DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Title

George Eliot's Middlemarch as a Translation of Spinoza's Ethics

Authors

Miriam Henson

Date of this Version

2009

Document Type

Article

Citation

The George Eliot Review 40 (2009)

Comments

Published by The George Eliot Review Online https://GeorgeEliotReview.org

Abstract

In 1846 John Chapman of Newgate Street published a translation of David Strauss's Das Leben Jesu. Although no translator was accredited, this book was the result of two years' arduous work by Mary Ann Evans, the woman who would later achieve renown as George Eliot. Strauss's presentation of Jesus is that of a historical figure; he denies his divine status, and suggests that the miracles written about in the Gospels are mythic in nature. Although Mary Ann was distressed by Strauss's destruction of all the 'miraculous and highly improbable' elements of the Gospel, she too had, for some time, been unable to regard Jesus as the Son of God; after reading Charles Hennell'sAn Enquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity in 1838 she suffered a loss of faith and ceased her church attendance in 1842.1 The religious and scientific climates of the period were changing: by 1842 Mary Ann had read the work of the geologist Charles Lyell and, ten years later, Herbert Spencer presented his theory of evolution in the Westminster Review under her management; elements of each anticipated Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species of 1859. Although the change occurred gradually, the increasing secularization of intellectual thought, and the lack of a divinely endorsed role model, placed the nature of morality under scrutiny.

Mary Ann translated two further philosophical texts which could be considered to offer alternative systems of morality: Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity and Benedict de Spinoza's Ethics, both of which reject the idea of a Judaeo-Christian creator god: Feuerbach's 'god' is a projected ideal of human nature, whereas Spinoza's equivalent is immanent in all substance. Both writers influenced her fiction, but it is especially interesting to consider her relationship with Spinoza as she became convinced that a simple translation was not sufficient to make his ideas available:

What is wanted in English is not a translation of Spinoza's works, but a true estimation of his life and system. After one has rendered his Latin faithfully into English, one feels that there is another yet more difficult process of translation for the reader to effect, and that the only mode of making Spinoza accessible to a larger number is to study his books, then shut them and give an analysis. (Letters, I,321)