GEORGE ELIOT Women Writers General Editors: Eva Figes and Adele King Published titles Margaret AlWood, Barbara Hill Rigney Jane Austen, Meenakshi Mukherjee Elizabeth Bowen, Phyllis Lassner Anne Bronte, Elizabeth Langland Charlotte Bronte, Pauline Nestor Emily Bronte, Lyn Pykett Fanny Burney, Judy Simons Willa Cather, Susie Thomas Colette, Diana Holmes Ivy Compton-Burnett, Kathy Justice Gentile Emily Dickinson, Joan Kirkby George Eliot, Kristin Brady Sylvia Plath, Susan Bassnett Christina Stead, Diana Brydon Eudora Welty, Louise Westling Edith Wharton, Katherine Joslin Forthcoming Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Marjorie Stone Mrs Gaskell, Jane Spencer Doris Lessing, Margaret Moan Rowe Katherine Mansfield, Diane DeBell Toni Morrison, Nellie McKay Jean Rhys, Carol Rumens Christina Rossetti, Linda Marshall Stevie Smith, Romana Huk Muriel Spark, Judith Sproxton Gertrude Stein, Jane Bowers Virginia Woolf, Clare Hanson Women Writers George Eliot Kristin Brady M MACMILLAN © Kristin Brady 1992 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1992 by MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-0-333-43287-7 ISBN 978-1-349-21899-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21899-8 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset by Footnote Graphics, Warminster, Wiltshire Contents Acknowledgements vi Editors' Preface Vll 1. Constructing the Man-Woman: George Eliot as Icon 1 2. Woman Writing: George Eliot's Life 24 3. Scenes of Clerical Life and Adam Bede: Fictions of Female Sacrifice 59 4. The Mill on the Floss to Silas Marner: Fictions of Desire for the Lost Mother 94 5. Romola to The Spanish Gypsy: Fictions of Gender and History 119 6. Poetry and the Late Novels: Fictions of Diffused Desire 152 Notes 191 Selected Bibliography 198 Index 204 v Acknowledgements In writing this book, I have profited from conversations with many colleagues, friends and students, but I would like to give special mention to Professor Elizabeth D. Harvey, for her many insights on feminist theory; to Dr Judith Williams, for her astute editorial eye; and to Elisa beth MacDonald, for her tireless footwork in the library. My particular thanks also go to Professor Richard Hillman, whose professional advice, emotional support and culinary genius sustained me at every point. A longer version of the section on Romola appeared as 'Gender and History in George Eliot's Romola' in the Dalhousie Review (67 [1987]: 257-74); I am grateful to the editor for permission to reprint it. vi Editors' Preface The study of women's writing has been long neglected by a male critical establishment both in academic circles and beyond. As a result, many women writers have either been unfairly neglected or have been marginalised in some way, so that their true influence and importance has been ignored. Other women writers have been accepted by male critics and academics, but on terms which seem, to many women readers of this generation, to be false or simplistic. In the past the internal conflicts involved in being a woman in a male-dominated society have been largely ignored by readers of both sexes, and this has affected our reading of women's work. The time has come for a serious reassessment of women's writing in the light of what we understand today. This series is designed to help in that reassessment. All the books are written by women because we believe that men's understanding of feminist critique is only, at best, partial. And besides, men have held the floor quite long enough. EVA FIGES ADELE KING Vll For Richard Vlll 1 Constructing the Man-Woman: George Eliot as Icon Somewhat to my surprise, I found her intensely feminine. Her slight figure, - it might almost be called diminutive, - her gentle, persuasive air, her constrained gesticula tion, the low, sweet voice, - all were as far removed from the repulsive phenomenon, the 'man-woman,' as it is possible to conceive. The brow alone seemed to betray her intellectual superiority. 1 The life and reputation of Marian Evans, the woman who published under the masculine pseudonym 'George Eliot', provide an unusual case study for the feminist critic. Unlike most women writing and publishing during the nineteenth century, Eliot enjoyed a position of high intellectual prom inence during her lifetime and has continued to occupy an eminent place in the canon of English literature. There is no need to unearth her works from the long-buried tradition of women's writing or to insist that they be treated seriously. This does not mean, however, that there is no place for feminist re-readings of Eliot's life and works. That she was one of the few women of her time to achieve major literary status makes her, in fact, a valuable focus for exploring the contradictions that emerge when a woman in a patriarchal society successfully appropriates the 'masculine' position of the writer: though Eliot was never denied a niche in the predominantly male literary canon, she has always been given a special status within it, as a writer whose accom- 1