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The George Eliot Review: Journal Of The George Eliot Fellowship: 1992 No. 23, Graham Handley, Beryl Gray

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Contents

Notes on Contributors.............. 4

Jonathan Ouvry: Message of Greeting from the Fellowship President................. 5

Editorial Notes........................ 6

Kathleen Adams: Annual Report 1991...................... 7

Graham Handley & Beryl Gray: London Branch Report 1991....................... 11

Joanne Shattock: Wreath-laying in the George Eliot Memorial Gardens, Nuneaton, June 16th 1991........................ 14

Bill Adams: Wreath-laying at Westminster Abbey, June 22nd 1992..................... 18

Gina Quant: The Toast to the Immortal Memory. George Eliot Birthday Luncheon, 24th November 1991...................... 21

Jenny Uglow: George Eliot and Mrs. Gaskell. The Twentieth George Eliot Memorial Lecture, 26th October 1991...................25

George Eliot's First Family: The Bartons Of Shepperton, Michael Wolff

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

There are a lot of 'firsts' in the few months between September 1856 when Marian Evans Lewes began 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton' and February 1857 when she adopted George Eliot as a pseudonym. The Bartons were the first of her many families. The words of the title were, according to her own recollection, the first words of her new career. She was at the time in the process of making a new, it could be argued, a 'first family', in the new life she was sharing with George Henry Lewes and his young sons. And George …

London Branch Report 1991, Graham Handley, Beryl Gray

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Although the London Branch undertook nothing specific this year, it was represented by Graham Handley, Beryl Gray, Michael Forrest and Margaret Wolfit at a pleasant ceremony in Richmond on 22nd April 1992, when a plaque commemorating George Eliot was unveiled on the site of 8 Park Shot. The following address was given by Mr. Tim Brilton, Chairman of Richmond Magistrates' Court:

Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayoress, Ladies and Gentlemen - on behalf of the Richmond bench it gives me great pleasure to welcome the Mayor of Richmond, Councillor McKinney and the Mayoress to our ceremony this afternoon. We are pleased to …

Middlemarch's Dorothea Brooke And Medieval Hagiography, Judith Johnston

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Saint Theresa's life of achievement is offered as a contrast to the heroine of Middlemarch, Dorothea Brooke, and all that Dorothea fails to achieve. George Eliot examines Dorothea' s life in part through the medium of medieval hagiography, a form which recognises the tensions and crises through which a martyr passes. But George Eliot depends upon the paradox that martyrdom is achieved as readily from submissiveness and ineffectuality as from resistance and effective administration. Thus Eliot offers the reader a heroine whose life passes through a state of metamorphosis which is very like the passage through martyrdom regardless of whether …

New George Eliot Letters, William Baker

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

My hunt through the archives of the world for unpublished George Henry Lewes letters for a forthcoming edition of his letters has so far thrown up over 450 unpublished letters in his hand. It would hardly be surprising if the search sometimes produced unpublished George Eliot letters and related documents. A February 1991 letter to Charles W. Mann, Chief Rare Books and Special Collections at the Pattee Library, the Pennsylvania State University Library, resulted in a rich harvest of materials. The Allison-Shelley Collection of over 10,000 books and many thousands of letters, manuscripts and drawings was bequeathed to the Pennsylvania …

Review Of George Eliot: Selected Critical Writings, Rosemary Ashton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Walter Houghton made duality, and especially opposites, the keystone of his analysis of the Victorian frame of mind. Eliot's mind fits happily into that dualistic frame. Was she George or Marian (or any variation of the latter)? Was she the contriver of the novels or was it her husband? Was she hypochondriac or valetudinarian, diffident or arrogant, prominent or retiring, imposing or horse-faced? The identity remains fascinatingly protean.

If deciding whether Eliot was novelist or poet is less difficult than a similar decision with regard to Hardy, the common reader (and more particularly the paperback purchaser) has been at a …

Versatile Victorian; Selected Critical Writings Of George Henry Lewes, Rosemary Ashton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This admirable collection, its succinct introduction indicating the range and quality of Lewes's criticism, is a feast This is the place to taste Lewes selectively. I like to think: that it is true that the best part of an author's life lies in his/her own writing, and these occasional pieces and essays reflect Lewes's vibrant and vital personality, with his unashamed expressions of delight in what he likes and the unequivocal evaluations of what he doesn't. Even when he is subjective we are aware of the play of intellect. He can be provocative, as the title of his first piece …

Review Of Gordon S. Haight; George Eliot's Originals And Contemporaries: Essays In Victorian Literary History And Biography, Hugh Witemeyer

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

It is good to meet old friends, to discover again who is the real heroine of Middlemarch and to realise that Ladislaw can be defended and that Or Leavis was deaf to George Eliot's irony. Casaubon may not really have been impotent. All those theories about originals have been thoroughly tested, evaluated, replaced or re-stated by the investigative particularity of an eminent George Eliot scholar and, as some would have us believe, her definitive biographer (though I do not accept this last claim). Was Klesmer Liszt or, as appears more likely, a mercurial Rubinstein? Was Casaubon Mark Pattison? Does it …

Review Of Greatness Engendered: George Eliot And Virginia Woolf, Alison Booth

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This detailed study is in the series Reading Women Writing, and it presupposes not only a familiarity with everything that George Eliot and Virginia Woolf wrote but also a comprehensive knowledge of scholarship and criticism about them. Miss Booth writes with verve and, at times, directness and wit. She tells us that 'In effect Eliot and Woolf are palace spies, consorting with patriarchal traditions to expose their flaws.' The ensuing examination is a searching one which moves from acknowledged subjectivity to informed (and consistent) perspectives. The weight of running scholarship and cross reference sometimes threatens to sink the narrative, but …

Annual Report- 1992, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

As I reach the end of my 25 years as Secretary of the Fellowship I inevitably look back to the beginning of my years of office and, as I prepared this report, to the first one I delivered 24 years ago. It covered half of a sheet of quarto paper. The events recorded were insignificant compared to our current programme but we did have Richard Church as our Guest of Honour at the Birthday Dinner in 1968. Our membership for that year had just reached 60, 7 of whom were life members.

1992 began, as always, with a quiet Annual …

London Branch Report 1992, Graham Handley, Beryl Gray

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The London Branch celebrated George Eliot's birthday by bolding a luncheon in her honor on 29th November at St Philip’s Church, Earls Court Road, London W8. This was attended by about 40 members and friends, and was preceded by a programme of readings devised by Margaret Wolfit and taken from Romola and Daniel Deronda. Margaret had chosen the appropriate title of The Italian Connection, and her sequence of extracts was greatly appreciated by the audience who listened to her with rapt attention for more than an hour. The luncheon followed, and once again we are indebted to Michael and Suzanne …

The Twenty-First George Eliot Memorial Lecture: The Names Of George Eliot, Ruth M. Harris

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

'What's in a name?’ asked Juliet. Our response would surely be different if Romeo were no longer called Romeo, and from that romantic balcony in Verona there came the cry: 'O Egbert, Egbert, wherefore art thou, Egbert?' As an exploration of George Eliot's names should reveal, there is far more significance in names than Juliet or we might imagine.

Allowing for minor differences, George Eliot chose or was given seventeen different names during her life-time: Mary Ann(e) Evans, Little Mama, Marianne Evans, Marian Evans, Clematis, Deutera, Polly, Pollian, Marian Lewes, Marian Evans Lewes, Mutter, Madonna, The Prioress, our Lady, Beatrice, …

Review Of George Eliot, Kristin Brady

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The general editors of this series, Eva Figes and Adele King, explain that there is a need for their series of feminist readings because much of the criticism on selected women writers by male critics is usually unfair, false or simplistic (vii). Kristin Brady very quickly and effectively proves their point in the first chapter of George Eliot by referring to many influential nineteenth- and twentieth-century male critics who were often more preoccupied with Eliot's appearance or what they judged to be her suspect femininity than with a straightforward consideration of her artistic achievements. Among such critics, says Brady, Gordon …

Review Of George Eliot And The Conflict Of Interpretations: A Reading Of The Novels, David Carroll

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Towards the climax of Felix Holt Esther Lyon moves centre stage. Mist around her own history and that of Transome Court dissolves to reveal a vista of possibilities. The narrator comments: 'Esther found it impossible to read in these days; her life was a book which she seemed to be constructing - trying to make character clear before her, and looking into the ways of destiny'. This lovely sentence might serve as the epigraph to David Carroll's study. A character in a novel, who is well-versed in romance narrative, finds herself an author, 'constructing' the book of her own life, …

Review Of Realist Fiction And The Strolling Spectator, John Rignall

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The problem of vision, of what the artist or writer sees, is among the most fascinating of the links between literature and painting, which separates them both from music. Vision itself implies something seen which cannot be separated from an inner quality of how it is seen. The I seeing and the eye seeing involves a synthesis which again distinguishes them both from the camera. The presence of this 'magic' which resists analysis has obsessed artists as frequently as critics, and led them to reject what seemed incapable of completion. A poem, according to W.H. Auden, was never finished, only …

Love, Labor, And Sloth In Chaucer’S Troilus And Criseyde, Gregory M. Sadlek

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Syntactical Approach To Mr. Collins' Letter, Shixing Wen

Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Imagination And Intuition In The Narrative Of Charlotte Brontë, Norma Henning

Masters Theses

In this paper, I will examine the four novels of Charlotte Brontë: The Professor, Jane Eyre Shirley and Villette. I will examine the reason/passion conflict within the characters of William Crimsworth, Jane Eyre, Caroline Helstone and Lucy Snowe. I will show that there exists a basic duality within each of these characters: the pull of duty and the desire to escape into passion and the imagination. Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe resolve the conflict by recognizing the divided nature of their souls and emerge as complete and whole individuals. William Crimsworth and Caroline Helstone refuse to acknowledge the …

Expectations As Character Development In Chaucer's Clerk's Tale, Kevin Gorham

Masters Theses

The Clerk of Oxenford in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is often maligned for lacking development as a literary character. Frequently, the Clerk has been dismissed as a stereotype or an ideal rather than a multi-dimensional character. The Clerk's character, much like the meaning of his tale, is concealed from the reader and veiled behind expectations.

Chaucer manipulates readers by exploiting expectations associated with fourteenth century clerks. These expectations derive from historical and literary stereotypes which constitute the General Prologue portrait of the Clerk. Because Chaucer's description of the Clerk is populated with stereotypes, the reader expects the Clerk to tell a …

Chaucer's "Nether Ye": A Study Of Chaucer's Use Of Scatology In The Canterbury Tales, Brook Wilson

Masters Theses

Chaucer's use of scatology throughout the Canterbury Tales offers a new frontier for Chaucerian research. To this date, no book-length work dealing exclusively with the scatological elements found in his works exists. Too often, the serious and artistic effects of scatology become lost in the great comedy the device generates. Furthermore, many readers and scholars seem to find themselves somewhat "squaymous" when confronted with the "nether ye" of Chaucer. While Chaucer employs scatology perhaps less frequently than Swift or Rabelais, his mastery of this device remains unquestionable.

Recognizing that the uses for scatology extend far beyond creating humor, Chaucer instead …

Tolkien's Unnamed Deity Orchestrating The Lord Of The Rings, Lisa Hillis

Masters Theses

The epic world created by J.R.R. Tolkien in the Lord of the Rings trilogy is one in which secular and religious elements are intertwined and the relationship between the two is intentionally kept vague. Within this created world, known as Middle Earth, good and evil are apparent, but the standard by which they are determined remains undefined. The free creatures living in Tolkien's world appear to have an intuitive ability to discern between good and evil, and each being generally exercises its free will in pursuit of one or the other though some personalities do combine the qualities. This innate …

Rhetoric In Fiction: A Fantasy-Theme Analysis Of Conrad’S Heart Of Darkness, Thomas S. Caldwell

Masters Theses

This study meets three primary objectives.

First, it demonstrates how rhetorical theory and Iiterary criticism are compatible fields of study and explains how Ernest Bormann's rhetorical theory based on "fantasy-theme analysis" can be used as an appropriate method for the analysis of literary works.

Secondly, this study identifies a trend in late Nineteenth Century "adventure stories" in which travel to foreign lands and European influence on the cultures of those lands is portrayed as "good" and "philanthropic."

Finally, this study concludes with a fantasy-theme analysis of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness which reveals that Conrad's adventure fiction breaks away from …