Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Imagination, Morality, And The Spectre Of Sade In George Eliot's Romola And Daniel Deronda, Margaux Fragoso

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In her final book, Impressions of Theophrastus Such, George Eliot vocalizes her contempt for writers who dismiss morality 'as a sort of twaddle for bibs and tuckers, a doctrine of dulness, a mere incident in human stupidity' (Impressions 134). It is well known that Eliot subscribed to a complex system of morals that each successive novel brings closer to fruition. Eliot's last novel Daniel Deronda is her closest inspection of the conflict between egoism and morality. It explores the psyche of a woman who is made to develop moral sensibilities: Gwendolen's 'bad' luck in marrying Grandcourt creates conditions that foster …

Review Of George Eliot And Victorian Attitudes To Racial Diversity, Colonialism, Darwinism, Class, Gender, And Jewish Culture And Prophecy, Brenda Mckay

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Brenda McKay's volume, George Eliot and Victorian Attitudes to Racial Diversity, Colonialism, Darwinism, Class, Gender, and Jewish Culture and Prophecy will most likely appear on most of our students' and colleagues' bibliographies for some time to come. The topics addressed in this book will clearly appeal to our current generation of scholars and budding scholars; McKay describes her book in the Prologue as being 'chiefly devoted' to the study of 'the race discourse' in Eliot's work. In addition, as the unwieldy title suggests, McKay tries to connect to this emphasis on race issues of 'Colonialism, Darwinism, Class, Gender, and Jewish …

Note On Contributors 2006

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Bill Adams has been Chairman of the Fellowship from 1971 until his retirement this year.

Kathleen Adams has been Secretary of the Fellowship since 1968. She initiated the Review in 1970, was editor until 1981 and co-editor 1982-91. She published Those of Us Who Loved Her in 1980 and A Community of Interest: The Story of the George Eliot Fellowship 1930-2000 in 2000.

Michael Baron is a Senior Lecturer in the School of English and Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of a monograph on Wordsworth and articles on nineteenth and twentieth century poetry. He …

Review Of Adam Bede, Mary Waldron

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This Broadview edition of Adam Bede has a biographical and critical introduction, appropriately integrating G. H. Lewes into its discourse, and useful essays on some of the themes of the novel, - Religion, Love, Rank and Status. There are short summaries of selected critical commentaries from the contemporary to the current, including an appraisal of the feminist divide over George Eliot. The brief chronology is succeeded by a note on the text, here that of the First Edition with minor corrections/adjustments from the manuscript, footnoted throughout. The Appendices which follow it provide foreground and background to the novel, for example …

Address At Wreath-Laying In Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, 30 June 2005, Sally Brown

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Not all great writers are great readers, but George Eliot certainly was. A voracious reader of other writers - Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Scott - she was also very fond of reading aloud. Her husband, John Walter Cross, praised her 'naturally rich, deep voice, rendered completely flexible by constant practice; with the keenest perception of the requirements of emphasis; and with the most subtle modulations of tone'. 'The Bible and our elder English poets,' he thought, best suited its 'organ-like' quality.

Reading aloud - now, sadly, an almost vanished pastime - was, of course, a customary one in Victorian …

Review Of George Eliot's Travels: Composite Characters And Coded Communications., Kathleen Mccormack

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

When we think of George Eliot, the word 'travels' is likely to suggest journeys to far-flung places in foreign lands, but considered in an English setting, she seems to be locked in either Warwickshire or London. Kathleen McCormack, however, shows how widely George Eliot travelled in her own country, so widely that she made over fifty visits to English places and only thirty to foreign destinations. Indeed, 'widely' is a word that stimulates Kathleen McCormack's imagination as she has revealed in an earlier work, George Eliot and Intoxication (2000), in which the last word, 'Intoxication', is interpreted in its widest …

The Immortal Memory Of George Eliot; Toast Proposed At The George Eliot Birthday Lunch, 20 November 2005

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I always used to be an admirer of Charles Lamb until I read recently his view of bluestockings or intellectual women writers: 'If she belonged to me I would lock her up and feed her on bread and water, till she left off writing poetry. A female poet, or female writer of any kind, ranks below an actress I think.' What a sentiment from a man who was a contemporary of Jane Austen and whose only other defence could have been that he didn't live long enough to read George Eliot!

I would like to begin by expressing my appreciation …

Review Of Literature And Medicine In Nineteenth-Century Britain, Janis Mclarren Caldwell

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The title of this study somewhat belies its range and ambition. Caldwell offers a compelling account of the connections between medicine, hermeneutics and theology in the early and midcentury, and uses these related disciplines as the bases of intriguing new readings of literary texts - unsurprisingly including Middlemarch. Caldwell brings to her work the (in literary studies) unusual perspective of a former practising doctor; this allows her to blend a sophisticated discussion of historical debates around knowledge and belief about the material and the divine in the nineteenth century with an immediate sense of the physical reality of medical treatments …

Review Of The Reenchantment Of Nineteenth-Century Fiction: Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, And Serialization, David Payne

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

'To begin reading George Eliot,' David Payne suggests, 'is speedily to encounter the conviction that modernity is best approached from an oblique angle.' Unlike, say, her contemporary, Charles Dickens, George Eliot's fictions 'return us to the provincial settings of Austen and Scott; and they set their actions in historical pasts which, as we read along, soon appear quite specific.' Payne's study of Dickens, Thackeray and George Eliot is primarily concerned with the Victorian response to modernity, but in a fairly specific methodological way, that entwines 'the ideological history of theology and political economy, the literary history of the novel, and …

Review Of Realist Vision, Peter Brooks

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In 1884, Emile Zola wrote the preface to the catalogue for a retrospective exhibition of Edouard Manet's paintings. 'Forget ideas of perfection and of the absolute', the author implored: 'don't believe that something is beautiful because it is perfect, according to certain physical and metaphysical conventions. A thing is beautiful because it is living, because it is human'. While few today would dispute the intrinsic beauty of Manet's works, Zola's defense was necessary in its day; Manet's oeuvre constantly defied physical and metaphysical conventions of the Salons, critics, and public and was commonly charged with depicting ugliness in an unaccomplished …

The Thirty-Fourth George Eliot Memorial Lecture, 2005- George Eliot And Weimar: 'An Affinity For What The World Calls "Dull Places", John Rignall

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

One hundred and fifty years ago this year, in June and July 1855, the future George Eliot published two articles in Fraser 's Magazine about her experiences in Weimar with G. H. Lewes between August and November 1854: 'Three Months in Weimar' and 'Liszt, Wagner, and Weimar'. When she had, seemingly out of the blue, left London with Lewes in July 1854 to start their life together, taking a steamer from St Katherine's dock to Antwerp, it was to Weimar that they were heading to collect material for the Life of Goethe that Lewes was writing. Known to most people …

Japanese Branch Report 2005, Yuko Nakamura

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

On Saturday 26 November 2005, the ninth Annual Convention of the George Eliot Fellowship of Japan was held at Tokyo Kasei University.

The morning session began with an opening remark by Kazuo Fujikawa (Okayama University), followed by a welcome address by Keiji Yata (Tokyo Kasei University). In the morning, we had three papers presented. The first two papers were introduced and commented upon by Miwa Ohta (Chuo University), and the third by Yoko Nagai (Keio University).

The first paper, "'Janet's Repentance" - The story of an unhappy, married couple -' was presented by Naomi Ohno (Toyo University). She focused on …

A Most Remarkable Cat, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Because George Eliot is buried in London's Highgate Cemetery the Fellowship is a member of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery who care for this vast burial area. We receive a regular newsletter from the Friends which recently reported that Domino, the cemetery cat, liked to accompany visitors. On one occasion some time ago Domino accompanied a party to the huge Karl Marx memorial in the Western Cemetery. One of the party expressed a wish to see the grave of George Eliot if it was not too far away. Domino turned and led them straight to the grave which is very …

Review Of The Complete Shorter Poetry Of George Eliot, Antonie Gerard Van Den Broek

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is the first fully edited and annotated edition of George Eliot's poems to appear in print. 'Shorter' means all the poems except The Spanish Gypsy, which is to appear in a companion volume by the same editors in 2008. Whatever arguments there may be about the 'continuing revaluation of George Eliot's oeuvre' in William Baker's phrase, readers need precise evidence about their genesis, publication and textual revisions and (in some cases) meanings, and Antonie van den Broek's edition provides a wealth of such information. It includes 'all variants in MSS and printed versions'; 'original spelling and punctuation have been …

Annual Report 2005, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Our year began uneventfully with the AGM held for the first time at the Heritage Centre with the added advantage of easy and free parking and the opportunity to provide refreshments. There were no changes to the Fellowship Council or to the officers. The Lord Mayor of Coventry, Councillor John Gazey, had suggested that there should be a literary lunch in Coventry to celebrate George Eliot and this took place on 16 April. We had worked with the Mayor's secretary in making all the arrangements but the first disappointment was that, on arrival at the splendid St Mary's Guildhall, the …

Addressing Readerly Unease: Discovering The Gothic In Mansfield Park, Lynda A. Hall

English Faculty Articles and Research

"Many readers are uncomfortable vvith Mansfield Park since Jane Austen includes aspects of the sentimental novel and the fairy tale in a novel of manners, and because Fanny, who suffers and prospers, is an unusual heroine. This unease with Mansfield Park may come from the placement of gothic symbols and characters within the world of the English gentry. By under standing Mansfield Park's affinity with the gothic novels of the eighteenth century, we might also understand our discomfort with Fanny Price."

Victorians And The Underground, Melissa Mcdaniel

Theses and Dissertations

The Victorian Age created a revolution in technology that defined the age and has fostered its social ideologies. In every civilization, the technologies of the time reflect the social issues of the culture. For instance, the development of the printing press in the fifteenth-century revealed desires for higher literacy rates; the invention of the cotton gin incited the social injustices of American slavery; the progress of the Internet embodies this century's attachment to fast-food, fast-money, and fast-information. Likewise, in the Victorian Age, the invention of underground tunnels exposed some important social issues which developed in the period. Just as the …

English Ethnicity And Race In Early Modern Drama, By Mary Floyd-Wilson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003 (Book Review), Imtiaz Habib

English Faculty Publications

The article reviews the book "English Ethnicity and Race in Early Modern Drama," by Mary Floyd-Wilson.

From Orthodoxy To Heresy: A Theological Analysis Of Sonnets Xiv And Xviii, Timothy J. Burbery

English Faculty Research

The commentary on Milton's eighteenth sonnet ("On the Late Massacre' in Piedmont") is rich and extensive. Kester Svendsen's often cited 1945 essay, the first close reading of the poem; ushered in many other interpretations of its biblical imagery, as well as speech-act analyses, reader- response discussions, and at least one Foucaldian study. Yet even though a religious conflict inspired the sonnet, and although numerous interpreters have paid close attention to the work's biblical texture, no sustained theological account of the poem has been offered. The present essay seeks to fill that gap by examining the work in light of two …

Allusion As Form: The Waste Land And Moulin Rouge!, Stacy Magedanz

Library Faculty Publications & Presentations

Allusion is usually considered a literary technique, but relatively little attention has been paid to the notion of allusion as a literary form. In this essay, I attempt to describe the allusive form based on two prominent examples, T. S. Eliot’s Waste Land and Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! Though radically different, the two works embody distinguishing characteristics of the allusive form. These are intertextuality, or a dependence upon outside sources for sense and significance; heightened and self-conscious artificiality; a confrontational attitude toward the audience; elitism, based on the exclusivity of allusions; appropriation of multiple cultures; and pervasive anachronism. Though prone …

Critical Literacy In A Global Context: Reading Harry Potter, Jill Reading

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Millions of adolescents across the globe eagerly await and read each new Harry Potter fictional novel. As a series, the novels can be assumed to participate influentially in the production of adolescent literacies and subjectivities. Situated in politically conservative times, however, the texts may support readings in simple accord with culturally pervasive conservative views which favour conventionally masculinist, martial views of the individual and of society. Such readings potentially confirm ancient prejudices built out of differences which themselves may be associated with the socio-cultural reproduction of violent conflicts. Nevertheless, contemporary conditions such as planetary climate change and globalised political fear …

Review Of Macbeth, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Geoffrey Wright's Macbeth: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2007/12/macbeth-2006.html

Front Matter, Tom Mack,

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Contents, Tom Mack, Ph.D.

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

“Passions That Were Not My Own”: Critique And Preservation Of True Pastoral Life In Wordsworth’S “Michael”, Katie Homar

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Freud’S “On The Universal Tendency To Debasement In The Sphere Of Love” As A Lens For Thomas’S “When, Like A Running Grave”, Christina Braswell

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

What Hath Wittenberg To Do With Stratford-Upon-Avon?: The Protestant Reformation In Hamlet, Jason Adkins

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Back Matter, Tom Mack, Ph.D.

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Oswald Review Undergraduate Research And Criticism In The Discipline Of English: Volume 8 Fall 2006

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.