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Pseudonym for Mary
Ann Cross, also Marian Evans, original surname Evans
Victorian novelist who developed the method of psychological depiction
characteristic of modern fiction - contemporary of
Dostoyevsky (1821-1881),
who at the same time in Russia developed his intuitive understanding of
human heart. Eliot's liaison with the married writer and editor George
Henry Lewes made her an outcast until her literary fame overcame the moralistic
irritation.
"Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still
a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon
in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles
of the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic - the gradual
conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which makes the advancing
years as a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in common."
(from Middlemarch, 1871-72)
Eliot was born in Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire. Her father was a carpenter
who rose to be a land agent. When she was a few months old, the family
moved to Griff, a 'cheerful red-brick, ivory-covered house', and there
Eliot spent 21 years of his life among people that he later depicted in
her novels. She was educated at home and in several schools, and developed
a strong evangelical piety at Mrs. Wallington's School at Neneaton. However,
later Eliot rejected her dogmatic faith. When her mother died in 1836,
she took charge of the family household. In 1841 she moved with her father
to Coventry, where she lived with him until his death in 1849. During
this time she met Charles Bray, a free-thinking Coventry manufacturer.
His wife, Caroline (Cara) was the sister of Charles Hennel, the author
of a work entitled An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity (1838).
The reading of this and other rationalistic works influenced deeply Eliot's
thoughts. After her father's death, Eliot travelled around Europe. She
settled in London and took up work as subeditor of Westminster Review.
In Coventry she met Charles Bray and later Charles Hennell, who introduced
her to many new religious and political ideas. Under Eliot's control the
Westminster Review enjoyed success. She became the centre of a literary
circle, one of whose members was George Henry Lewes, who would be her
companion until his death in 1878. Lewes's wife was memtally unbalanced
and she had already had two children by another man. In 1854 Eliot went
to Germany with Lewes. Their unconventional union caused some difficulties
because Lewes was still married and he was unable to obtain divorce. Eliot
did not inform her close friends Caroline and Sarah Hennell about her
decision to live with Lewes - the both friends were shocked and angry
because she had not trusted them.
Eliot's first collection of tales, SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE, appeared in
1858 under the pseudonym George Eliot - in those days writing was considered
to be a male profession. It was followed by her first novel, ADAM BEDE,
a tragic love story in which the model for the title character was Eliot's
father. He was noted for his great physical strength, which enabled him
to carry loads that three average men could barely handle. When impostors
claimed authorship of Adam Bede, it was revealed that Marian Evans, the
Westminster reviewer, was George Eliot. Her other major works include
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS (1860), a story of destructive family relations,
and SILAS MARNER (1861). MIDDLEMARCH (1871-72), her greatest novel, was
probably inspired by her life at Coventry. The story follows the sexual
and intellectual frustrations of Dorothea Brooke. Eliot weaves into her
story other narrative lines, which offer a sad comment upon human aspirations.
Among Eliot's translation works are D.F. Strauss's Das Leben Jesu kritisch
bearbeitet (published anonymously in 1846), Ludwig Feuerbach's Das Wesen
des Christentum, and Spinoza's Ethics (unpublished).
"'I know that I must expect trials, uncle. Marriage is a state of
higher duties, I never thought of it as mere personal ease,' said poor
Dorothea." (from Middlemarch)
Middlemarch, a novel of English provincial life in the early nineteenth
century, just before the Reform Bill of 1832, was called by the famous
American writer Henry James a 'treasure-house of detail.' It fuses several
stories and characters, creating a a network of parallels and contrasts.
One of Eliot's main concerns is the way which the past moulds the present
and the attempts of various characters to control the future. Dorothea,
an idealistic young woman, marries the pedantic Casaubon. After his death
she marries Will Ladislaw, Casaubon's young cousin, a vaguely artistic
outsider. Doctor Tertius Lydgate is trapped with the egoistic Rosamond
Vincy, the town's beauty. Lydgate becomes involved in a scandal, and he
dies at 50, his ambitions frustrated. Other characters are Bulstrode,
a banker and a religious hypocrite, Mary Garth, the practical daughter
of a land agent, and Fred Vincy, the son of the mayor of Middlemarch.
In 1860-61 Eliot spent some time in Italy collecting material for her
historical romance ROMOLA. It was published serially first in the Cornhill
Magazine and in book form in 1863. In 1871 she wrote to Alexander Main:
"I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social
offence." When Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote admiringly of Silas Marner
in 1869 Eliot began a correspondence with her. In a letter from 1876 she
wrote about DANIEL DERONDA (1876). "As to the Jewish element in 'Deronda',
I expected from first to last in writing it, that it would create much
stronger resistance and even repulsion than it has actually met with.
But precisely because I felt that the usual attitude of Christians towards
Jews is - I hardly know whether to say more impious or more stupid when
viewed in the light of their professed principles, I therefore felt urged
to treat Jews with such sympathy and understanding as my nature and knowledge
could attain to. Moreover, not only towards the Jews, but towards all
oriental peoples with whom we English come in contact, a spirit of arrogance
and contemptuous dictatorialness is observable which has become a national
disgrace to us."
After Lewes's death Eliot married twenty years younger friend, John Cross,
an American banker, on May 6, 1880. They made a wedding trip to Italy,
and returned to London, where she died on the same year on December 22.
Eliot's interest in the interior life of human beings, moral problems
and strains, anticipated the narrative methods of modern literature. D.H.
Lawrence once wrote: "It was really George Eliot who started it all.
It was she started putting action inside."
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