Middlemarch in the Twenty-First Century
Author(s): Karen Chase
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publication Date: January 5, 2006
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 224 pages
- ISBN-10: 0195169964
- ISBN-13: 9780195169966
Book Description
Middlemarch is the prime example of George Eliot's dictum that "interpretations are illimitable," and in this collection of new essays Middlemarch is re-examined as an open text responsive to gaps and fissures, and as resistant to authority as it is to other fixed notions of identity, idealism, and gender. What does the novel omit, and how do the omissions shape what is there? How shall we understand the materiality of the text? What problems does it pose to adaptation? The novel's plasticity becomes a basis for investigation into the multiple forms of expressiveness, and a consideration of how we might plot the patterns linguistically, ideologically, even cinematically. New spaces emerge within character, place, and narrative; what seemed absent or inaccessible assumes shape and definition; Middlemarch remains "Victorian" but it is a Victorianism understood through the dual perspectives of the 19th and 21st centuries. Scholars of George Eliot and students of Victorianism will be engaged by the wide-ranging scope of these essays, which nonetheless build on each other to form a coherent narrative of critical reflections. If there is something for everyone in Middlemarch, there is also something compelling about each of the essays in this collection.
Editorial Reviews
Review
"'Middlemarch' in the Twenty-First Century includes a number of challenging essays by major critics, most of whom work to unsettle received readings of major texts."--Elizabeth Helsinger, Studies in English Literature
"A very readable as well as learned reappraisal of Eliot's narrative ambitions, which might, for once, fulfil the publisher's promise to make one of the most forbidding nineteenth-century novels seem attractive to students. No doubt it is precisely because the contributors to this collection are so distinguished...that this book acquires its slightly celebratory, but at the same time intimately authoritative tone.... It is as provocative as it is perceptive."--Times Literary Supplement
Review
This collection offers the most up to date readings of this important Victorian novel
Review
"'Middlemarch' in the Twenty-First Century includes a number of challenging essays by major critics, most of whom work to unsettle received readings of major texts."--Elizabeth Helsinger, Studies in English Literature
"A very readable as well as learned reappraisal of Eliot's narrative ambitions, which might, for once, fulfil the publisher's promise to make one of the most forbidding nineteenth-century novels seem attractive to students. No doubt it is precisely because the contributors to this collection are so distinguished...that this book acquires its slightly celebratory, but at the same time intimately authoritative tone.... It is as provocative as it is perceptive."--Times Literary Supplement
Book Description
This collection offers the most up to date readings of this important Victorian novel
From the Publisher
Karen Chase is Professor of English at the University of Virginia.
About the Author
Karen Chase is Professor of English at the University of Virginia.
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