Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

George Eliot's "The Spanish Gypsy", A Neglected Work, Jocelyn West-Burnham

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

"Undoubtedly much the greatest poem of any wide scope and on a plan of any magnitude, which has ever proceeded from a woman"(1) This was the critical acclaim that George Eliot's "The Spanish Gypsy" received on its publication in 1868. It was a surprise to the writer herself, who had been prepared for criticism. This is evident in a letter to a friend following the completion of the poem (2). She notes in this her belief that many people would despise her for writing a work which would bring her little in the way of financial remuneration when she could …

Westminster Abbey Wreath Laying: George Eliot And The Working-Day Business Of The World, Rosemary Ashton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

One of the Shakespeare quotations most frequently used by George Eliot in her writings is an otherwise little-known phrase from As You Like It, Act 1 scene iii, where Rosalind, about to leave the court for the Forest of Arden, says, '0, how full of briars is this working-day world!' In George Eliot' s work the phrase is illustrative of her theory of realism in fiction, the theory most famously expressed in Adam Bede, where the author praises the truthfulness of Dutch paintings, describing the sympathy which is aroused in her by 'these faithful pictures of a monotonous homely existence', …

Review Of Annotated Critical Bibliography Of George Eliot, Graham Handley, George Levine

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

No complete bibliography of George Eliot's works and the biography, scholarship and criticism on her exists. This compilation, which is heavily selective and inconsistent, is a great disappointment. Editions of George Eliot's writings are not included, and the selection contains a number of gaps. For example, Valentine Cunningham's Everywhere Spoken Against (1975) is not included. I find it hard to justify the publication of this book: 128 pages, with 3 -6 entries per page bringing us to a grand total of 3 82 - a fraction of what is worth recording - means that by any standards this is very …

Annual Report 1989

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

1989 has been another full, rewarding and successful year for the Fellowship. The work involved in running the Fellow Ship on a day to day basis has much increased over the years and this in itself must be a measure of our growth and success for, surely, success breeds more work - and that is as it should be.

At the Annual General Meeting in March, which began our year, three of the four officers were re-elected. John Bunn succeeded Brenda Evans as treasurer - Brenda had been bowed down by school work during her period of office, but the …

Debasing The Biographical Currency, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Early in 1988 I was asked by a publisher in Bristol to write a book called George Eliot: The State of the Art. It was to be largely a survey of criticism, scholarship and biography ranging from contemporary responses to the novels as they appeared right through to the middle of last year (1989), the 170th anniversary of George Eliot's birth. The joy was, however, that it took me back to the works themselves as I checked what had been said; and it took me back to the Letters in Haight's edition. But some of the secondary literature - the …

Enter The Aunts: The 1990 George Eliot Reading By Gabriel Woolf, Gabriel Woolf

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I believe it was Henry James who wrote that any artistic performance requires 'the perfect presence of mind, unconfused, unhurried by emotion.' The quality of Gabriel Woolf' s performance in ENTER THE AUNTS fulfilled the requirements of Henry James as well as the expectations of the audience, and the artistry touched the heights.

A mind had certainly been present in choosing the programme, which provided a perfect blend of George Eliot and The Others. The bickering aunts from The Mill on the Floss seem to be everyone's favourites. George Eliot no doubt drew on her memories of her own maternal …

The George Eliot Fellowship Review 1990 No. 21, Kathleen Adams, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

DESIGN ON FRONT COVER:

To mark the Diamond Jubilee of the George Eliot Fellowship the design by Jenny Quy on the front cover was submitted to Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council Parks Department and is to be executed in flowers in a public flower bed in Coton Road, Nuneaton during the summer of 1990.

The Editors do not necessarily agree with the views expressed by contributors, nor does the George Eliot Fellowship accept responsibility for such views. No part of the REVIEW may be reproduced without the permission of the Editors.

Contributions are invited for the 1991 issue. They may …

"For Though It Swam In France, It Might Have Sunk In England": A Comparison Of John Vanbrugh’S The Confederacy With Its French Source, Les Bourgeoises À La Mode, Diane T. Harris

Masters Theses

In the summer of 1705, as Sir John Vanbrugh was casting about for dramatic source material which might play successfully at the new Haymarket theatre, he rediscovered Florent Dancourt's Les Bourgeoises à la Mode and, in the manner of Restoration theatre playwrights, created an adapted version in many respects quite different from the original. This adaptation, known as The Confederacy, is considered by many Vanbrugh scholars to be one of the English author's best works.

This paper is essentially a comparative study of the two plays. It begins with a plot summary of the play Vanbrugh used as the …

The George Eliot Fellowship Accounts From The Year Ending

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

1989 P&L Statement and Balance sheet

George Eliot Birthday Luncheon: The Toast To The Immortal Memory- 1989, Gabriel Woolf

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Our invitation to Gabriel Woolf to propose the Toast on this annual occasion was given so that we could say thank you to him for 20 years of work on our behalf in promoting George Eliot in his own unique way. In proposing the Toast, he began by telling us about his own introduction to George Eliot. He was doing his National Service in the R.A.F. and was particularly lonely in an alien situation with people with whom he had little or nothing in common. He remembers vividly taking Romola down from an R.A.F. library shelf and being instantly captured …

Wreath-Laying In The George Eliot Memorial Gardens, Nuneaton- 1989, Beryl Kerby

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I felt greatly honoured when I was invited to lay the Fellowship's wreath at today's ceremony. It was much later, when considering this address, that I realised I had studied none of George Eliot's works and had read very few.

However, I did know something of her. My parents and their friends all seem to have been involved, in some way, with the George Eliot Centenary celebrations in 1919 and very early on I was given a copy of Scenes of Clerical Life. How easy it is at Arbury Hall to look at the painting of Sir Roger Newdigate but …

Treasurer's Report- A.G.M.

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I agreed to take over the post of Treasurer to the George Eliot Fellowship two years ago, and have thoroughly enjoyed this experience and I have learned a great deal about the art of book-keeping.

However, my commitments at school, in an ever changing world of education, are such that I felt that I must hand over the treasurer's position to someone who, hopefully, has a little more time to look after your accounts.

You will see from the Statement of Income and Expenditure that the finances of the Fellowship are in a satisfactory position.

The High Income Bond matured, …

Wreath Laying In The George Memorial Gardens, Nuneaton On June 12th 1988, When The Guest Of Honour Was John Burton, Chairman Of Bedworth Society, John Burton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In the short time at my disposal I would like to talk briefly about four aspects of my interest in George Eliot and this area, from the standpoint of my position as chairman of The Bedworth Society. The four are the buildings in Bedworth; the buildings associated with George Eliot, especially Coton Free School; future developments for local societies like ours; and the need for integrity in all we do.

To start then, with buildings in Bedworth. As a preliminary to deciding what I would say today, I was making a mental list of the buildings still existing in Bedworth …

The Seventeenth George Eliot Memorial Lecture: George Eliot And Marriage, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Marian Evans and George Henry Lewes began to live together in July 1854, and her letters to friends and to her brother lsaac later show how seriously she regarded their relationship. As far as she was concerned it was permanent, a marriage of true minds and hearts. As she put it, 'Light and easily broken ties are what I neither desire theoretically nor could live for practically. Women who are satisfied with such ties do not act as I have done. They obtain what they desire and are still invited to dinner. 'In her letter to lsaac she refers to …

George Eliot: From Middlemarch To Manhattan, Catherine Civello

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Female novelists in this century from de Beauvoir to Drabble have acknowledged the contribution of the Victorian George Eliot. In Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. for instance, Simone de Beauvoir reports that, during her school days, she tried to conceal her reading of Adam Bede from her mother because of the novel's character Hetty Sorrel, pregnant out of wedlock (11). The Mill on the Floss held the -future French feminist in its spell for many reasons:

I read a-novel which seemed to me to translate my spiritual exile into words: George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss made an even …

George Eliot And Music, Beryl Gray

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is a fascinating investigation of the influence of music on George Eliot, and how that influence permeates both her life and her writing. The focus is on three novels - The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda - but before that there is a brief musical biography. Or Gray asserts that hitherto the pervading presence of music in her work has been critically undervalued, that, in fact, music 'arches over' that work and 'greatly illuminates her artistry.' She praises the influence of the Brays in widening and deepening the young Marian Evans's capacity for appreciation, so that …

The George Eliot Fellowship Review 1989, Kathleen Adams, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

CONTENTS -1989

President's Message........................ 1

Annual Report - 1988 2 Accounts - 1988......................... 7

Treasurer's Report - 1988............................ 8

George Eliot Memorial Lecture - 1988: George Eliot and Marriage by Graham Handley................... 10

Westminster Abbey Wreath-laying - 1988....................... 12

Sacred and Secular: George Eliot's Concept of Pilgrimage by M.loan Chard.............. 14

Nuneaton Wreath-laying - 1988.................... 18

Book Reviews: World's Classics Series: Middlemarch ed .. by David Carroll.................... 20

Scenes of Clerical Life ed. by Thomas A. Noble..................... 22

Romola on the American Stage by George V.Griffith.................... 23

Book Review: Victorian Britain - An Encyclopedia............................. 28

Literature Crossword..................... 29

How, Twenty …

Chaucer And George Eliot, George Schlesinger

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I was interested to read David Ball's article on "Triangular Patterns in Middlemarch" (Review No. 19, 1988) with its reference to farcical triangle situations. I have been wondering about similarities and connections between Chaucer and George Eliot - Middlemarch (and Daniel Deronda) as almost Eliot's answer to Chaucer's ''Marriage Group" of tales. The most concentrated and specific link seemed to be between the Merchant's Tale and the Casaubon-Dorothea - Will triangle. Given Eliot's interest in Chaucer (there are four Chaucer epigraphs in Middlemarch, three from comic contexts including one from the Wife's Prologue (ch.lxv) and one from the climax of …

Who Are You. Herr Klesmer?, Mara Mauermann

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Who is Klesmer? He is not - as Gordon Haight points out - Franz Uszt; he may be Anton Rubinstein (2). Has anyone, I wonder, thought about the possibility that he may be just what his name proclaims: Klesmer? A klesmer, that is.

Klesmermeans 'a musician'. It is Yiddish and derives from 'k'lejsemer' - (3) musical instrument. The 'Klesmorim' were wandering Jewish musicians who played at weddings or on holidays like Purim, later also in public houses or on fair-grounds. They could play everything their audience demanded, from sentimental pieces to wild dancing tunes. Throughout the middle ages they had …

Review Of Virago Classics: Brother Jacob, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Brother Jacob, like The Lifted Veil, has always been in the shadow of George Eliot's longer and better known fiction, but Beryl Gray's afterword in this Virago edition brings it into the light. She offers interesting suggestions why the story was written after The Mill on the Floss and before Silas Marner, showing that the rhythms of George Eliot's creative life are revealing.

Our attention is drawn to those critics who have spoken disparagingly of the story, 'rather cheerless and austere' (U.C. Knoepflmacher), 'cynical and coldly sarcastic' (G. S. Haight) and 'that tedious tale' (W. J. Harvey). Those of us …

Review Of Victorian Britain- An Encyclopedia, Ed Sally Mitchell

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

There is an old adage that if you have a large problem, the best way to tackle it is to break it down into small parts and deal with each in turn. The trouble with this theory is that if your problem is as large as the Victorian era the resultant number of parts is so huge that they resemble the unconnected pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, each individual piece having some value in its own right, but not giving an idea of the complete picture.

The reign of Queen Victoria, the longest in British history, witnessed an unprecedented explosion …

Sacred And Secluar: George Eliot's Concept Of Pilgrimage, M. Joan Chard

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The distinctive tenor of George Eliot's mind was theological. Pre-eminent among Victorian novelists for her prodigious scholarship, she ventured into that realm of thought which Ruskin declared a "dangerous science for women - - one which they must indeed beware how they profanely touch - - that of theology" .'in a letter of6 November 1838 to Maria Lewis, her Nuneaton governess and first confidante, Eliot expressed her early preoccupation with the spiritual life and her wish not to "rest contented with making Christianity a mere addendum" to her pursuits, or "with tacking it as a fringe" to her garments: "May …

Romola On The American Stage, George V. Griffith

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

About George Eliot Americans were certain of two truths by the time of her death in 1880: she was a genius who was pushing the novel into a new terrain of seriousness, intense moral purpose, and artful design; she was also a glum realist in whose work characters were called to a high moral duty in a godless world without transcendent values. Lavish praise of her work from its first appearance in the United States in 1858 continued largely without qualification until the publication of Middlemarch in 1873. Throughout the seventies she was as frequently denounced, "gloom and doom" replacing …

Review Of The World's Classics Series: Middlemarch, Kathleen Porter, David Carroll

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

"It is a curious fact that when a writer has attained to a certain eminence, we English cease to bother ourselves about him. There he is, recognised, accepted, labelled." I recalled these words, from the conversation of Katherine Mansfield in 1920, and recorded in her journal, when I opened the World's Classics paperback edition of Middlemarch edited by David Carron, Professor of English literature at the University of Lancaster. Katherine Mansfield's opinion may have been well-grounded in 1920, but it would certainly not be valid today, especially in relation to George Eliot and her work. A glance at the Select …

Review Of With Great Pleasure, Gabriel Woolf

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Well, Gabriel, you have completed the first twenty that 'will not come again'. It gives us great pleasure to say "thank you", on behalf of the George Eliot Fellowship, for all you have done for us. After twenty years we regard you as one of the family. Your regular visits have given many people a great deal of enjoyment, and you have garnished and enriched the Fellowship besides.

Your latest programme was received with great pleasure by all who heard it. Its form was intriguing: Inspiration, First Effort, Love up North, Music and Children's Hour. Was it biographical, autobiographical, or …

Review Of The World's Classics Series: Scenes Of Clerical Life, Hilda Gunn, Thomas A. Noble

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This edition of George Eliot's first fiction reproduces the text of the much acclaimed Clarendon Edition which is also edited by Thomas S. Noble. It is an excellent edition for a student because, besides being so reasonably priced, it contains a most concise chronology of George Eliot and explanatory notes which have been researched with great thoroughness.

In the Introduction, Thomas A. Noble stresses that George Eliot, as one-time editor of The Westminster Review. had been used to reviewing contemporary literature. She had, therefore, a very clear view of what she wished to accomplish as a novelist. She was convinced …

Review Of Reclaimed, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

When Middlemarch was being issued in Eight Parts from December 1871 until December 1872, there was a strong readership interest in the fact that Dorothea and Lydgate had made, in each instance, a wrong choice of marriage mate. It went farther than this, some readers even expressing the view that Dorothea and Lydgate would have been ideally suited. With Daniel Deronda, which was also issued in parts from February to September 1876, readership sympathy was also involved. There was much dissatisfaction in Daniel's forsaking of Gwendolen at the end ('I said I should be forsaken: says Gwendolen in her anguish) …

Review Of A George Eliot Chronology, Graham Handley, Timothy Hands

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

On the face of it this is a much needed book, and certainly it makes a considerable contribution in a portable way to our ease of reference when we want to look up something in George Eliot's life or writing. But I am doubtful about the method used here of incorporating into the chronology historical or other facts. For example, on the first page (which covers the years 1819-27 in George Eliot's life) we find entries which say: 1821 (29 Jan) Death of George Ill. Accession of George IV (Regent since 1811): (17 Aug) Death of Queen Caroline. 1824 (19 …

Literature Crossword, William Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

CLUES ACROSS

1 Novel subtitled 'A Study of Provincial Ufe' (11)

6 'Rare' Mr Jonson (3)

9 George - - - -, sixth Baron Byron (6)

11 lane - - - - - , by 'Currer 26 across' (4)

12 In ------A.H.H., by Tennyson (8)

13 'Remembrance of things - - - - - " Shakespearian quotation used as the English translation of Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (4)

14 Surname of David Copperfield's aunt (8)

17 Miss Durbeyfield (4)

18 'Humble' Dickensian villain (4)

21 First name of 'the Boy who wouldn't grow up' (5)

22 One …

How, Twenty Years Ago, The George Eliot Fellowship Found Gabriel Woolf, Gabriel Woolf

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Starting a new friendship is often a very chanoey business and none more so than the friendship which developed between The George Eliot Fellowship and one of its staunchest supporters, Gabriel Woolf. Gabriel's recent 20th visit to Warwickshire to present his ann\J.al programme of Readings has reminded us how much of a fluke our finding him really was.

In 1969 the Fellowship planned to mark the 150th anniversary of George Eliot's birth with a week of celebrations in Nuneaton. We were then a very small society with a very inexperienced committee but, nothing daunted, we hoped to put the George …