George Eliot

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George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans, Actually a girl)
1819 - 1880
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Biography

• Born 1819, Warwickshire
• 1838 Charley and Caroline Bray. Charles Hennel
  An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of
  Christianity.
• 1850 Sub-Editor for The Westminster Review.
• 1854 Published a translation of Feuerbachs
  Essence of Christianity.
• 1854 Began her relationship with Ceorge Henry
  Lewes.
• 1857 Outcast from her family. Published Scenes
  of a Clerical Life under the pseudonym George
  Eliot. Followed by Adam Bede.
• 1872 Published Middlemarch to great acclaim.
• 1876 Published Daniel Deronda.
• 1880 Died and was buried next to Lewes.

3
The Victorian Era

• Queen Victoria reigned 1837 1901
• Widely regarded as very successful and
  progressive reign
• Height of British Empire

4
The Victorian Era - Politics

• Height of the British Industrial Revolution
  (started late 18th century)
• Boost of middle and working classes, particularly
  middle class
• Government was still headed by the monarchy and
  only included members of the aristocracy as
  politicians

5
Philosophy

• Utilitarianism concept of utility greatest
  good for the greatest number (Jeremy Bentham and
  J.S.Mill)
• Empiricism experience as the only form of
  knowledge (Locke)
• Charles Darwin The Origin of Species (1859)
  questioning previously accepted truths
• The Victorian Era as a link between Romanticism
  and the 20th Century meant a clash between
  Romantic thought and emerging realism

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Literature

• The period of the realist novel and the narrative
  poem
• Novelists
• The Bronte Sisters, Charles Dickens, George
  Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis
  Stevenson, Robert Browning
• Common Themes
• Growing up
• Society
• No longer focusing on the novel of improvement
  of the Romantic period
• Incorporation of politics in to literature, also
  evident in the journalistic writing of Eliot and
  Dickens

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Music and Art

• Music as a sublime and evocative art form
  (Romantic ideal of music)
• In fact, music was often used as a form of social
  improvement/courtship in young women
  trivialisation of this sublime art form?
• Beginning of mass marketing of culture
• Questioned by philosophers and writers concerning
  the role and beauty of art (Ruskin and Carlyle)

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Role of Women

• Women as second class citizens, property of their
  husbands and innocent and passive though easily
  corruptible
• However, start of changes in this period and many
  laws were passed in the second half of 19th
  century
• Womens Rights becomes a central issue to
  Victorian society
• The emergence of the new woman in the 1890s
• Towards modern feminism and suffrage

9
Eliot and Religion

• 1838 Charles Hennel An Inquiry Concerning the
  Essence of Christianity
• 1873 Visited Cambridge University to discuss God,
  Immortality and Duty. with terrible earnestness
  how inconceivable to first, how unbelievable the
  second, and yet how peremptory and absolute the
  third.
• Denial of religion Feminism
• Christina Rossetti - Hope deferred Proverbs
  13.12.
• Drop in Church going Up to Half of the
  Population
• William Holman Hunt Reassertion of Religion

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Eliot Arts

• Arts
• Visual Arts Adam Bede
• Theatrical arts- Daniel Deronda
• Musical arts
• The significance of music is different from the
  other arts.
• Music expresses inner reality
• Theatrical and Visual arts are used to
  differentiate
• All the arts give make the characters more
  dramatic, realistic and complex

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Music

• Music as a concept is
• independent of music as an art
• Represents a pure, authentic expression of self
• The true portrayal of a persons inner self
• Moral value of music, especially voice allows
  access to a characters soul
• Eliot uses music to express strong feelings

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Influences

• George Eliot was influenced by Rousseau, Hegel,
  Hebert Spencer and Franz Liszt.
• Hegel music is the language of soul
• Franz Liszt
• the ability of music to represent pure feeling is
  one its great values.
• Music has the capacity to make each inner
  impulse audible without the assistance of reason
• Rousseau the human voice is the source of all
  music and language
• Spencer all music was originally vocal, and was
  created by the influence of pain and pleasure

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Composer- Listener- Performer

• Composer poetry is not a turning loose of
  emotion, but an escape from emotion it is not
  the expression of personality, but an escape from
  personality. What the poet and the composer were
  in fact, searching for was an authority, which
  manifested itself in tradition.
• Listener music can have a subtle and even
  persuasive force on the listener
• Performer- Singer
• immediate expression of the performers self
• Very correct singing of very fine music will
  avail little without a voice that can thrill the
  audience and take possessions of there souls
• Performance was used for social improvement

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• Eliots treatment of music reflects a peculiar
  dichotomy in 19th century attitudes towards music
  theory, music was exhorted us the most sublime
  and expressive at the arts but in practice it was
  created as a social diversion a trivial
  accomplishment best left to ladies and
  foreigners
• Alison Burley (2004)

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The text itself.

• Daniel Deronda was the last novel written by
  Eliot
• Reflects key ideas / debates of the day
• Jewish Zionist movement
• Anti-Semitism/ the role of Jews in society
• English philistinism
• Role of women in society
• Musics role in society, and attitudes towards
  music.

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Summary of the text.

• 1st extract Gwendolen sings for Klesmer
• her ear goodand was able to keep in tuneher
  singing gave pleasure to ordinary hearers.
• she had the rare advantage of looking almost
  prettier when she was singing that at other
  times.
• I daresay I have been extremely ill taught, in
  addition to having no talent-only for liking
  music.
• Klesmer That music you sing is beneath you.
  It is a form of melody which expresses a puerile
  state of culture no sense of the universal. It
  makes men small as they listen to it.
• Klesmer plays one of his own compositions
  variety and depth of passion
• People still want Gwendolen to sing That is
  the style of music for me. I never can make
  anything of this tip-top playing. I could listen
  to you singing all day.

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Summary of the text continued.

• 2nd extract Mirah sings for Klesmer
• skip preliminaries/formalities you will not
  object to beginning our acquaintance by singing
  to me?
• Mirah was a competent musician
• Shall I accompany myself?
• The song she had chosen was a fine setting
  ofwords
• Klesmer Let us shake hands you are a musician.

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Gwendolen vs. MirahThe Good /intellectual
versus the Popular?!?!
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Character analysis

• Herr Klesmer
• GermanJewish musical genius
• alarming cleverness / imperious magic in his
  fingers
• Natural musician, passionate and emotionally
  involved with his music
• bound to show what is good music
• Underlying definition between good and
  popular music (high art vs. low art)
• Represents German Romanticism/ Cult of Genius/
  Victorians fascination with the celebrity
  musician

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Character analysis continued

• Gwendolen
• Uses music as a social tool, for social status
  and to cement her marital status
• Ill taught, in addition to having no talent
  only liking for music
• Gwendolen would have to work hard to become a
  fine musician if it were possible at all, just as
  she must work hard, Deronda tells her, to become
  worthy to lead a life that may be a blessing.
• Sings popular music
• Gwendolen would seem to suggest that music is
  like acting a form of deception

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Character analysis continued

• Mirah
• Well educated in music
• Antithesis of Gwendolen
• Cant sew
• Doesnt sing popular music
• Even a natural gift for music like Mirahs,
  Klesmer suggests, must be nurtured and
  developed.
• Klesmer to Mirah let us shake hands. You are
  a musician.

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Jewish Zionism and its influence

• Zionism
• a Jewish movement that arose in the late 19th
  century
• The response to growing anti-Semitism
• Sought to re-establish a Jewish homeland in
  Palestine
• Not received well in England
• Eliots novel had a powerful influence on future
  Zionism
• Novel was essentially a novel in support of the
  movement