Backgrounds Behind George Eliot and Middlemarch

Summary:

In order to kind of gather a grasp of Eliot's thoughts, ideas, beliefs and notions behind herself and her writing, I looked very closely to the letters or journal entries that she had written herself. While I read about nine of these letters or journals, the one that stood at most strongly to me was a letter that Eliot wrote to Charles Bray on July 5th of 1859. The footnotes described that Bray and his wife Caroline Hennell were very close friends of Eliot's and even before I read this bit of information I got the idea that George Eliot was addressing this letter to a personal friend. The tone of it stuck me as more friendly, honest and more down-to-earth. Eliot writes to Bray about her belief in writing in a way that depicts a form of art, while at the same time expresses the truths and feelings that readers need to feel from a personal respect from what they as the audience read. In other words, it is important that readers find, see and seek real life experiences through an author's writing. Several of the letters written by Eliot [to others] embark on the same topics. She, as an author, wants to do so much more than just simply deliver an art form (and she strongly believes that art is a communicative ideal to deliver thoughts and/or messages to an audience); she wants her writing to reveal true to life situations that her audiences can feel. Eliot's overall consensus can be pieced together when reading these entries. Ideally she wants her readers to recognize that the lives of ALL individual people will always experience struggles, pain, obstacles and hardships, but that they can all be overcome. Her all-encompassing message seems to be that life needs to be dealt with in a positive and hopeful light no matter what the situation may be.

 Analysis:
I love how we (as a class) have been looking at other literature that has been published on what we are looking at or read something about the author (or in this case other writings from the author herself) and it makes me look to the literary piece in an entirely new way! Uncovering the intentions behind George Eliot's writing makes this book seem SO much more interesting. Eliot writes in a letter to Mme. Eugene Bodichon dated February 15th of 1862 that, "I [George Eliot] think the highest and best thing is rather to suffer with real suffering than to be happy in the imagination of an unreal good" (527). This idea alone sheds a whole new light on the conflicts that we are seeing happen in Middlemarch (thus far) because she writes with the goal of having her audience see, think, feel and experience truths of life. She further explains her hopes and goals in the letter to Charles Bray by saying, "the only effect that I ardently long to produce by my writings, is that those who read them should be better able to imagine and to feel the pains and joys of those who differ from themselves in everything but the broad fact of being struggling erring human creatures" (526). Again she is confirming that she writes with the intentions of revealing the truths about all human lives. These letters imply that she sees all humans as one in the same. In other words, we all can feel and experience life, but with life comes strife, grief, pain, struggles, conflict and much more at any given point in time, but more so than living true emotions, I believe that Eliot is inquiring that we should deal with them in the most positive outlook we can. Many of these reoccurring ideas that Eliot presents in her letter or journals I think really struck me as I read them this evening because they also strongly reflect the passage that we looked at today in class from page 40. That passage deals with hiding truths, feelings and emotions as a natural reaction of being a human being, but that maybe we should not "hide our own hurts". An epiphany overcame me about what this passage really meant after reading Eliot's own hopes for her writings. I feel that she was trying to directly tell her audiences what her intentions were as an author; almost as if she was providing a hint to her readers.

In reading the background entries it is very helpful to see that Middlemarch is not just a story;  within it lies many messages from the mind of George Eliot. As a reader, I think that I can  now better absorb the ideas, the notions and recognize the art in which Eliot shared with her audiences.

Criticism of Mary Barton

Summary:

Rosemarie Bodenheimer’s criticism entitled, “Private Grief and Public Acts in Mary Barton” was the piece that I really focused on. Bodenheimer writes from a very interesting angle that deeply explores the use and implications of emotions that were associated with Gaskell’s novel that deal with the characters individually as well as the emotions that Gaskell brought to the societal classes from the era. Specifically, she really looks at the “grief”, sadness, tragedy, pain, deaths and sorrow that Gaskell includes in the book. As the critic, Bodenheimer does not solely take one stance or another, but rather she looks at what worked well in the novel and what was not as successful; in short, Bodenheimer is very precise and articulate in examining Gaskell’s work from several different angles, focusing mostly on the emotions that the writing provoked for the audience. She writes, “I want to argue for an essential consistency in the novel’s internal conflicts, and for the ways that its troubling issues cut across both plots (referring here to the plot of the novel as a story and then the plot of the politics and economics issues), and even shape the fluctuations of the narrative voice” (511). The criticism goes into fascinating detail about how Gaskell utilizes the voices (implying that there are many) of the narrator in order to serve a number of purposes in the book. In other words, Bodenheimer explores how the narrator in Mary Barton works in conjunction with the characters as a means to deliver both story and political notions. Thus, proving that there are, without a doubt, both story and political intentions; she even references at some point that Mary Barton can be viewed as a “split-novel”.

Analysis:  

I have to confess that I may have slightly cheated in the readings of the criticisms. I looked at several that I really did not care for before reading Bodenheimers’. This writing really caught my attention and it made me think of this novel in so many different ways that I had not thought of prior to it. I felt that she was really brilliant in how she looked at Gaskell’s writing and it pertained, as well as supported, much of what we discussed in today class. She too, looked at it from the contexts of what Gaskell’s intentions may have (or may not have) been. It is clear that she also questioned the same thing that all of us did today when we created our discussion questions in our blog groups. However, she gave so many great examples as well as instances in the book that showed how Gaskell presented different instances of emotions. Bodenheimer brought up a good point in saying, “When we hear, in the little Canadian epilogue, that Margaret Legh has regained her sight, the news comes with a sense of violated tone, for it is the only piece of simple ‘good tidings’ in the book” (510). My first thought of this statement was, “wow that is a pretty profound and confident point to make”, but in all honesty (depending on how you look at all instances in the book) she is making a pretty credible observation. Throughout the rest of the criticism Bodenheimer digs deep in looking at many details that I had merely passed over in the book as a reader, but she tells us why they were important. I think that it is very interesting to see this novel as solely expressing grief, (as she puts it (and such like emotions). That is an emotion that is consistently remains throughout the book, but I had not truly looked at it that way. I think that Bodenheimer uses the presence of this particular emotion to support the fact that it can be seen within the character’s lives as individuals (the story) as well as in the different social classes, no matter what rank of class they belonged to (the idea of it being a political/social novel), either way it was an emotion that was experienced by ALL in Gaskell's novel of Mary Barton, which could be a way of seeing Gaskell proving her point about the issues that lie between the upper and lower classes.

Victorian Literature Blog #1: Contemporary Reviews of Mary Barton

Contemporary Reviews of Mary Barton Written By Elizabeth Gaskell

First of all, I have to say that I really loved this book! I was not sure what to expect because of the time period in which it was written (simply because I have not read much from this era) but it really amazed me how even after all of these years, time and a century later, it truly held my interest as a reader and was very engaging throughout all of it. In reading the reviews from the back of our Norton Critical Edition of Mary Barton it was not surprising to me that several of the reviews held a high praise of Elizabeth’s first ever novel for various different reasons because those are the ones I also agreed with!

Summary:

I looked at the first twenty pages that are provided in the “Contemporary Reviews” section of the book (through the Edinburgh Review from April 1849 written by W. R. Greg) and it was very pleasing to see that most of the reviews spoke very highly of this novel and of Gaskell’s writing in general. However, of the few that I read, I really liked the review written by John Forster in 1848 from the Examiner (367-368). In this review, he very simply, yet directly explains the reasons he liked the novel Mary Barton. Forster seemed to not only see the political/economical tendencies, but also recognized and praised the beauty, art and message that Gaskell included. In other words, he acknowledged the merit beyond the idea of this text being a “political novel”. He even states, “We should convey a wrong impression if the reader supposed the book to be a political novel. It is not that” (Forster 368). The review continues expressing how this text is written with passion, simplicity, honesty, from experience and with hope (in regards to the time and economy in which it was written). As Forster’s writing comes to a close, it is clear that this is only a small section of this review that Norton chose to include, although I would be very interested to see what else was said when specific instances were examined in more detail.

Analysis:

Of the reviews that I read, this specific one really stood out to me because I felt that John Forster was recognizing the book in its entirety. He was looking at it from ALL angles. While this is often looked at as being a social or political novel, it is still a novel. It is still a work of art. Forster brought this to reader’s attention; reminding us that it was not solely written with the intent of bringing awareness to the era in which it came to be. However, the British Quarterly from the Unsigned Review (from 1849) was a review of Mary Barton that did strongly criticize Gaskell on several issues, but on such things as the political end of it. That was a review that I most definitely did NOT agree with. I felt that they were extremely too critical (and in-turn, negative). Forster acknowledged and saw the good in all that areas that the British Quarterly saw as bad. They said in this review that, “[It does not] represent anything to which an actual counterpart may not be found” and that it only, “gives a one-sided picture” (370-371). Upon reading this, I thought to myself, “well duh! It is a novel. It’s telling a story”.  It’s not an incorrectly written history book, nor do think Gaskell intended it to be a history based factual book. On the other hand, Forster supports Gaskell’s writing by saying, “The aim is [rather] to lessen the interval that separates them (rich and the poor), and show with what advantage to both each might know more of the other” (368). In other words, Forster saw the bigger picture; he supported and saw the positives in the writings in Mary Barton as well as took it for what it really was, a story. There were reviews out there that found controversy in Gaskell’s writing, which is to be expected, but from a reader’s standpoint I stand strong in agreeing with those reviews that found the good and praised Gaskell for the work she shared with us! J