English, Department of
Date of this Version
2016
Document Type
Article
Citation
The George Eliot Review 47 (2016)
Abstract
Take a woman's head, stuff it with a smattering of philosophy and literature chopped small, and with false notions of society baked hard, let it hang over a desk a few hours every day, and serve up hot in feeble English, when not required . (Eliot 1992:305)
'Silly Novels by Lady Novelists', George Eliot's vitriolic overview of popular novels of the 1850s, which is the source of the mock-recipe above, was published in 1856, shortly before Eliot started writing her first work of fiction, 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton' . More than ten years then passed before she began work on Middlemarch, her fifth novel, so it would certainly be far-fetched to assume that there is a direct connection between the opinions she voiced in 'Silly Novels' and the composition of Middlemarch. However, in my essay I am going to argue that the plot of George Eliot's masterpiece can in fact be seen as a reaction against stereotypical novelistic plot devices which she had ridiculed in her Westminster Review essay.
Included in
Comparative Literature Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Women's Studies Commons
Comments
Published by The George Eliot Review Online https://GeorgeEliotReview.org