George Eliot: Her Mind and Her Art

by Joan Bennett

Mrs Bennett finds in George Eliot's work the beginnings of certain modern developments of the novel, notably her respect for unity of design, her interest in the complexity of human personality and experience and beneath a contemporary naturalism, a feeling towards symbolic presentation. Some of the moral problems implicit in the character-studies and situations best the minds of the best of her some are still relevant. And an awareness of moral problems - a novelist's acceptance of novel-writing as a serious and responsible job - is now characteristic of the best modern fiction. The first three chapters of Bennett's book are biographical and deal chiefly with the formative years. The remaining eight, after defining in general George Eliot's qualities as a novelist, discuss the novels one by one and illustrate the deeper aspects of their author's outlook.

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1948

Reviews

[Zeynep T.]

I have gone through the first 77 pages where the author discusses George Eliot's life, her romantic relationships, and most significantly, her intellectual and emotional growth, which is the focus of Part 1: The Formative Years: Intellectual and Emotional Development. In Part II, I have only read the section on Middlemarch.

On one hand, there was great chronological insight into the evaluation of George Eliot as an individual, philosopher, and woman. On the other hand, in certain sections, the emphasis shifted significantly to other individuals in Eliot's life. Additionally, it's important to remember that the book's author, Joan Bennett, had a notable bias.

This book turned out to be different from what I anticipated, but I still gained a fair amount of insight from it.