Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

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 …

Adam Bede: Author, Narrator And Narrative, Cynthia Huggins

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Readers of novels seem to have a natural, almost instinctive, tendency to perceive the voices of the author and the omniscient narrator as being one and the same. This tendency is even stronger when the narrator is blatantly intrusive, frequently inserting his own opinions into the objective narrative material of the novel. And although there are certainly some novelists who truly intend their narrative voices to be perceived as their own, this is not the case with George Eliot in Adam Bede.

In analyzing the narrative voice in this particular novel, I was struck by the almost total agreement, on …

Bbc Television's Film Of Adam Bede, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This adaption was not for the academic, the scholar or the purist. As none of these, I admit that, with reservations, I enjoyed the film.

There were some very good things about it. The setting was very attractive (Stanway in the Cotswolds for much of the action because it is one of the least changed parts of England) and the photography superb, particularly in the Chase when the sunlight filtering through the trees made an extremely pretty picture. The fight between Arthur and Adam was well staged. lain Glen as Adam portrayed the strength and integrity of the character convincingly; …

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My hunt through the archives of the world for unpublished George Henry Lewes letters for a forthcoming edition of his letters has so far thrown up over 450 unpublished letters in his hand.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 …

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 …

Dearly Beloved Scott, Margaret Wolfit

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

When Mary Ann Evans was seven years old, her elder sister Chrissie was lent a copy of Waverley. Unfortunately, the book had to be returned before Mary Ann had finished reading it: this distressed her greatly, and she began to write out the story herself.

Maggie Tulliver, in The Mill on the Floss, says of Scott's novel The Pirate,

'Oh, I began it once. I read to where Minna is walking with Cleveland and I could never get to read the rest. I went on with it in my own head, and I made several endings - but they were …

Message Of Greetings From The Fellowship President, Jonathan G. Ouvry

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Having left the composition of my message to members of the Fellowship, as always, until the last possible moment, I looked to see whether I could find some words of George Eliot appropriate to my predicament. In such a situation Mr. Alexander Main is a tremendous help. His compilation of Wise, Witty and Tender Sayings of George Eliot saves hours of looking through the real thing. As always, I did not look in vain, and, further vacillation being out of the question, I now greet my fellow members, having enjoyed a further successful year, and looking forward to the next. …

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, …

El Dialecto En Las Primeras Novelas De Geroge Eliot: Grafia Y Vocalismo, Maria Fuencisla Garcia-Bermejo Giner

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is an examination of Scenes o/Clerical Life, Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner from the point of view of the linguist. The author points to these novels as repositories of examples of dialect speech of the Midlands in the first part of the nineteenth century. That George Eliot was interested in language and languages, and that she had a passion for getting local detail right makes it unthinkable, according to the author, that her use of dialect in these novels could be anything other than authentic. The examples of dialect speech by characters in these …

George Eliot Birthday Luncheon: November 24th 1991, Gina Quant

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Moving house - that worrying, complicated, exciting experience we've all had! - And moving house in November too - not an inspiring month for new beginnings!

But it was just that upheaval of moving house, and just at this time of year, that Marian and George Henry Lewes were undergoing as they moved into their new home, The Priory, 128 years ago. Marian describes in a letter how the domestic problems of moving house were diverting her from the work she so relished:

Before we began to move, I was swimming in Comte and Euripides and Latin Christianity: Now I …

Review Of Middlemarch: A Study Of Provincial Life, Kathleen Porter

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I read Middlemarch for the first time in the Everyman's Library edition of 1930, a trim book in two volumes with a note by Leslie Stephen by way of Introduction. The note was taken from the Essay on George Eliot in Hours in a Library, and is less than helpful to the reader. Stephen notices the high moral ideal George Eliot sets before us, but laments the absence of charm, or magic, which he found in her earlier works.

The new Middlemarch from Everyman's Library is an elegant book in one volume, convenient in size and moderately priced. There are …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

The Clerical Character In George Eliot's Fiction, Oliver Lovesey

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Writing to Blackwood in November 1856 to introduce Scenes of Clerical Life, G.H. Lewes promised,

tales and sketches illustrative of the actual life of our country clergy about a quarter of a century ago; but solely in its 'human' and 'not at all' in its 'theological' aspect; the object being to do what has never yet been done in our Literature, for we have abundant religious stories polemical and doctrinal, but since the Vicar and Miss Austen, no stories representing the clergy like any other class with the humours, sorrows, and troubles of other men.

Oliver Lovesey's new study is …

Uncoverings: The Research Papers Of The American Quilt Study Group, Volume 13 (1992), Laurel Horton, Teresa Cooper Jacobs, Nancy Cameron Armstrong, Barbara Brackman, Dorothy Cozart, Janee Hindman, Carolyn H. Krone, Thomas M. Horner, Kristin M. Langellier, Margaret T. Ordoñez, Kari Ronning, Virginia Gunn

Uncoverings Journal

Cover Artist's Statement by Teresa Cooper Jacobs

Preface by Laurel Horton

Research Papers

Quilts of the Gulf War, Desert Storm-Participation or Protest? by Nancy Cameron Armstrong

Quiltmaking on the Overland Trails: Evidence from Women's Writing by Barbara Brackman

The Handwork of Women of One Southern Family by Dorothy Cozart

Quilt Talk: Verbal Performance Among a Group of African-American Quilters by Jane E. Hindman

Quilting and Bereavement: Her Grief in the Quilt by Carolyn Krone and Thomas M. Horner

Show-and-Tell as a Performance Event: Oppositional Practice in Contemporary Quiltmaking Culture by Kristin M. Langellier

Ink Damage on Nineteenth-Century Cotton Signature Quilts …

Zami: A Portrait Of An Artist As A Black Lesbian, Barbara Dibernard

Department of English: Faculty Publications

As feminist critics, we cannot continue to ignore differences in race, sexuality, and class when we write about women; we should heed Adrienne Rich's critique of her own earlier work, that she will never again write of the "faceless, raceless, classless category of 'all women.'" Aware that my work will be partial and limited, I would like to explore Audre Lorde's Zami as a portrait of an artist as a black lesbian. In doing so, I hope to suggest areas where we must open up our conception of the female Kunstlerroman so that we are taking account of Lorde's black …

Wreath-Laying In The George Eliot Memorial Gardens, Nuneaton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

We are here this morning to remember a great English novelist, and one of the most formidable intellectuals of her day. It is appropriate that we should do so in Nuneaton, close to South Farm, Arbury, where Mary Ann Evans was born, and also close to Griff, where she grew up. It is right, too, that I should say Mary Ann Evans, for this was her birthplace; the birth of 'George Eliot' took place elsewhere.

But why, it might be asked, should we honour a writer at her place of birth when her adult life, and more importantly, her entire …

Karen Thompson, Barbara Dibernard

Women's and Gender Studies Program: Faculty Publications

Karen Thompson’s lover Sharon Kowalski was severely injured in November 1983 when a drunk driver crashed into her car. Sharon is now paralyzed from the waist down and has serious brain damage. The two women had exchanged rings, bought a house together, made each other beneficiaries of their life insurance policies, and made a lifetime commitment to each other, but were extremely closeted. When Karen, at the suggestion of a counselor, came out to Sharon’s parents after the accident, the Kowalskis reacted with anger, denial, and hatred. “They said I was sick and crazy and they never wanted to set …

George Eliot Fellowship Annual General Meeting- Treasurer's Report

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

From a financial point of view 1990 was an uneventful year with no major items of expenditure. Income from subscriptions showed a small increase over 1989 whereas that from donations was considerably less. This is because, you will recall, in 1989 we made a special appeal to Life Members to which they responded magnificently leading to an exceptionally large "Donation" income in that year.

Of our functions, the Gabriel Woolf readings once again showed an increase in profit but unfortunately the Diamond Jubilee Evening showed a loss. Souvenir Sales gave a healthy profit with the mini-statue of George Eliot and …

The George Eliot Fellowship Review 1991 No. 22, Kathleen Adams, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Contributions are invited for the 1992 issue. They may be on any subject relating to George Eliot's work, life, family or friends. They should be up to 1500 words in length and it is preferred that footnotes are used only sparingly. Contributions must be typed (double spacing) and should reach the Editors not later than February 28th 1992. Editor's address for 1992 issue: Dr. Graham Handley, Glasgow Stud Farmhouse, Crews Hill, Enfield, Middlesex.

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 Of The Presence Of The Present: Topics Of The Day In The Victorian Novel, Richard D. Altick

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Richard D. Altick, Regents' Professor Emeritus of English at The Ohio State University, is well known for such books as Victorian People and Ideas. His latest work draws from 150 novels to develop connections between people, objects, events, and issues mentioned in fiction and their real life originals in the Victorian period. The generous selection of sources includes not only the best remembered novelists but also such writers as Susan Ferrier, John Galt, Samuel Warren, and Charlotte Yonge. All of Eliot's novels except, of course, Romola, are included.

The material is organized into twenty thematic chapters, ranging from popular entertainments …

The Nineteenth George Eliot Memorial Lecture- 1990, Roemary Ashton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In July 1990 I finished writing a biography of G.H. Lewes, which will be published by Oxford University Press in September 1991. There could be no better subject to have than Lewes (1817-1878). He is, of course, best remembered as the faithful companion, the husband in fact if not in law, of Marian Evans, the man without whose energy and support she might not have found the courage to become George Eliot. If he had nothing more than this to recommend him, he would still be worthy of our attention. But Lewes has a great deal more than this to …

London Branch Report 1990

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The London Branch held a George Eliot Supper Evening at S1. Philip's, Earls Court Road, W.8. in celebration of her 171st birthday on 22nd November. Sunday 18th was chosen, and the whole occasion was finely organised by Michael and Suzanne Forrest. The principle guest was the actor Robin Bailey. Some 50 or so guests were wined, dined and entertained by two young musicians, the pianist Roger Owens and the harpist Susannah Bale. It was good to see the parent organisation represented by Bill and Kathleen Adams.

Obituary: Edith Lenton- Vice President Of The George Eliot Fellowship

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Edith Lenton, who has died at the age of 81, was a Vice President of the Fellowship, a former treasurer and a very active and loyal member for nearly thirty years. Born in Nuneaton, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Starkey, she had an early contact with George Eliot the novelist as she took part as a child in the centenary celebrations in 1919 of Nuneaton's famous daughter. These celebrations were organised by Nuneaton Borough Council and the principal participants were the schoolchildren of the town who gave their performances, consisting of dancing, singing, tableaux vivant and sketches, …

Review Of Approaches To Teaching Eliot's 'Midddlemarch', Kathleen Blake

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The editor quotes Gilbert Highet, who wrote 'Bad teaching wastes a great deal of effort, and spoils many lives which might have been full of energy and happiness'. Salutary words indeed, but what about those people who seem to have thought too much about it (Highet suggests that bad teaching results from not thinking enough about it) and too self-consciously at that? This book is a curious mixture of interesting and practical ideas on the one hand and inflated intellectual selfindulgence on the other. Kathleen Blake's introduction summarises the main concerns of the book and its trends. Here is an …