English 322 - George Eliot

When George Eliot's first stories were published, Charles Dickens wrote, 'The exquisite truth and delicacy both of the humor and the pathos of these stories, I have never seen the like of.' Decades later, Virginia Woolf called Middlemarch 'one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.' In her letters, Eliot said she wanted to change what the novel could do. Her novels are concerned with the mysterious and mundane, with the force of culture and history, and with the reverberations that move through the world from individual to individual. We will read some of her major works, including Adam Bede, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda, as well as some of her essays, influences, and historical and critical contexts.

This course is open to Juniors and Seniors. Prereq: 8 credits from English department at the 200- or 300-level