Middlemarch Flashcards
What became the dominant form of literature in the 19th century?
The novel
What is Middlemarch a typical example of?
Victorian realism
What does the narrative follow?
Different plot lines which interact and collide with each other
What did Henry James say about it?
“A treasure house of detail but an indifferent whole”
How can George Eliot’s narration be resumed?
Telling rather than showing
What is the narrator to the novel?
A key structural element
What did critics say about George Eliot’s narrator?
That it was a ‘teacher’
What is George Eliot’s real name?
Mary Ann Evans
Why did she use a male pseudonym?
Safeguard against sexism in the market place.
Safeguard against prejudice, as she was living a life of sin in the era of respectability.
Where did she get the name George Eliot from?
George Henry Lewis, her lover
What narrator does she use?
The third person omniscient narrator, one of the landmarks of Victorian writing
Which sex does the narrator speak for?
Both, it speaks for human nature
The novel is a study of provincial life in the…?
1920s
It was written in
1970s
Eliot wants us to believe that
Middlemarch is a real slice of life
