Rereading George Eliot: Changing Responses to Her Experiments in Life(SUNY series in Psychoanalysis and Culture)

In a probing analysis that has broad implications for theories of reading, Bernard J. Paris explores how personal needs and changes in his own psychology have affected his responses to George Eliot over the years. Having lost his earlier enthusiasm for her "Religion of Humanity," he now appreciates the psychological intuitions that are embodied in her brilliant portraits of characters and relationships. Concentrating on Eliot's most impressive psychological novels, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, Paris focuses on her detailed portrayals of major characters in an effort to recover her intuitions and appreciate her mimetic achievement. He argues that although she intended for her characters to provide confirmation of her views, she was instead led to deeper, more enduring truths, although she did not consciously comprehend the discoveries she had made. Like her characters, Paris argues, these truths must be disengaged from her rhetoric in order to be perceived.

Table of Contents:
Preface 1. No Longer the Same Interpreter Reading George Eliot Then and Now A Psychological Perspective Rhetoric Versus Mimesis Critical Controversies 2. "An Angel Beguiled": Dorothea Brooke Calvin Bedient on Middlemarch Rhetorical Treatment of Dorothea Dorothea as a Mimetic Character Dorothea's "Education": Casaubon Dorothea and Will Saving Rosamond Dorothea's Sad Sacrifice 3. The Two Selves of Tertius Lydgate Lydgate as Foil to Dorothea Prelude to Lydgate Lydgate's Two Selves Lydgate's Demoralization Lydgate and Rosamond Lydgate's Sad Sacrifice 4. "A Dreadful Plain Girl": Mary Garth A Foil to the Egoists Mary's Hard Life Mary and Fred Fred Vincy That Happy Ending 5. "This Problematic Sylph": Gwendolen Harleth Great Achievements and Great Problems A Confusing Picture of Gwendolen More Versions of Gwendolen Gwendolen's Sorrows Enter Grandcourt 6. "The Crushed Penitent": Gwendolen's Transformation Introduction Gwendolen's Terror and Guilt Captain Davilow and Mrs. Glasher Postmarital Miseries 7. Gwendolen and Daniel: A Therapeutic Relationship? Critical Disagreements Is Deronda's Influence Transformative? Gwendolen and Grandcourt's Death Deronda Not Gwendolen's Therapist Gwendolen's New Existence 8. Deronda the Deliverer An Imagined Human Being Daniel's Peculiar Position Search for a Vocation Deronda's Ambivalence The Failed Relationship with Gwendolen Conclusion References Index

About the Author :
Bernard J. Paris is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Florida and the author of a number of books, including Experiments in Life: George Eliot's Quest for Values and Imagined Human Beings: A Psychological Approach to Character and Conflict in Literature.

Review :
"Consistently fascinating and engaging, this book represents a new kind of criticism in which the interpreter is as interested in interrogating himself as he is the writer under study."