Prelude and Book 1

[Laurel]

Adelle wrote: "Laurele wrote: "Dear Dorothea lives in a dream world.

While agreeing that Dorothea wasn't seeing actuality, I would phrase it a little differently. I would word it that Dorothea --- and a good..."

Great stuff, Adelle!

[[deleted user]]

Laurele wrote: "Adelle wrote: "Laurele wrote: "Dear Dorothea lives in a dream world.

Thanks, Laurele! But yet I've come 'round to your way of thinking, too: that Dorothea WAS day-dreaming quite a bit. It will be this way. It will be such and such. Yes, lots of preconceptions, but then she ran with it.

[[deleted user]]

MadgeUK wrote: "The Middlemarch neighbours comment somewhere on the fact that Dorothea and Celia needed a mother to advise them about marriage and at a time when young women had almost no opportunity to get to kno..."

I'm with the neighbors. Mothers are right handy to have. They know things. They generally stand up for their daughters.

[Everyman]

MadgeUK wrote: "I think Dorothea confuses love with duty."

I'm not sure I see it as duty, so much as a yearning for a chance to live a more serious, more profound life, and grasping at the only apparent chance which is coming her way.

[Everyman]

MadgeUK wrote: "Of the characters so far, Susan and Caleb Garth seem to have the most loving relationship and communicate a lot with each other. "

Eliot clearly has a deep affection for this couple. Her father, we recall, was an estate manager, so this may be her thank you to him and his life.

[MadgeUK]

Everyman wrote: "MadgeUK wrote: "Of the characters so far, Susan and Caleb Garth seem to have the most loving relationship and communicate a lot with each other. "

Eliot clearly has a deep affection for this couple..."

Oh yes, I hadn't thought of that!

[Erica]

Everyman wrote: "Talk about a "parade of horribles"; what about the epigram to Chapter 5?

"Hard students are commonly troubled with gowts,
catarrhs, rheums, cachexia, bradypepsia, bad eyes,
stone, and collick, cru..."

My edition of the novel (Oxford World's Classics) has an endnote about this epigram:

oppilations: rheums (watery discharge from the eyes or nose), cachexia (weakened condition of the body or mind), bradypepsia (slowness of digestion), colic (acute abdominal pain), crudities (indigestion), oppilations (blockages)


And I know what you mean about the epigrams. Sometimes it's fun to read them and try to guess which character the chapter will be about (I was pretty sure this one was about Causabon before I started it), and other times you just have to read the chapter to figure out why that epigram was chosen.

[Dawn]

Coming in late -- I am really behind in my reading. I have been enjoying the discussion even more because of the insights it has given me as I dive in.

Does it strike anyone else as odd that Dorothea believes she seeks intellectual fulfillment in her marriage, but her primary life-motivation seems to be activity (i.e., charitable). When she tours her future home she is disappointed that there are not more poor people to help or more ways for her to be useful to the community. It has certainly been foreshadowed that this marriage will have troubles, but I suspect the future will hold disappointment for her in the form of in her husband’s inaction in favor of his dry, solitary intellectual pursuits.

I wonder why Dorothea confuses these two things. Perhaps she assumes that learning great things always leads to doing great deeds. And is Eliot trying to make a point by that contrast?

BTW, I just love Mrs. Cadwallader; she has made Book 1 a joy! She takes all the humorous quirks of every annoying person I have known and meshes them into a perfect tapestry of obnoxiousness.

[Everyman]

Dawn wrote: "I wonder why Dorothea confuses these two things. Perhaps she assumes that learning great things always leads to doing great deeds. And is Eliot trying to make a point by that contrast? "

Perhaps it is partly the authors she has been weaned on, particularly Jeremy Taylor? From what little I know of him (Laurel, are you more familiar with his work than I am?), he was a strong advocate of good works. And when he did write about marriage, it was at least sometimes with more respect to its social good than its value in marital relationships. For example, "marriage is the mother of the world. It preserves kingdoms, and fills cities and churches, and heaven itself. "

But I really don't know enough about Taylor to be sure of this view. So I toss it out for others more knowledgeable to comment on.

[Betty]

The second half of Chapter X contains a scenario of Middlemarchers' gossip at the final Grange dinner party before Dorothea marries Casaubon and the newlyweds travel to Rome. Many characters and their circumstances are the focus in the group's running commentary which covers the ideal woman for Mr Chichely and the best medicine for Mrs Renfrew, whose dropsy is caused by too much water, and for Casaubon, whose dryness is caused by too much scholarly passion. Mr Chichely idealizes Miss Vincy more than the Brooke sisters, Dorothea and Celia; the prospect for Dorothea's marital happiness is questioned; Chettam is hiding his real preference for Celia; and the much praised, unrefined Dr Hicks by comparison with the privileged Dr Lydgate, who studied with Broussais, is the preferred practitioner. After Lydgate leaves this party, he too offers his opinion about Dorothea's incompatible personality because her decisions follow her moral sense while his manner is to attend to nature's natural progression, according to which her choice of Casaubon is unseemly. [a bit of a spoiler follows:] The narrator offers the final insight about Lydgate, hinting that the course of events will make him reconsider what are desirable female traits.

[MadgeUK]

Ah Bishop Jeremy Taylor - now there was a Puritan! Some here may know his Prayer for the Visitation of the Sick, which is in the Book of Common Prayer and this may account for Dorothea's interest since she visits the sick. His 'Holy Living and Holy Dying is mentioned in the Mill on the Floss when Mr Tulliver criticises the books Maggie was reading, so Eliot was obviously aware of his influence.

http://www.ely.anglican.org/about/goo...

Victorians were, of course, fond of reading religious tracts and sermons of which many were published at the time. During the period of the Oxford Movement Edward Pusey and John Newman published so many such tracts that it became known as Tractarianism.

It is likely, I think, that Eliot shared Thackeray's opinion of tracts:-

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/w...

[[deleted user]]

[A bit out place in this thread as this post references material in "Old and Young" (going beyond our current cutoff, chapter 7)

Regarding #111: Thank you for the links to the background information on Jeremy Taylor. I was totally unfamiliar with his name and it was interesting reading.

I don't know whether you were equating Taylor and later-day tracts, but it would seem to me that whatever one's religious position, that Taylor's work would hardly fall into the same category as the tracts Thackery was commenting on,


A description of Taylor: "He is sometimes known as the 'Shakespeare of Divines' for his poetic style of expression and was often presented as a model of prose writing.... these books were favourites of John Wesley, and admired for their prose style by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, and Thomas de Quincey. They are marked by solemn but vivid rhetoric, elaborate periodic sentences, and careful attention to the music and rhythms of words"

and the tracts Thackeray referred to: "those detestable mixtures of truth, lies, false sentiment, false reasoning, bad grammar, correct and genuine philanthropy and piety."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_T...


I did notice, however, that Eliot weaves into her novel the fact that ---forgive me, please, if I get the terminology wrong--- curates and pastor-type men [or at least some of them] at that time tended to look upon their positions more as a source of income than as a calling. (Casaubon)

And prods us into wondering at the hypocricy. Fred, being pushed towards the church by his father for the position; Fred resisting, pushing back, not wanting to spend his life in that calling to which he was not suited. "I wouldn't do my duty as a clergyman, any more than you could do yours as a governess. You ought to have a little fellow-feeling there, Mary" (153). Mary, speaking of Fred with Rosamond: "...he would be a great hypocrite [if were to become a clergyman; and he is not that yet" (127).

[MadgeUK]

Adelle wrote: "[A bit out place in this thread as this post references material in "Old and Young" (going beyond our current cutoff, chapter 7)

Regarding #111: Thank you for the links to the background infor..."

Thanks. No, I wasn't equating Taylor with the Tractarians Adelle, just commenting on the fact that Victorians read a great deal of religious literature and that this might have been part of Dorothea's (and Eliot's) reading matter too.

Potted history: There are numerous reference to 'the Catholic question' in MM and Dorothea, Brookes and Chettham belong to the Church of England, which was affected by the Oxford Movement, which sought to bring back an element of roman catholicism into the CofE. To some extent, the agitation over the Test Acts which precluded both dissenting Protestants and Catholics from voting and belonging to certain public offices, and which are discussed in the novel, was aggravated by the Oxford Movement and encouraged the Tories to pass the Roman Catholic Relief Act in 1829, granting the Catholics the same rights as the Protestant dissenters. Non-conformity/dissension is manifested in Dorothea's determined individualism; she follows her own conscience rather than being circumscribed by the accepted CofE view, which was Eliot's own position. If you have time to read this link about the OM it may give y9ou an idea of the religious flavour of the times our characters were living in. To this day the CofE is divided into High Church and Low Church, the former representing the vestiges of the OM with churches being lavishly decorated, the latter closer to the puritanism of the old CofE with churches being plainly decorated:-

http://www.puseyhouse.org.uk/house/hi...

[[deleted user]]

Perfect. I've got little "g"s written in the margins to remind me where I've got to go back and google after I finish reading the section. As it happens, "the Catholic question," as just such "g" notation.

[Dawn]

MadgeUK, Thank you. This is very helpful background material.

[Grace Tjan]

Everyman wrote: "MadgeUK wrote: "Of the characters so far, Susan and Caleb Garth seem to have the most loving relationship and communicate a lot with each other. "

Eliot clearly has a deep affection for this coupl..."

From all the characters, I think Eliot idealizes the Garths the most. In contrast to the others, who must overcome their various delusions, the Garths are down to earth and see everything with clear eyes.

[MadgeUK]

Thanks Dawn.

We are being asked by Eliot to look at Dorothea in the light of St Theresa. who benefited from the 'coherent social faith and order' of an ardently Christian society. Eliot's contemporaries were haunted by the sense that such simple faith was no longer tenable (especially post Darwin). She shared a view, widespread amongst intellectuals, that Christianity no longer provided an overarching framework for understanding life. In 1873 R H Hutton commented that the evolutionary theory of Darwin fuelled 'a great wave of sceptism' and that Middlemarch 'registered the low tide mark of spiritual belief among the literary class in the nineteenth century'. We can therefore see that Darwin fanned the flames of doubt already caused by the OM and earlier dissenting movements.

In MM the narrator observes that 'sceptism, as we know, can never be thoroughly applied, else life would come to a standstill: something we must believe in and do' and Dorothea's belief is 'That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't know quite what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil, widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower.' This was a very personal vision, akin to St Theresa's, but outwith the framework of the church - more secular than christian and perhaps representing Eliot's own view. I find it a very modern viewpoint because many people today affirm a belief in 'something' rather than in the strict tenets of christianity. In the UK at least.

[Everyman]

We haven't paid much attention yet to the opening of the prelude. "Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, ..."

If Eliot were a less careful author, we might dismiss this as just a casual introductory comment to lead into the story of St Theresa. But I agree with commentators who see this introduction as a statement of the overall theme of Eliot's work -- a study of the history of a small group of men and women as they work through the varying experiments (here already is the scientific theme being introduced in the first sentence of the work) of Time (with, note, a capital T.)

This, I think,is why she quite intentionally chose to place her novel at a turbulent moment in the history of England. We have dramatic changes taking place in the political life of the country with the First Reform Bill; we have dramatic changes taking place in the medical profession; we have the coming of the railroads with the major changes they are making in almost every aspect of life in England; we have the challenges, following up on Wollstonecraft's work about fifty years earlier, to looking afresh at the role of women in society (although it happens after the time of the novel, before Eliot wrote it Parliament had passed the 1857 Divorce Act, and had just passedthe first (1870) Married Women's Property Act.

This backdrop is not, I think, just incidental to the book, but is central to the study which Eliot is offering us. We are to look at the characters and events of the story, I think, not "just" as a story but as readers who care much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time.

[MadgeUK]

I have just noticed that my edition of MM has a useful list of Themes:-

Altruism and Egoism
The Web of Social Relationships
The General and the Particular
Social Class
Gender
George Eliot's literary realism

I looked to see if they were similar to Sparknotes but they vary. I found Sparknotes' 'Gossip and Speaking for Others' interesting and think the Narrator is the most influential gossip:). Gradesaver had a nice long list of major themes.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/middlem...

http://www.gradesaver.com/middlemarch...

In the context of the Web of Social Relationships and the Imperfections of Marriage, I see marriage as being a very prominent theme because MM intertwines no less than three courtship and marriage plots. Does it, I wonder, reflect the problems GE herself had within her common law and later lawful marriage?

[Dianna]

I wanted to post something from Tolstoy's War and Peace in contrast to what Everyman wrote in post 118. Particularly this: "she quite intentionally chose to place her novel at a turbulent moment in the history of England."

War and Peace Chapter 28

"Many historians say that the French failed to win the battle of Borodino because Napoleon had a cold, and that if he had not had a cold the orders he gave before and during the battle would have evinced even greater genius, and Russia would have been destroyed and the face of the world would have been changed."

...consequently, the valet who forgot to bring Napoleon his waterproof boots on the twenty-fourth would have been Russia's savior." (lol, I think this quote and this particular chapter I am reading in War and Peace is doubly apropos considering the healthcare debate.) ...The very best and most deeply considered dispositions and orders seem inferior and are pompously criticized by every military expert when they have not resulted in victory, and the very worst dispositions and orders seem excellent, and serious men devote whole volumes to demonstrating their merits, when a battle has been won by them."

[[deleted user]]

I'm reading just on schedule; the new schedule seems fine, too.


I did want to say that, going into Book 2, and having read Everyman's background remarks and having checked out a number of the links provided by Everyman and by Madge, I've been finding the reading to be a richer experience. Many thanks.

Dianna's "small details" comment will probably alter my reading outlook as well. lol. I'll be an the lookout for little "if only..."s.

[MadgeUK]

Thanks Adelle, glad they were useful. I rather think that Eliot is too much of a realist to give us 'if only' but I look forward to seeing any you may find:). She does seem to have a nostalgia for past times though.

[[deleted user]]

Just an hour ago I thought I DID run across one!

'Though perhaps I was influenced and seeing what I was looking for, yes?

In any case, it's with the Book 2 discussion, so I look forward to seeing you in Book 2.