George Eliot was clear about her taste for literature. It must be realistic. It must challenge us. It must expand our ability to understand that which we resist. It should not favor one gender over another. It must guide us down the road to what is the best in human character. It cannot be fluffy!
While George Eliot appreciated many writers of her generation, she leaned toward change agents like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Ralph Waldo Emerson. She appreciated women writers who poured their thoughts and emotions to the printed page, but it had to express an ideal to work toward, not fluffy prose that most of us find favorable in Jane Austen's works - boy meets girl, they marry, raise children, and throw tea parties and balls. Eliot was a realist. She spent her life dealing with the knowledge that she would not land a husband with her looks, and possibly not land a husband at all! She centered her life around the love of books and writing, and from that early wisdom, she launched her campaign to live on her own terms (unmarried) with her soul mate, George H. Lewes.
George Eliot wrote about her own life and others' lives with whom she became familiar. She was well-traveled, and by the time she wrote MIDDLEMARCH, she had collected characters from across England and the Continent (Europe). Though Henry James found her most popular novel, MIDDLEMARCH, contrived, it stands as a masterpiece of intertwined people and events dredged from the depths of George Eliot's soul." ~ Freda M. Chaney www.karmaroadwalkingthroughtime.com
While George Eliot appreciated many writers of her generation, she leaned toward change agents like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Ralph Waldo Emerson. She appreciated women writers who poured their thoughts and emotions to the printed page, but it had to express an ideal to work toward, not fluffy prose that most of us find favorable in Jane Austen's works - boy meets girl, they marry, raise children, and throw tea parties and balls. Eliot was a realist. She spent her life dealing with the knowledge that she would not land a husband with her looks, and possibly not land a husband at all! She centered her life around the love of books and writing, and from that early wisdom, she launched her campaign to live on her own terms (unmarried) with her soul mate, George H. Lewes.
George Eliot wrote about her own life and others' lives with whom she became familiar. She was well-traveled, and by the time she wrote MIDDLEMARCH, she had collected characters from across England and the Continent (Europe). Though Henry James found her most popular novel, MIDDLEMARCH, contrived, it stands as a masterpiece of intertwined people and events dredged from the depths of George Eliot's soul." ~ Freda M. Chaney www.karmaroadwalkingthroughtime.com
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