Synopses & Reviews
In the opening chapter of her 1866 novel 'Felix Holt', George Eliot tells her readers that the 'vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence'. 'George Eliot's Grammar of Being' is developed from the idea that George Eliot wanted to produce these vibrations within her novels, not just at the level of story and character, but also at the level of language. She was a novelist who wanted the public to read her sentences almost as carefully as she wrote them—to make her readers find and subconsciously respond to those places in the prose where the syntax itself delivers subtle shocks to the system 'beneath' context. Relying heavily on examination of original manuscripts and page proofs, this book shows how George Eliot’s is a carefully evolved grammar where the vibrations are purposefully created and then enhanced through active revision. Drawing on the influence of Victorian psychological and neuro-physiological theory, as well as study of the manuscripts and writing processes of other Victorian novelists, the book shows how the sentences within a novel can become a kind of nervous system to the narrative, thus highlighting the integral role that language plays in the inspiration of our sympathy as readers.
Review
‘This important book […] reveal[s] the novelist’s meticulous thinking and re-thinking of the shape and pattern of each sentence […] in this kind of reading we are returned to a familiar text we realize we have read too rapidly, and are grateful. The whole book is a welcome example of close reading […] Raines earns a place in the history of Eliot criticism.’ —Barbara Hardy, ‘The George Eliot Review’
Review
‘Through her intensive engagement with Eliot’s language [Raines] admirably strives to articulate aspects of Eliot’s writing that are barely audible, beneath the surface of, but resonating with, the themes and plots of the novels […] The book’s strength is its close inspection of Eliot’s punctuation and the detailed comparisons of manuscripts, proofs (where they exist), and published editions.’ —Nancy Henry, ‘Victorian Studies’
Synopsis
A study of the meticulous writing process of George Eliot, drawing on original manuscripts and Victorian psychological theory.
Synopsis
Drawing on original manuscripts and Victorian psychological theory, this study shows that George Eliot was an author who shaped her sentences as carefully as she wanted her public to read them.
Synopsis
George Eliot’s writing process was meticulous in all of its phases, from manuscript to published text. Each of her extensive novels has a delicately crafted syntax, for she shaped her individual sentences as carefully as she wanted her public to read them. Building on the influence of Victorian psychological theory, this book explains how George Eliot consciously created subtle shocks within her grammar—reaching out to her readers beneath the levels of character and story—in her effort to inspire sympathetic response.
About the Author
Melissa Anne Raines was born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas, where she received her bachelor’s degree in English. She worked for several years as a teacher and proof-reader before returning to academia to study Victorian literature in the UK. She has a Masters and a PhD from the University of Liverpool.
Raines’s early research focused on the novels of Thomas Hardy. She has published articles on George Eliot’s novels, and she is contributing the entry on Anthony Trollope to the Oxford Bibliographies Online project. Her focus is on close textual analysis, with the use of original manuscripts. She teaches at the University of Liverpool.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Note to the Text
Chapter One: Tracing the 'Utmost Intricacies of the Soul’s Pathways' in ‘Felix Holt, The Radical’
Chapter Two: Listening for the 'Strain of Solemn Music' in ‘The Mill on the Floss’
Chapter Three: Awakening the 'Mere Pulsation of Desire' in ‘Silas Marner’
Chapter Four: ‘Romola’ and the 'Pain of Resistance'
Chapter Five: ‘Middlemarch’ and the Struggle with the 'Equivalent Centre of Self'
Chapter Six: 'The View Which the Mind Takes of a Thing' in Anthony Trollope’s ‘The Small House at Allington’
Chapter Seven: 'The Ill-judged Execution of the Well-judged Plan' in Thomas Hardy’s ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’
Chapter Eight: Transformations from ‘Adam Bede’ to ‘Daniel Deronda’
Bibliography