English Language and Literature Commons^™

Wuthering Heights, Elisabeth Rose Gruner

English Faculty Publications

Wuthering Heights is the only novel by Emily Brontë (1818-1848), one of three sisters who literary productions caused a minor sensation when they began appearing in the late 1840s. Born to Patrick Brontë, a Yorkshire clergyman, and his wife Maria, Emily, Anne, and Charlotte Brontë were precocious readers and writers. The three sisters spent years writing for their own pleasure and amusement, then published a volume of poetry in 1846. Fearing that the volume’s reception would be biased if the authors were known to be women, the sisters adopted the names Ellis (Emily), Acton (Anne), and Currer (Charlotte) Brontë. Their …

"Adjectives Of Mystery And Splendor": Byron And Romantic Religiousity, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

I will suggest that had the history of Christian metaphysics taken a different course than the one it did, it is likely that Byron's considerable objections to religion would have been diminished by at least one. About the particulars of Christian theology, he had little to say, his writings suggest a general discomfort with particular aspects of Christian metaphysics as they had developed by the nineteenth century.

An analysis of Byron's metaphysical/religious misgivings might serve to clarify the nature of his discontent, clearly showing that his particular "heresy" is radically distinct from others of the "Satanic school." It might also …

Canonicity And Commercialization In Woolf's Uniform Edition, John K. Young

English Faculty Research

This paper considers Virginia Woolf the publisher alongside Virginia Woolf the author. While the Hogarth Press has long been known for making Woolf "the only woman in England free to write what I like," it also made her free to be published as she liked. Hogarth, Jane Marcus argues, "gave Woolf a way of negotiating the terms of literary publicity, and a space somewhere between the private, the coterie, and the public sphere" (144-5). I will examine one such negotiation, the Uniform Edition of Woolf's works, a series designed to capitalize on her growing recognition and marketability. Once the Woolfs …

Woolf’S Mrs. Dalloway, John K. Young

English Faculty Research

The famous skywriting scene in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway owes more to 1920s advertising culture than has been previously recognized. In their rapt reading of the “Kreemo” aerial ad, the London pedestrians create both a commentary on consumerism and a model of collaborative, modernist reading.

"I Am No Mean Player Myself": Games And Recreation In Irish Mythology, Julie Lynn Perenchio

Masters Theses

Superhuman heroics in myth certainly succeed in capturing our immediate attention, but it takes a more human touch of talent and fallibility to make heroes personally appealing to readers. In Irish mythology, immortals and humans engage in a marvelous variety of recreational activities, and show universally-felt emotions and tendencies, like competitive spirits, creativity, and tenacity. Far from being idle entertainment, play makes significant impacts on the lives of Irish heroes, individually, socially, and culturally. For example, chess games, even between complete strangers, can cause the upheaval of one's lifestyle and test not only the intellectual powers of players, but also …

Victorian Philosophies Of Useless Work Versus Work For The Mind: Carlyle, Ruskin, Morris, And Marx, Marlaina Easton

Masters Theses

In my Thesis, I will investigate the dominant perceptions of work that spanned the Victorian Period. One of the most important authors of criticism dealing with work in the early part of the Victorian Period was Thomas Carlyle (1845). John Ruskin then became a counterpoint to Carlyle throughout the middle of the century (1862). And although he agreed with much of what Carlyle said, he brings new notions of work to the Victorian Period. William Morris then offered a completely different point of view on the issue of work at the latter part of the Victorian Period (1885). I will …

Delight, Subversion And Truth In The Canterbury Tales: Chaucer's Talking Birds, Terri Benson Blair

Masters Theses

Geoffrey Chaucer mentions birds over 240 times throughout The Canterbury Tales (Tatlock and Kennedy). This frequent allusion to birds is significant, especially since three of his twenty-four tales are actually about birds. What makes these three tales particularly fascinating is that their bird protagonists have the gift of speech. This study examines Chaucer's use of bird imagery in The Canterbury Tales, in particular, his use of talking birds in "The Squire's Tale," "The Nun's Priest's Tale" and "The Manciple's Tale." My theory is that Chaucer uses bird imagery and talking birds to question the sovereign power of the fourteenth-century …

Victorian Concepts Of The Ideal Man As Evidenced Through His Relationships With Animals: "If She Don't Carry You, You May Shoot Her" Or "Remember Gyp When You Get Home", Mary Ann Peebles Soles

Theses & Honors Papers

In Victorian fiction, the relationships between male characters and the animals with which they come in contact with are interesting. The way Victorian male characters are shown to treat animals revels something about the nature of the men themselves. Therefore, it is important to examine the concept of masculinity at the time. The gender stereotypes that prevailed in Victorian England had a tremendous impact on the portrayal of men and women in the novels written at that time. Male writers, the dominant sex, chose to preserve ideals already present. Female writers did the opposite. The Victorian novelists examined were influenced …

Manipulating Images Of Women's Power In Elizabethen England: Elizabeth I, Spenser, And Shakespeare, Amanda Kaye Martin

Theses & Dissertations

This work celebrates the influence of Elizabeth I on Elizabethan society and literature. In the opening of his Shakespearean Negotiations. Stephen Greenblatt describes writing as an outlet for the dead to speak to the living through "textual traces of themselves" that "make themselves heard in the voices of the living". These textual traces form the foundation for the critical theory of New Historicism, which perceives such traces as a conduit for literary critics to learn about an author's view of the nation, and era, in which he or she lived. In "The Elizabethan Subject and the Spenserian Text," Louis …

George Eliot Birthday Luncheon: The Toast To The Immortal Memory 1999, Kathryn Hughes

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

It is a tremendous honour to be talking to you today. When I first started work on my biography of George Eliot back in 1993 I never imagined that I would one day be celebrating her birthday with the people to whom her life and work mean so much, the members of the George Eliot Fellowship.

Of course, when I began my research all those years ago, I knew that I would be learning about one of the greatest literary artists of the nineteenth century. But what I hadn't anticipated was just how modem and relevant George Eliot's work would …

Mary Elizabeth Braddon: Reconstructing Beauty From Portent Of Innocence To Potential Threat In Aurora Floyd And Lady Audley's Secret, Susan Bryant Cook

Theses & Honors Papers

This explores the “sensation novels”, Lady Audley’s Secret and Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon during the Victorian Era. These “sensation novels” ushered in characters that were not who they seemed to be which evoked mystery in the story. Braddon also centered on the idea of not relying on a woman’s appearance but rather seeing the woman as she truly is.

Revising Tragic Conventions: Aphra Behn's Turn To The Novel, Rachel Carnell

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Virginia Woolf's Use Of Microcosms In Her Novel To The Lighthouse And Her Essay "The Sun And The Fish", Linda C. Scheele

Dissertations and Theses

Woolf's use of microcosms in her writing has been given little attention. They are deceptively quiet metaphors that may be overlooked at first. In her novels and essays, microcosms are part of a larger pattern of details that seem ordinary, but which are characteristic of the complexity of her writing.

The focus of this thesis is on how Woolf uses microcosms to communicate two central themes in her writing: the relation of the self to the external world, and the desire of the self to create something permanent. The paper examines Woolf's novel To the Lighthouse (1927) and her essay …

It's Not Easy Being Green: Gender And Friendship In Eliza Haywood's Political Periodicals, Rachel Carnell

English Faculty Publications

British writer Eliza Haywood's two periodicals, 'The Female Spectator' (1744-46) and 'The Parrot' (1746), protested against the gendered split between political and domestic literary genres, showing that British novels and periodicals written by or addressed to women did engage in political discourse. Through her periodicals, Haywood presented a model for female-female friendship that portrayed women engaging in rational and polite political debate. Furthermore, she argued that this same debate could occur between a woman and a man apart from an apolitical, romantic relationship. Finally, she gave opportunity for friendship to be expressed between those who had been excluded from the …

Orts 50, 1999, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

The relatively small number of members who were able to attend the Society's AGM in London on October 16th were privileged to hear a most interesting and informative talk about the life and work of George MacDonald's great friend, the social reformer Octavia Hill (1838-1912). The talk was given by Robert Whelan, Assistant Director of the Health and Welfare Unit at the Institute of Economic Affairs, the independent 'think-tank' whose views were said to have been particularly influential when Margaret Thatcher was in power. Robert Whelan, who has a degree in English from Cambridge, has written widely on social policy …

Orts 51, 1999, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

Chesterton/MacDonald Conference

This one-day conference will take place at Plater College, Headington, Oxford on Saturday September 25th 1999. The cost, including morning coffee and lunch, will not exceed £15. It is the principal U.K. event for the Society in 1999 and we hope that as many members and friends as possible will attend. Oxford is easily accessible by road and rail from most parts of the country, with very frequent local buses from the rail and coach stations to Headington. Express coach services from London, which serve request stops in Headington, are very cheap and likewise very frequent. A varied …

Orts 52, 1999, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

Please note that, due to a newly scheduled visitation by the Bishop, the date of this conference has had to be changed to Saturday Sept. 18th 1999. It will run from 10 a.m. to 4.30pm. Planning will be helped if members and friends confirm as soon as possible that they hope to attend. Details of the programme are currently being finalised and will be sent out to everyone who expresses an interest. Please contact our Secretary, Deirdre Hayward at Cruister, SANDWICK, Shetlands, ZE2 9HN. Tel.01950 431587.

Orts 53, 1999, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

We have an impressive array of speakers for this event. Stratford Caldecott, Director of the Centre for Faith and Culture will introduce them all. Father Robert Wild will give the introductory talk on "Chesterton's Debt to George MacDonald." Our President, Stephen Prickett, Religious Professor of English at Glasgow University, will speak next, coming back early from his summer work at the A.N.U. in Canberra for this event. Professor David Jasper, head of the department of Literature and Theology at Glasgow University will be speaking on "The Paradox of a 'St Francis of Aberdeen." Dr Colin Manlove is the author of …

Orts 54, 1999, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

The new MacDonald Society Christmas Card is now available. It is designed by William Webb and printed in red and black on fine-quality white card. The reduced—size, black and white illustration below does not do it justice. The cards are available from William Webb, whose address is in Orts 53, or from our Membership Secretary Vivienne Forrest at 30p each; £1.20 for five or £2.20 for 10. (add 20p. p&p for orders of under 5 cards). In N. America they are available from Emily Tobias at $2 for 5 or $7 for 20. The wording inside is "Christmas Greetings''. Vivienne's …

The Fox And The Lion: Machiavellian Characters And Tactics In Renaissance Tragedies By Christopher Marlowe And Jacobean Tragedies By John Webster, James Craig Austin

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis examines the ideologies of Machiavelli and how Webster and Marlowe adapt them into their plays. It looks at how the characters in these works of literature exhibit Machiavellian behaviors and how their lives and the world around them change as a result.

Milly Barton And Emma Gwyther, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

For many years the tomb of Emma Gwyther in Chilvers Coton Churchyard in Nuneaton was totally obscured by a massive yew tree until it was recently cut back to reveal the sorry state of the tomb beneath it. Badly broken and its lettering difficult to read, it was clearly in great need of some restoration because of its place in the George Eliot story.

There seems little doubt that Emma Gwyther was the original of Milly Barton, the hard-working wife of the Rev. Amos Barton in Scenes of Clerical Life. Emma's husband was the Rev. John Gwyther, curate of Chilvers …

An Echo Of The "Holy War", Bill Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

George Eliot's 'Holy War' began on 2 January 1842 and lasted for four and a half months. That day her father made a significant entry in his Journal: 'Went to Trinity Church in the forenoon ... Mary Ann did not go'. In the protracted dispute with her father that followed this refusal to accompany him to church, her friends the Sibrees arranged for her to meet the Rev. Francis Watts, Professor of Theology at Spring Hill College, Birmingham, to try to help her resolve her difficulties. Their meeting probably took place in March 1842, and subsequently she wrote him six …

A Tchaikovsky/George Eliot Opera That Never Happened

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The Tchaikovsky Museum at Klin in Moscow in Russia had, amongst the composer's papers, a manuscript of fragments of a scenario for an opera on the theme of 'Mr. Gilfil 's Love-Story', the second story in Scenes of Clerical Life.

Tchaikovsky modestly mentions this in his biography, stating that at first he proposed an opera based on 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton', the first story in Scenes but was drawn instead to another of the stories, 'Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story'. The composer's friend, the music critic G. A. Larosh, mentions in his memoirs that for some weeks before …

A Postcard To Rev.F.R. Evans (George Eliot's Nephew)

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

'Re George Eliot' 'A' [in red ink]

(Mary Ann Evans)

Sir, I assume that you read the Ten Commandments in your church - yet in the Nuneaton Chronicle article in The Star of Aug. 7, you are said by A. E. Cross 1 to be in favour of a memorial to this 'evil-liver'. Let us hope that if people who gloat over the uncleanly erect a memorial the 'Scarlet letter' 'A" (Adulteress) will be conspicuously placed - as it is written by many of us on the title page of her works -

Let the silly project die or her …

The George Eliot Review: Journal Of The George Eliot Fellowship 1999 No. 30, Beryl Gray, John Rignall

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

CONTENTS

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

Editors' Note ........................................................................................... 7

REPORTS Kathleen Adams: Annual Report 1998 ........................................ 9

Yuriko Kani: Japanese Branch Report ................................................... 16

Linda K. Robertson: Report from America .................................................... 18

ADDRESSES Margaret Jennings: Address at the wreath-laying in the George Eliot Memorial Garden, 17 May 1998 ................................................ .19

Lord Hattersley: Address at the wreath-laying in Westminster Abbey, 20 June 1998 .......................................................... 21

Henry Alley: The Twenty-Seventh George Eliot Memorial Lecture, l7 October 1998 ............................................... 23

Tenniel Evans: The Toast to the Immortal Memory: George Eliot Birthday Luncheon, 22 November 1998 ......................................... 36

ARTICLES A.G. van den Broek: …

Henry James And George Eliot: Realism, Reality, And Narrative Form, Nicola Harris

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The narratives of the Victorian writers are infused with detailed expositions of living, felt pictures; it was inevitable given the expectations of their audience. Furthermore, writers-cumcritics such as Henry lames testify to the difficulty of 'drawling] a hard and fast line on the border-land of explanation and illustration'.' lames was central to the protracted Great Debate surrounding 'The Art of Fiction' which took place in 1884, and the discussion encouraged Robert Louis Stevenson to respond with his 'A Humble Remonstrance', a gesture which can be interpreted as a tactical manoeuvre to keep the debate open. Andrew Lang's own 'The Art …

The Politics Of Religion In Felix Holt, A.G. Van Den Broek

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In chapter 3 of Felix Holt, the narrator gives an account of the 'social changes in Treby parish', including the altered character of Trebian Dissent. It had

been of a quiescent, well-to-do kind, represented architecturally by a small venerable, dark-pewed chapel, built by Presbyterians, but long occupied by a sparse congregation of Independents, who were as little moved by doctrinal zeal as their church-going neighbours, and did not feel themselves deficient in religious liberty, inasmuch as they were not hindered from occasionally slumbering in their pews, and were not obliged to go regularly to the weekly prayer meeting.

In the …

Annual Report 1998, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Every year I begin this report by saying what a busy year the Fellowship has had. Every year it seems to get busier; certainly the workload increases each year - which must be a measure of our success in reaching out in all directions, not only in the UK but abroad as well.

We begin each year in a fairly uneventful way with the Annual General Meeting, and 1998 was in the same mould, although we followed the business meeting with an excellent slide show by John Burton of the George Eliot Country in the past. John was elected to …

The Twenty-Seventh George Eliot Memorial Lecture: Ego, Anonymity, And Healing In George Eliot, Henry Alley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Eliot's ultimate goal- morally, aesthetically - was to free the individual ego from the suffering of reflecting upon itself. Her fiction, which she saw as a series of evolving psychological phases, achieves this liberation through strongly argued models of balance and through the kinds of recognition linked to anonymous heroism. Mental anguish is to be escaped through the contemplation of others, and it would follow that Eliot's cumulative effort would clarify what it means to acquire achievements on the level of quiet and anonymous bequeathal, rather than self-aggrandizing glory.

Eliot discovered that a broad perspective beyond ego may be developed …

Daniel Deronda- 1921 Style, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

While we are still awaiting news of the completion of a new film of Daniel Deronda, something that has been in the pipeline for some years, it is interesting to discover that in 1921, a cinema film of the novel was made by Butcher's Film Services Ltd of Camera House, Farringdon Avenue, London EC4. In the 5,500 feet of film Butcher's made a gallant attempt to transfer George Eliot's last great novel onto the screen but previews seemed somewhat disenchanted with the results. The Kinematograph Weekly of 19 May 1921 reported that 'Although George Eliot is not ideally suited to …