Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Review Of Imperialism At Home: Race And Victorian Women's Fiction, Susan Meyer

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

My favourite exam 'howler' came from a first year student who wrote lyrically of the episode in Wuthering Heights in which Cathy opened the window, 'and the Moors came pounding in' - as though a hundred dark-skinned men on horseback came trampling over Cathy's prostrate body. Susan Meyer's book, Imperialism at Home, while in no way suggesting anything so ludicrous as a north African invasion of a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors, does, nevertheless, lend a certain logic to the idea. Meyer's point is that we should read the abundant oriental imagery and allusions in Victorian fiction by women …

American Branch Report 1996, Linda K. Roberston

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The seventh annual dinner of the American branch was held at the I Matti restaurant in Washington, D.C. on 29 December 1996. There was no formal programme, but the traditional toast was offered and greetings were delivered from members who could not attend. Those present particularly appreciated the messages from Kathleen and Bill Adams and from Harriet Williams. While we enjoyed excellent Italian food, there was lively conversation about recent works on George Eliot, film versions of various nineteenth-century novels, and our own projects and recent reading. Those in attendance were Marjorie Goss, Shoshana Knapp, Lee Pierson, Meri-Jane Rochelson, Ed …

The Twenty-Fourth George Eliot Memorial Lecture: George Eliot And The Furniture Of The House Of Fiction, John Rignall

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In a letter to Martha Jackson of March 1841 the young Marian Evans, at the age of twenty- one, reflects on the way that a person's immediate surroundings help determine the impression that he or she makes on others:

I suppose we are all loved (or despised) a little for the sake of our circumstances as well as for our qualities .... What extrinsic charm have /, to make people care for me a little more then my qualities might deserve? Certainly none from the landscape about me, and as little from the carpets and curtains and other recommendations of …

George Eliot: A Biography, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is a massive study, what the author calls 'a topic for a biography' (x). It occupied four years of his time, during which he obviously saturated himself in his subject, her period, her circle, her letters and all the contiguous material requisite for a full investigation. The result in the mass is curiously unsatisfactory. To adapt Henry James's celebrated dictum on Middlemarch, this is not a treasure house of detail but it is an indifferent whole. Undigested and indigestible, it reminds me of the Empress Messalina's infamous innuendo (according to Juvenal) that after a night spent in the brothels …

'Dear Cara': A Newly Discovered Letter, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

At the beginning of the year a donation was made to Coventry's Herbert Art Gallery and Museum of a box of papers relating to the Fridlanders, a nineteenth-century Coventry watch-making family. Annie Fridlander was a friend of Charles and Caroline (known as Cara) Bray and of Cara's sister, Sara Hennell.1t was not surprising, therefore, to find that some of the letters in the box were written by them to Annie. What was quite unexpected was to discover a tiny envelope containing a short letter from Marian Evans (George Eliot) to Cara Bray, her beloved Coventry friend.

The envelope and letter …

The Dead Hand In Middlemarch, David Clifford

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Edward Casaubon dies early in Book V of Middlemarch. Occurring where it does, it effectively bisects the novel; and indeed, it is a pivotal event in Dorothea's history. His will erects her central dilemma. She faces a choice, forced upon her by her deceased husband, between his money and his cousin. The significant detail is that even in death, Mr. Casaubon continues to exert control over the options open to Dorothea, and the locus of that control is her property.

The title of Book V, 'The Dead Hand', is taken as referring explicitly to this immortal control by Mr. Casaubon …

University Of Adelaide, Seventeenth Australasian Victorlian Studies Conference Report, Rosalind De Sailly

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The seventeenth conference of the Australasian Victorian Studies Association was held at the University of Adelaide in February 1996. The conference theme 'The Victorians and Science' inspired several papers on George Eliot's relation to matters scientific.

Barbara Garlick (Senior Tutor, University of Queensland) examined passages from Daniel Deronda in her paper 'George Eliot's Optics and the "Solidity of Objects'“. Dr. Garlick premissed her account of Eliot's optics on Lewes's theory of vision as a psychological act which interiorizes the external world according to intuitions and ideas. Vision was used to demonstrate how ways of seeing structure the narrative as they …

Review Of George Eliot: A Life, Rosemary Ashton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Fifty years after John Cross's hagiographic George Eliot's Life as Related in her Letters and Journals (1885), Gordon Haight planned a more forthright biography but first found that it would be necessary to re-edit those letters and journals expurgated by Cross and search out material unavailable or unmentioned by Cross. The results was first the seven volumes of The George Eliot Letters in 1954-55 and, in 1968, George Eliot: A Biography, the then definitive life. More material has been coming to light since, notably (but not only) the two supplemental volumes of the Letters Haight added in 1978, and there …

Annual Report 1995, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I would like to begin this report with something exciting to say but Annual General Meetings, with which our year inevitably begins, are never exciting events. In 1995 it all went smoothly - the only change being the retirement of Kathleen Porter as Vice Chairman and the appointment of Joan Bunn in her place. After the business meeting John Smith, Curator of Stamford Museum, who had closely followed the filming of the TV Middlemarch in the town, showed us his collection of slides and entertained us with an interesting commentary. Middlemarchmania had not quite died.

In March we heard of …

American Branch Report, Linda K. Robertson

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The American branch of the George Eliot Fellowship met for dinner at Stetson's Restaurant in Chicago on December 28, 1995. There was no formal programme but the evening included the traditional toast, the delivery of greetings from members who were unable to attend, and lively conversation. Those in attendance were Harriet Williams, Shoshana Knapp, Gail Elizabeth Korn, Jean Armold, and Linda K. Robertson. Gail Korn and Jean Arnold volunteered to prepare Special Session proposals for the 1996 Modem Language Association meeting in Washington, D.C. 19

Late-Victorian Plans For A George Eliot Memorial Library, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

On 5 March 1896 a paragraph appeared in the Daily News from a correspondent who wrote:

Will you allow me through your columns to appeal to the countless admirers of one of England's greatest teachers and of the world's most perfect artists? That portion of 'Leafy Warwickshire' in the midst of which little Marian Evans drew her first inspiration, literally beneath some of the very oaks which formed part of the classic Forest of Arden, has of late years proved to be a teeming storehouse of mineral wealth, and a large and vastly increasing industrial population at the present moment …

Hardy And Eliot: The Eye Of Narcissus' Looking-Glass, Nicola Harris

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Hardy was both surprised and offended by the comparisons made between Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) and the novels of George Eliot; indeed, several critics went so far as to ascribe this new work to the acknowledged master in a complimentary manner but this failed to placate the aspiring newcomer. But most galling of all was the response it elicited from Henry James. From the very beginning, James took exception to the formal technique adopted by the writer who would become his greatest rival. He offered the most acerbic and derogatory commentary when he defined Hardy's first major success …

Geoffrey Chaucer's House Of Fame: From Authority To Experience, Victoria Frantseva

Masters Theses

Geoffrey Chaucer's House of Fame is one of the most provocative dream-vision poems written in the fourteenth century. In many ways, it continues to present a serious problem of interpretation to students of medieval poetry. Many critics have tried to arrive at a singular cohesive theory explaining meaning and defining the genre of the House of Fame. However, these attempts have failed and the poem's enigma endures, probably for all time.

The House of Fame seems to elicit many different responses from its readers. While opinions of the poem may vary, the points of argument generally concern the following areas: …

Transforming A Legend: Significance Of The Wandering Jew In Shelley's Work, Matthew D. Landrus

Masters Theses

Although Percy Bysshe Shelley has been recognized for his use of the Wandering Jew, critics have failed to produce a definitive work examining how this biblical legend figures into an understanding of the poet's changing world views. Since a comprehensive analysis was lacking, I studied Shelley's treatment of the Wandering Jew in each work that included the character to determine whether or not a relationship existed between Shelley's management of the figure and the poet's world beliefs. This thesis records the results of that study.

In his earliest works involving the Wandering Jew--those written between 1810-1812--Shelley's treatment of the Wandering …

Chaucer's Use Of The Absalom Archetype In The Knight's Tale And In The Miller's Tale, Sharon Hardin

Masters Theses

Although Chaucer did not write The Canterbury Tales until after the death of Edward III, Chaucer's youth was spent in the company (albeit on the fringes) of the war-like king and his war-like sons. Surely, as the young Chaucer performed his duties and perhaps read stories or listened to the gossip spread by servants and courtiers, such as the account of Edward's having ravished a defenseless woman, impressions formed in Chaucer's mind. Perhaps such rumors as that Edward's son Lancaster had designs on his father's throne added to and solidified those impressions into opinion, and a character type was born, …

A Woman Alone And Writing: Anti-Ideology And Artistic Irony In Writings Of Mary Shelley, Delores Archaimbault

Masters Theses

This study focuses upon the letters, journals and selected fiction of Mary Shelley and reveals that Shelley engages in the processes of anti-ideology and artistic irony to help her explore gender identity. To show her consistent use of these processes, I juxtapose excerpts from her letters and journals with excerpts from her fiction. The fiction selections are narrowed to three: Frankenstein, Mathilda and The Last Man. In addition, I examine her writing and her use of anti-ideology and artistic irony relative to the influences of her significant others: her mother Mary Wollstonecraft, her father William Godwin and her …

New Plays For Old : Jonson's Orton And Orton's Jonson, Josephine M. Wayling

Theses : Honours

The aim of this thesis is to ascertain to what extent Ben Jonson's play Volpone can be constructed through Joe Orton's play Loot. I will attempt to discover how far Loot can be said to be of use in re-examining Volpone in a different light since the emergence of Orton's brand of comic drama. I shall start by looking at influences such as Erasmus and his particular brand of humour as created in The Praise of Folly, and the implications for comedy that it presents in the form of the mock encomium. The relevance of "not what …