Transcription
[Music] Hello, hello. Are you ready to hear about George Eliot? You have already watched the video on the Brontë sisters. George Eliot was a writer completely different from the Brontës. Remember, the Brontë sisters created heroines who are very passionate, very powerful. Well, George Eliot's characters are also very powerful heroines, but George Eliot is not about—writes not about—the psychology of characters mostly. She is more of a social realist; realism is her most important contribution. George Eliot's realism was very influential on other writers, also like—Pacquiao Eliot.
George Eliot was born Mary Ann Evans in the year 1819. Wow, that is a very major year—the annus mirabilis of John Keats, isn't it? That is like 10 years after Tennyson is born, one year after Emily Brontë is born. George Eliot was born in Warwickshire. Warwickshire is the place that she depicts in her novels—also very detailed descriptions of the Warwickshire village life you can get in her novels. I have been there; it is still like a village. There are waterways with ducks, small houses, and pubs. George Eliot's remains are also there, in a tomb, and George Eliot's house is a museum.
So, Mary Ann Evans—she was a very brilliant girl. She questions religion; she wrote about religion, translated Feuerbach; she stopped going to church. She had a brother with whom she was very close; that is the same story as she has told in *Mill on the Floss*, her very famous novella. And she was an intellectual, and she was very philosophical. She was engaged in evolutionary, uh, you know, theory and things like that. So her novels also show a very philosophical—her brilliance, her intelligence is seen in her writing also.
Now, talk about George Eliot's works. There were three stories that she wrote and published that were collected as one book called *Scenes of Clerical Life*. *Scenes of Clerical Life* included three stories. Let me read out the titles of the stories from the encyclopedia: "The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton," "Mr. Gilfil's Love Story," and "Janet's Repentance." It was in 1857 that these three stories were published. Two years after that, in 1859, came *Adam Bede*.
*Adam Bede* is a story set in the village of Hayslop. Adam is a carpenter; he loves Hetty Sorrel, the village beauty, but Hetty Sorrel is having an affair with Arthur Donnithorne. Ah, the Donnithorne is the rich village squire's son—uh, grandson, and he's in the military. Adam Bede fights with him and says, "Hetty is my girl," and Arthur Donnithorne leaves her and goes. Then Hetty discovers that she's pregnant; she travels in order to find Arthur. She couldn't; she gives birth to the child and she doesn't know how to bring up the child; she leaves it in a field, and the child dies. She's arrested for child murder. Oh, she was a nice girl; she was not a criminal or anything, but unfortunately, all this happened. And then Arthur comes back when Squire Donnithorne dies; Arthur finds out what is happening with Hetty; he changes—gets her sentence changed from death to uh, exile—but her life is gone; she dies at the end. Uh, Adam Bede then just realizes that he loves his own cousin, Dinah Morris; she's a Methodist preacher. So what is the story about? It's a very touching village story involving people's choices, consequences of their actions, you know, like everyday moral philosophy pertaining to people's lives is seen in this novel. This is the kind of novel that she wrote in her early career. All of her early novels are simple stories of village life, and *Adam Bede* is a very famous novel, followed by two simple village novels: *The Mill on the Floss*, and after that, *Silas Marner*.
All of you might know a little bit about *Mill on the Floss* at least—a little bit. You might know, you might have read it, you might have studied it—very famous, 1860. *The Mill on the Floss* is the story of a very—tomboyish girl, Maggie Tulliver, who is modeled on George Eliot herself. Maggie Tulliver is a girl who lives passionately; she feels that some things are right; she wants to do it; she pursues her own free ideas; society does not accept all of it, and she suffers somewhat in life, but she dies a strong woman at the end. You know, *Mill on the Floss* is about that wonderful character Maggie, who cuts her hair when her aunts want her to, you know, tie her hair and behave very feminine. She falls in love with Philip Wakem, even though he is their enemy's son. She knows that Philip is a poor boy; he is deformed and struggling for whatever his father has done; Philip should not be punished. She loves her brother, but her brother doesn't quite understand her completely. She is loved by Stephen Guest, a very rich man who is actually her cousin's boyfriend, but she refuses him; she doesn't want him. So she is a woman of strong character—uh, Maggie Tulliver in *Mill on the Floss*. And in these novels, there is also a very strong undercurrent of religion, but not traditional religion; it is also a questioning of traditional religion, very much so.
In the next novel, *Silas Marner*, Silas Marner is a man who has left a village called Lantern Yard and come to—and he has come to Raveloe because he was very religious once upon a time, but he was misunderstood by his neighbors and friends, and he left them; they wrongly accused him for having swindled money. And Silas Marner comes and lives in Raveloe; he's a weaver; he has some unique skills and unique, um, you know, talents to—to cure people, etc. He's epileptic also, and Silas Marner is very lonely; he doesn't go to church because he has a quarrel with God now, and he gets—makes a lot of money, you know, because of his special skills, and he doesn't spend that money; he holds it. Meanwhile, the rich squire's son, Dunstan, steals it and leaves with it, but he disappears; nobody knows what happened to Dunstan at that time. Silas finds a little girl, Eppie. This Eppie is actually the illegitimate daughter of Dunstan's brother, Godfrey, but Godfrey doesn't claim the child; the child's mother dies; Godfrey doesn't let anybody know it is his child, and Silas brings the child up. This is a life-changing event in his life; Silas brings up Eppie, the girl, like his own daughter, and he changes. Finally, it is discovered that his gold is lying in a quarry; Dunstan had fallen into the quarry and died; the gold is discovered, and Godfrey comes back for Eppie, saying, "You are my daughter," but Eppie says, "No, Silas is my father." At the end, Silas gets his gold; Silas gets his Eppie; he's rewarded. So, little village stories of people's actions and, you know, the rewards that you get for good deeds and punishment you get for wrong deeds. These are beautiful, enduring tales written by George Eliot in her early career. Her later novels have a distinctly different flavor, though. Let me now talk to you about her later novels.
Immediately after publishing *Silas Marner*, she wrote *Romola*, 1862 onwards; it was serially published. It is not an innocent village story; it is more political and philosophical. Tito Melema—you will wonder what—what is that name? That is because he is a Greek man, not British. Tito Melema—this is set in the 16th century in Florence, mind you, in 16th-century Florence. Tito Melema is a young Greek who arrives in Florence; he gets into some political issues, and the blind poet and scholar, Bardo di Bardi, is admiring Tito's talents and charms and gives his daughter, Romola, to Tito in marriage, and Tito becomes powerful in Florentine politics. He gets into political intrigues unnecessarily, and at the end, he is brought to a lot of shame and uh, trauma, both personally and politically. So the theme of money, the theme of politics and power, the theme of how people get corrupted—some of the earlier themes continue—people's actions and how you are rewarded for it—that is the story of *Romola*. And then came *Felix Holt, the Radical*; it came in 1866. *Felix Holt, the Radical* is about again political issues, political intrigues in a small English town called Treby—T-R-E-B-Y—said during the First Reform Act. *Felix Holt, the Radical*—the protagonists, Harold Transome, is also another man; Felix Holt and Harold are together; Felix is supporting Harold in politics, and Felix is uncompromisingly honest; he is a man of great integrity. You know, working-class people's riots, the consequences of the riots—such things also are part of this novel. *Felix Holt*—at the end, there is Esther, the step-daughter, who is the heroine; she is courted by Harold Transome and Felix Holt, but obviously Felix Holt gets her at the end. That is the story of *Felix Holt*.
Now, there is the most important novel, perhaps—*Middlemarch*. *Middlemarch* came in 1871-72, and it has two protagonists, like in *Anna Karenina*. There is a very powerful woman character, Dorothea Brooke, and then there is a foil character, another man, a doctor called Tertius Lydgate. What is common to both these characters? They are both dedicated to improving the society; they want to do some good things; they wanted to contribute to the uh, people who live—whom they live with. Dorothea Brooke is involved in some noble causes, and she is the wife of Edward Casaubon, who does not understand anything about her work; he does not understand the good work that she's doing; he's a clergyman, a very self-obsessed clergyman, and he's writing a book called *The Key to All Mythologies*, which is a stupid book; he thinks the world of himself and his things; he's the salt of the earth, but he doesn't appreciate his wife. Dorothea is an idealistic, very rich—he should say she's an heiress, young woman, compared to Saint Teresa of Avila, the saint, and she has so many philanthropic dreams, but many of these are unattainable also. You know, both Tertius Lydgate and Dorothea Brooke are very noble people engaged in noble activities, but many of their dreams are unattainable also. Dorothea develops a friendship with Will Ladislaw, who is—that he is the nephew of Edward Casaubon. Dorothea and Will Ladislaw are great friends, and Edward Casaubon makes a will before he dies, saying if Dorothea marries Will Ladislaw, she has—she will be disinherited, actually. Dorothea was not that much in love with Will Ladislaw, I guess, but ultimately she marries him, throwing away her inheritance; she doesn't want that money, and she proves herself. Meanwhile, wrote Tertius Lydgate, the doctor, the idealistic doctor; he is married to Rosamund Vincy; she is the opposite of Dorothea; she is a very petulant, fussy woman, selfish and spoiled, and very feminine, you know, in the Victorian sense. Tertius Lydgate has a lot of trouble with her, and at the end—what are the themes that emerge? Like in the earlier novels, you see one's personal choices in life; one's actions are very important; they decide your worth in life; it is emphasized in the closing lines of the novel also. Do you want to hear the closing lines? In the encyclopedia, I have quoted a lot of opening lines, closing lines, excerpts, etc., but "the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, etc." What do you mean by that? A person's act may not be very momentous or very historic; it may not be great; it might be small things that you are doing, but even that has a great impact on the growing good of the society; society grows because of people's unremembered acts. That is a very important thing in Wordsworth also. So that is the novel *Middlemarch*. It is often prescribed in universities. *Middlemarch*—here is the town where the novel is set; *Middlemarch* is the name of the town, and it is often called a domestic novel or an epic novel of home—home epic. This is a novel set against many major socio-political events like the Great Reform Act, the beginning of the railways, uh, the coming to power of King William the Fourth, etc.
Now, one more novel: *Daniel Deronda*. *Daniel Deronda* is George Eliot's last completed novel, and it is the only novel by George Eliot set in Victorian England; all other novels are set in some other place, in some other country. *Daniel Deronda* talks about Jewish religion because the protagonist is partly Jewish. Daniel Deronda is a man who is helping others at his own expense. The heroine is Gwendolen. Gwendolen is in an unhappy marriage with Grandcourt, and finally Gwendolen and Daniel reach Italy; her Gwendolen's husband drowns; they don't get married, but she grows because of her acquaintance with Daniel, her friendship with Daniel, and Daniel finally marries another girl called Mira. So it is not a traditional love story, but it is a story about how people are impacted by their experiences; people grow because of the people they know, because of their experiences; it is a very mature novel, 1876. Then there is one more interesting book by uh, George Eliot; it is called *The Impressions of Theophrastus Such*. It is experimental fiction; it is not a conventional novel; it is in the form of literary essays summing up her philosophy, and *The Impressions of Theophrastus Such* is kind of non-fiction. George Eliot has also written a lot of non-fiction essays for *Westminster Review*, uh, where she was assistant editor. "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists" is a very famous essay that she has written. And she had a living relationship without marriage with George Henry Lewes. Wow, in the 19th century—the first woman to do that—is so bold. And when George Henry Lewes died, she married a younger man, John Walter Cross, who wrote a famous biography of George Eliot. As I already mentioned, George Eliot's novels are deeply philosophical, dealing with people's lives and the moral significance—the complex moral significance—of people's lives. She avoided the melodramatic traditions of Victorian novels of the time; she perfected realism, which was admired by even critics like Henry James. Her novels are largely moral; she talks about moral issues, and her association with George Henry Lewes, Herbert Spencer, J.S. Mill, etc., could have been very influential on George Eliot's novels.
I hope you enjoyed this video, this brief discussion. Please read on your own and do some research on your own; it is extremely important, as I keep reminding you. I will also uh, continue this discussion in our courses that you can join if you want; otherwise, it's okay; you can do your own self-study. There is a very, very useful set of objective questions, multiple-choice questions that we have which can be used to supplement your studies if you want; otherwise, no problem. In our set of eight objective question pads, there are thousands of questions that are very high-standard questions made in the model of NET and SET. You can just uh, Google search "both hit republications objective question pads," and you will get the link. You can try it out if you want; otherwise, no problem. I will be there for you at 10 PM live with truckloads of questions; otherwise, so many questions are shared in our Telegram group also, for free. 10 PM live questions are all there in our Telegram group; just join the Telegram group and use them if you want. Any information on any of these things, just WhatsApp me; you will automatically get the links. My WhatsApp number is 9037357688. So be in touch until the next video. Bye-bye. Happy reading.