Abstract
The roots of naturalism in the mid-nineteenth-century English novel obviously ante-date the accelerated agnosticism of that period, which had removed for George Eliot the belief in a transcendent purpose shared by More and Johnson. But I want to examine in this chapter some of the particular values which the form held for a writer in search of a secular substitute. Some of what seem to me the most important of these have already been discussed in the preceding two chapters, but certain aspects of them require further clarification.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
The George Eliot Letters, ed. Gordon S. Haight (1954–6), vol. 3, p. 366. ‘The highest “calling and election” is to do without opium and live through all our pain with conscious, clear-eyed endurance.’
Barbara Hardy, ‘The Mill on the Floss’, in Critical Essays on George Eliot, ed. Barbara Hardy (1970), p. 48.
See Bernard Paris, ‘George Eliot’s Religion of Humanity’, ELH, vol. 29 (1962),pp. 418–43
and Bernard Paris, Experiments in Life: George Eliot’s Quest for Values (1965).My quotations from Lewes and from George Eliot’s letter referring to his work are taken from the article in ELH, p. 422.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1886), quoted from the Penguin translation by R. J. Hollingdale (1973), p. 185.
Bernard J. Paris, ‘The Inner Conflicts of Maggie Tulliver: a Horneyan Analysis’, Centennial Review, vol. 13 (1969), pp. 166–99.
Copyright information
© 1985 Peter New
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
New, P. (1985). The Mill on the Floss: Naturalism and Purpose. In: Fiction and Purpose in Utopia, Rasselas, The Mill on the Floss and Women in Love. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07704-5_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07704-5_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-07706-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-07704-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)