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Conference Report: George Eliot: Life And Letters. Institute Of English Studies, University Of London, January 17 And 18 2002, Barbara Hardy

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I'm grateful for the editors' invitation to report on this conference. I was asked to organize it by Warwick Gould, Director of the University of London Institute of English Studies, in response to the auction and sale in 2001, of letters (published and unpublished) from George Eliot to Jane Senior, apparently the first woman to hold a salaried English government appointment. The 'stayed' export of these letters, eventually bought by the British Library, was in the news. The letters seemed too restricted a subject for a work-in-progress conference, and its theme became 'George Eliot: Life and Letters'. Scholars invited were …

Henry James On Digression In The Fiction Of George Eliot, Christine Richards

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Stemming from a genuine desire to grapple with the complex theoretical issues underlying nineteenth-century attitudes to the novel and its aesthetic, Henry James was one of the leading critics of the mid-Victorian period. Yet his conclusion in his early criticism that George Eliot's digressions detracted from her style, was one of his less astute judgements. We know from his correspondence with Charles Eliot Norton in 1866 that James had for some time been looking for a novelist on whom to write a long general essay concerning quality, originally considering and then rejecting Harriet Beecher Stowe,' and a glance across his …

Review Of Felix Holt, The Radical, William Baker, Kenneth Womack

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

William Baker and Kenneth Womack's Felix Holt is part of the relatively recent Broadview Literary Texts series, a Canadian-based series that seeks to publish recognized canonical texts alongside less well known texts from literary history. With that in mind, coverage in the Victorian period means we have editions of often taught novels by Dickens (David Copperfield, Hard Times, and Great Expectations) and Charlotte Bronte (lane Eyre) alongside texts that hitherto have almost never been read or taught widely - Margaret Oliphant's Autobiography, Browning's The Ring and the Book and an edition of poems by Augusta …

Review Of The Cambridge Companion To George Eliot, George Levine

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Dictionary definitions of ‘companion’ stress notions of fellowship and support as in ‘one who associates with or accompanies another’. The question prompted by the use of ‘companion’ in a book title is, for whom is company being provided? I take it that the proliferating series of critical support texts of which the Cambridge Companions are in general fine examples are unabashedly aimed at an undergraduate market, while maintaining significant concern for an academic readership and some for an informed or persistent general readership. It must be admitted that George Eliot is not popular in the way that Dickens and the …

Review Of Women And Literature In Britain 1800-1900, Joanne Shattock

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This book of thirteen essays by leading scholars in the field is an impressive and valuable contribution to the study of nineteenth-century women writers. Canonical figures such as Austen, the Bronte sisters, Gaskell and Eliot are examined in the wider context of the social, cultural and economic conditions which influenced the production and dissemination of their work and reputations. In addition, the very nature and construction of the canon of nineteenth-century woman writers is interrogated.

These essays reveal the tremendous extent and variety of women's contribution to the expanding range of discourses that helped to form the culture of the …

Address At Wreath-Laying In Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey 10 June 2001, A.G. Van Den Broek

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In June 1990, the Revd Dr Edward Carpenter gave this address, exactly ten years after he, as Dean of Westminster, conducted the service when the stone memorializing George Eliot was unveiled. In his address Dr Carpenter reminded his audience that permission for an Abbey burial had been denied Eliot on religious grounds, but that it gave him 'great satisfaction and a unique pleasure' to help memorialize her a hundred years later. She was, he said, 'a person whom, in "character; manner and style", it is almost impossible to praise over much' .1.

It gives me great satisfaction and pleasure, as …

Dorothea And The 'Key To All Mythologies', Daniel Tyler

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In Middlemarch, the 'dead hand' of Edward Casaubon, which seeks to take hold of his wife's future, is applied by two documents. The first is the codicil to his will which endeavours to prohibit Dorothea marrying Will Ladislaw by imposing the condition that to do so she must relinquish her inheritance. The second is the 'Synoptical Tabulation' in which he expresses the intention to have her continue his work on the 'Key to all Mythologies'. As early as 1873, it was observed by Henry James that the subsequent narrative is dominated by the repercussions of the codicil: 'Mr Casaubon's death …

Annual Report 2001, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Looking back thirty years to my report for 1971 I found that I had written 'It is most rewarding to be able to report a successful and stimulating year'. Thirty years later I can say the same - despite having drawn in our horns after the less than successful Millennium year.

At the Annual General Meeting in March we thought we were to lose our new treasurer, Sophie Pavier, but she found she was able to continue for a further year, much to our relief. Ted Bates retired from the Council after many years' service owing to ill health. I …

Review Of Such Silver Currents: The Story Of William And Lucy Clifford, M. Chisholm

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is the first biography to record the shared and separate lives of an unusual couple, a mathematical genius called William Clifford and his literary wife, Lucy. Their biographer, M. Chisholm, has had to confront the problem of different lives and interests since the Cliffords shared only four years of marriage, but she has arranged a considerable amount of research sensibly, showing where their concerns diverged and coincided. During their time in London (1875-9) the Cliffords were at the centre of a fascinating group of celebrities, literary and scientific, who were drawn to their Sunday afternoon salons. We are likely …

Review Of Rereading Victorian Fiction; Rethinking Victorian Culture, Alice Jenkins, Juliet John

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

These two fine volumes have their roots in a Victorian literature conference at the University of Liverpool in 1996, which I had the good fortune to attend. At the time, I remember being struck in particular by the erudition of a number of the papers presented and by the impressive range of material covered in eclectic ways. It is extremely pleasing to see many of the best papers from the conference expanded in these two volumes, pleasing not least because these two collections offer an extremely good snapshot representing the diverse richness and buoyant state of Victorian Studies at the …

Review Of Adam Bede, Carol A. Martin

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In a letter to G. H. Lewes of October 1858 John Blackwood contrasted his own discriminating language of praise with the 'abandon of expression' indulged in by what he terms 'the large hearted school of Critics,' and of course one sees his point, as Lewes did with feeling concurrence: 'largehearted critics - an awful Race’. But I do not see how one can avoid joining the scorned 'large hearted'. I am at a loss to know how to write anything that could be called a 'review' of so fine a piece of work as this latest volume in the Clarendon …

George Eliot Birthday Lucheon, 25 November 2001 The Toast To The Immortal Memory, Canon Edward Pogmore

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I would like to thank you for inviting Jane and me to the wreath-laying and to this luncheon and the opportunity to propose the toast to the immortal memory of George Eliot.

It is over a year ago that I was walking through the corridors of Leeds University School of Healthcare Studies when I saw an advertisement for a lecture by Dr Jane Wood of the School of English - and the title of the lecture was "'Webs, Tissues and Predisposing Causes": George Eliot and Medical Science' (Yorkshire Medicine, Volume 12, No. 4, 105-109).

It is not the catchiest …

George Eliot's Debt To Hardy?, David Mcintosh

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In his biography of Thomas Hardy, Michael Millgate makes the following assertion:

The irritating association of Hardy's work with George Eliot's was kept alive in the summer of 1876 by the appearance of Daniel Deronda and the comment in the Westminster Review that it was fortunate that The Hand of Ethelberta had been published first, 'or else ill-natured critics would have declared that his principal character was only a copy'. To such a criticism, had it in fact been made, Hardy might justifiably have pointed out that George Eliot had, in that same novel, borrowed from Far From the Madding …

Mines Of Misinformation: George Eliot And Old Master Paintings: Berlin, Munich, Vienna And Dresden, 1854-5 And 1858, Leonee Ormond

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This article is a 'footnote' to two classic works on George Eliot: Hugh Witemeyer's George Eliot and the Visual Arts and The Journals of George Eliot, edited by Margaret Harris and Judith Johnston. When I began to follow the progress of George Eliot and George Henry Lewes round the major art galleries of Western Europe, I soon discovered that many of the paintings which George Eliot mentions in her journal were not what she believed them to be. Some have been reattributed since her lifetime, and others, while still bearing the name of the artist she gave them, were …

The Thirtieth George Eliot Annual Memorial Lecture, 2001; George Eliot- The Woman And The Writer, Rosalind Miles

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

It is a great honour to be invited to deliver this civic address today in the presence of the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Nuneaton, and I am delighted to be here among you in George Eliot's home town. My chosen theme on this special anniversary is George Eliot, the Woman and the Writer, and I intend to address a number of questions related to George Eliot's life and art, including what I hope may be some of the less familiar aspects of her early days. But before I do, I hope you will forgive a personal note.

As …

A George Eliot Quatation On A Public Occasion, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

At the funeral of the Queen Mother in Westminster Abbey on 9 April 2002 the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered the sermon and, in describing her life, used these words - 'There was about her, in George Eliot's lovely phrase, "the sweet presence of a good diffused"‘.

These words are taken from the last part of George Eliot's poem, 'O May I Join the Choir Invisible', in which she describes her own feelings on immortality:

Japanese Branch Report 2001, Fumiko Nishiyama

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The fifth annual convention of the George Eliot Fellowship of Japan was held at Tokai University in Kanagawa on Saturday, I December 2001. The morning session began with a welcome speech by Kyoichi Ono, Chief of the Foreign Language Center of Tokai University. He said that George Eliot and Shigeyoshi Matsumae, the founder of Tokai University, had some similarities: both of them lived through a turbulent age; both sustained an interest in religion and humanity; both had insight into the significance of modem civilization.

The first paper was presented by Tomoko Kanda, an assistant at Nihon University. She analysed 'The …

Editor's Notes

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

We wish to correct the following typographical errors that occurred in June Skye Szirotny's 'Edward Casaubon and Herbert Spencer' (George Eliot Review No. 32 [2001], pp. 29-43):

We wish to correct the following typographical errors that occurred in June Skye Szirotny's'Edward Casaubon and Herbert Spencer' (George Eliot Review No. 32 [2001], pp. 29-43):p. 31 , I. 31 after ). insert [sic 1p. 34, I. 11 for our read ourp. 35, I. 6 after 223). insert note 39a. See also n. 33 above.p. 36, I. 8 for L read GELI. 20 for L read GELp. 38, I. 5 for University read …

The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring: A Critical Look At Flower Imagery In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Elizabeth Peloso

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

No abstract provided.

Claiming The Feminine: Assimilationism And Militantism In Three Lesbian Texts, Travis Ferrell

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 4 Fall 2002

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

No abstract provided.

Fay Weldon's Late Bloomers And Comedy And A Lawyer, A Vet, And A Couple Of Dogs, One Of Them Dead, Susan Rote Siferd

Dissertations

Creative dissertation begins with a critical study of comedy as Weldon employs it in her novels of marriage, infidelity, and divorce. Traditionally, comedy ends in marriage; Weldon's dark comedies end in self-understanding as a necessary prerequisite to growth and possible future relationship. However, Weldon does not celebrate divorce. She recognizes the impact on women's lives of historic period, world events, and their own female nature. An avowed feminist, Weldon yet refuses to blame men for women's problems, but insists that while women struggle against sexism, they often conform to it. If there is no genre designation comparable to "bildungsroman" for …

Sexuality And Textuality (Fall 2001) (Whitman College), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

This course was taught by Robert Tobin at Whitman College. Professor Tobin worked at Whitman for 18 years as associate dean of the faculty and chair of the humanities, and was named Cushing Eells Professor of the Humanities. Several of the courses he developed at Whitman would make the transition to Clark, where they continued to evolve.

"This class uses an introduction to gay and lesbian studies and queer theory to elucidate important concepts in literary theory, political theory, and gender studies. The first part of the class looks at the question of the historicity of sexuality. To what extent …

Review Of Oxford Reader's Companion To George Eliot, John Rignall

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

For a reader of George Eliot, opening this Companion may be a bit like opening a box of chocolates. There is a pause as one wonders where to begin, but once begun, it is difficult to stop tasting and savouring the contents. The articles are written in a fluid and concise, easily readable style, and present such an abundance and particularity of detail that the most dedicated student of George Eliot's life and work will find new information and insights. And even where the facts are more or less familiar, details we may have forgotten remind us again of the …

Priest And Nun?: Daniel Deronda, Anti-Catholicism And The Confessional, Kirstie Blair

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In Chapter 32 of Daniel Deronda, Sir Hugo Mallinger jocularly remarks to Deronda, 'You are always looking tenderly at the women, and talking to them in a Jesuitical way. You are a dangerous young fellow'.' Deronda responds with undue irritation, drawing the narrative observation that, 'Sir Hugo's notion of flirting, it was to be hoped, was rather peculiar'. Both Deronda's defensive reaction and Eliot's sly comment hint at the potential dangers of 'peculiar' flirtation with Gwendolen, a peculiarity linked to the term 'Jesuitical'. In the pervasive late Victorian discourse of anti-Catholicism, Jesuit priests are associated with insinuation, deception, persuasion, and …

Opening Of The Garden At The George Eliot Hospital Nuneaton, 9 July 2000, Serena Evans

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

When I was asked to come here to open this lovely garden I wondered what on earth I could say about George Eliot that you hadn't thought, read, written or said already - and then I decided that I should talk about the one thing that you don't know about, and that is what has meant to be George Eliot's great- great- great-niece.

It wasn't a thing I questioned when I was little, it just was; at home the book shelves were full of leather bound volumes of her novels and the downstairs loo had pictures on the wall of …

Middlemarch And Belinda, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Middlemarch and Rhoda Broughton's Belinda (1883) have often been cited as benchmarks in the much wider debate concerning Mark Pattison and his wife Emily Francis, later Lady Dilke. Among other novels with alleged Pattison derivations are W. H. Mallock's The New Republic (1877), Mrs. Humphry Ward's Robert Elsmere (1888), and Robert Liddell's The Almond Tree (1938), the latter apparently deftly drawn from the Pattison papers in the Bodleian. Apologists occupying the Pattison patch include John Sparrow and Vivian Green,’ while Pattison's own Memoirs (1885) are essential to any understanding of this alternately admired and vilified man. In his George Eliot: …

Darwin's Plots: Evolutionary Narrative In Darwin, George Eliot, And Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Gillian Beer

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In Darwin s Plots, Gillian Beer writes that 'On the Origin of Species is one of the most extraordinary examples of a work which included more than the maker of it at the time knew, despite all that he did know'. Published in November 1859 with a print run of 1,250, Origin shook Victorian Britain. Its conclusions seemed inescapable. Life on earth was not the six-day product of a divine creator, but the outcome of random evolutionary process. Its impact was immediate and immense. Man 'was born yesterday - he will perish tomorrow' declared the Athenaeum. In later life Thomas …

Address At The Wreath-Laying In The George Eliot Memorial Garden, Nuneaton 18 June 2000

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

To be asked to lay a wreath and say a few words in celebration of George Eliot, the great authoress, is an honour, I am sure that most of you here today have much more knowledge and understanding of her life and works than I do, but having spent my childhood at Arbury and living there now with my wife and children, I believe that I have a small bond.

It is astounding to think that she, who is so much a part of the fabric of Arbury, is a world famous figure. Her talent was acknowledged during her lifetime …

Edward Casaubon And Herbert Spencer, June Skye Szirotny

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Identifying the originals of George Eliot's characters has always fascinated readers. And none of her characters has inspired speculation about an original more than Edward Casaubon, George Eliot's scholar and clergyman in Middlemarch. In 1973, Richard Ellmann published an essay, 'Dorothea's Husbands: Some Biographical Speculations' ,re-examining the claims made for various persons George Eliot had known, as the original of Casaubon: Mark Pattison, Herbert Spencer, Dr. Robert Herbert Brabant, Jacob Bryant, Robert William Mackay, and George Eliot herself. Since then readers have focused on other contenders, mostly literary figures. 2 Of the traditional contenders, Mark Pattison, a scholar who wrote …