828-1897) work is unfamiliar to most modem readers, apart from her Autobiography, one or two of her supernatural tales, and possibly the 'Chronicles of Carlingford', the series for which she was best known, novels and stories set in an English provincial town where life revolves around church and chapel. George Eliot (1819-1880) on the other hand, needs no introduction to today's readers.

In one of her many reviews of the works of her contemporaries, …

Review Of Women And Personal Property In The Victorian Novel, Deborah Wynne

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Dorothea Brooke was reluctant to accept the bequest of her mother's jewellery, but was George Eliot equally resistant to the allure of pretty things? Deborah Wynne thinks not. Wynne cites a letter from Eliot to her friend Elma Stuart in which the energizing pleasure of 'little joys' is a cause for celebration:

it is cheering to think that there are blue clocks as well as troubles in the world. There is another spiritual daughter of mine whom I should gladly see eager about some small delight - a china monster or a silver clasp - instead of telling me that …

Japanese Branch Report - 2011, Mizue Aida

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

On Saturday 3 December 2011, the Fifteenth Annual Convention of the George Eliot Fellowship of Japan was held at Ferris University.

The morning session began with an opening address by Hidetada Mukai (Ferris University). Three papers were presented in the morning: the first two were introduced and commented upon by Hiroshi Ikezono (Yamaguchi University) and the third by Mie Abe (Shoin University).

The first paper 'Sensitivity and Materiality in "The Lifted Veil'" was presented by Mari Takumi (Tokyo University). She focused on Latimer and his supernatural ability to look into the minds of others and see the reality through his …

Review Of George Eliot, European Novelist, John Rignall

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

On the opening page of this series of connected essays, John Rignall points out that 'George Eliot's readers and reviewers took it for granted that her novels belonged to a European tradition of fiction'. When Leavis conscripted her into his new canon after the Second World War, this dimension of her work was largely erased and has only recently begun to re-emerge thanks to the work of Rosemary Ashton, Elinor Shaffer and others - not least John Rignall himself. One reason for this neglect was no doubt intrinsic to the work: Rignall concedes that George Eliot's fictions are set overwhelmingly …

The Gift: Synesthesia In Translingual Texts, Natasha Lvovich

Publications and Research

This article explores the relationship between multilingualism and synesthesia (neuro-psychological blend of senses). In the absence of research in any of the related fields, the author (a multilingual, a L2 scholar, a writer, and a synesthete all at once) views synesthesia through the lens of “translingual texts” written in L2 by multilingual authors and takes an interdisciplinary perspective, fusing L2 scholarship, cognitive theory, neuroscience, literary theory, and semiotics to investigate the complexities and subjectivities of the multilingual mind. ‘Translingual synesthesia’ appears to represent an idiosyncratic form of language emotionality and creativity, allowing translingual authors to transcend cognitive and linguistic realms …

The National Imagination (Spring 2012), Robert D. Tobin, Marvin D'Lugo, Alice Valentine

Syllabi

What images make people think of the United States of America? Cowboys? The flag? And are there similar icons in other cultures that help define cultural identity? The National Imagination explores the concept of a national community as constructed and critiqued through literary and cinematic narratives, as well as other cultural texts.

Our underlying premise is that national languages and cultures promote the identity of particular communities. We are interested in examining those subjective expressions of culture—images, symbols, narratives—that lead people to feel that they are members of the communities we call nations. We are also interested in discovering points …

‘Robes And Furr’D Gowns Hide All’: Edgar’S Role(S) In King Lear, Annette Lucksinger

Quidditas

Despite his centrality in the play, Edgar’s role in King Lear has rarely attracted sustained analysis. To be sure, scholarly neglect doubtless results from Edgar’s own elusiveness, from the disguises that grant him access to the major characters in the play, disguises that encourage others to read in him what they wish to see. Analyzing what other characters see or fail to see in Edgar’s disguises offers important light on his character and his role in the play. A Lacanian analysis of Lear’s reading of Edgar’s role as Poor Tom shows that Lear’s effort to establish (or to re-establish) his …

“Rise Up, Lord, Scatter Your Enemies (Please)”: Faith And Doubt In The Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard1, Thomas Klein

Quidditas

As is now well known, in July of 2009, an unemployed metal “detectorist” named Terry Herbert was plying his device in the recently plowed field of a friend in the farmland outside of Lichfield, in Staffordshire, in the English West Midlands, and came upon a remarkable find.2 Over the course of several days, he uncovered hundreds of items of what turned out to be early Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork. The find was subsequently reported to the British Portable Antiquities Scheme, which took over the site, and eventually some 1300 distinct objects (and many more pieces) were recovered. The news …

Marking The Woman A Sinner: Testimony And Legal Fiction In Renaissance England, Lesley Skousen

Quidditas

Throughout Medieval England, ordained clergy could avoid secular punishment for felony by claiming a privilege known as benefit of clergy. During the Reformation, this privilege was repurposed by the ministers of Henry VIII and offered as a lay benefit. The plea of clergy left women ineligible, as they could not be priests and were rarely convicted in the same numbers as men. Even when accused of crimes, women could rely on legal fictions and evasive testimonies to escape conviction. Then in 1624 and 1691, Parliament redesigned benefit of clergy to include women, first for slight theft and then on equal …

Midwives As Agents Of Social Control: Ecclesiastical And Municipal Regulation Of Midwifery In The Late Middle Ages, Ginger L. Smoak

Quidditas

Regulation of Midwifery in the Late Middle Ages was the result of both the trend toward supervisory social and institutional control and also the harnessing of midwives as agents of that control. This paper examines the procedure of ecclesiastical and municipal regulation through oaths and licensure, arguing that midwives were able to gain agency and autonomy, as well as protection, by occupying a liminal role between the private world of the birthing chamber and the public world of the witness stand. They were therefore vital to both sides of the process of regulation

A Poet Of The Sikhs: Aesthetic Embodiment In The Poetry Of A Young And Elderly Bhai Vir Singh, Todd Curcuru

Honors Theses

Bhai Vir Singh, famous 19^th and 20^th century Sikh poet, writer, and scholar is remembered for his great literary achievements and proliferation of the Pubjabi language. Raised in the Punjab, India after the fall of the Sikh kingdom to the British, Vir Singh grew up in a time of religious turmoil due to Western influence. Joining the Singh Sabha reformation movement, he dedicated his life wholeheartedly to return contemporary Sikh identity to its foundational roots as present in the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth.

Despite his desire to return to a fundamental Sikh identity, Bhai Vir Singh …

How One Writes, Makes, Markets A Movie And How An Audience Reads The Movie: Two Biographical Films Of Hitler As A Case Study, Nick Chi-Shu J. Yeh

CGU Theses & Dissertations

According to John Lukacs, German people's views on Hitler and Nazism once got examined right after the fall the Third Reich in the 1950s but this subject has lost its appeal since then. How do Germans nowadays, specifically those young ones raised in the "New Germany" after the fall of the Berlin Wall, think of Hitler and their country's Nazi legacy? This dissertation is to explore how six young Germans growing up in the new "unified Germany" interpret two films' representations of Hitler and Nazism.

Masculinity In Comparative Black Literatures, Latoya Renee Jefferson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project examines the ways in which Black men in Africa and throughout the African Diaspora define themselves as gendered beings in their fiction and drama beginning with Richard Wright's publication of Native Son in 1940 to Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter published 1980. Black men created a transnational dialectic concerning their masculinity which involved the creation and criticism of several types of masculinity. In Chapters 1 and 2, I discuss the theoretical and the historical framework for this project. In Chapter 3, I discuss the first type of Black masculinity which was based in opposition to Euro-American stereotypes …

Yiddish In Abramovitsh's Literary Revival Of Hebrew, Ken Frieden

Religion - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Big Green Mama-Mind-Fuck Machine, Byron W. Cross

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

PREFACE

"so much depends upon

a red wheel barrow

glazed with rain water

beside the white chickens."

-W. C. Williams

The Big Green Mama-mind-fuck Machine was born in a debris field of violence, of conflict. I write mostly from an autobiographical place and a debris field is the perfect way to describe the careful stitching together of my experiences, taking a memory and extracting the emotional boom it left behind. I take the piece and spin it in zero gravity, carefully examining it. For this reason, writing an Ars Poetica without "I" would be an impossibility for me. So, after …

Futurism In Venezuela: Arturo Uslar Pietri And The Reviews Indice And Válvula, Giovanna Montenegro

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

The short-lived revue válvula, published in Caracas in 1928, was symbolic of the cursory invasion of Futurism into Venezuela, and of the fate of the avant-garde in that country between the 1920s and 1930s. At a time, when the nation was struggling to shake itself from the patriarchal influence of the caudillo Juan Vincente Gómez (1857-1935), and was simultaneously on the eve of a shift from an agricultural to an oil-based economy, artistic avant-garde movements arrived in cultural centres such as Caracas and Maracaibo not with the boom and thunder appropriate to war-loving Futurism but, rather, trickled in slowly, gradually …

The Visual, The Epic, And Pasternak’S ‘Devjat’Son Pjatyj God’, Ludmila Lavine

Faculty Journal Articles

In this study I consider the role of poetic description in Pasternak’s ‘Deviat’sot piatyi god’ (‘1905’) in the context of the genre of the poema. Descriptive passages in poetic narratives, as a rule, provide a static setting for a protagonist’s actions. In the absence of any single hero in Pasternak’s poema, topography itself begins to move. I examine the categories of stasis and motion, central to ‘1905’, at the intersection of the visual and the verbal. The idea of reanimating the events of the first Russian revolution twenty years after the fact borders on the ekphrastic in places, where the …