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George Eliot and Blackmail.

George Eliot and Blackmail. REVIEWS T h e deconstructive impulse is not limited to free play with a word, however; it also shows itself in the reading of novels. “That George Eliot set both Felix Holt and Middlemurch at the time of the first Reform Bill,” Welsh maintains, “has more to d o with the enthusiasm for knowledge in those years than it has to do with politics” (p. 40). Whereas we know from Eliot’s notebooks that she did extensive research on the politics of reform, we do not know that she did any research o n the explosion of information. Welsh quotes Bulwer’s England and the English to advance his thesis; but he proves nothing about Eliot-only something about Bulwer- by doing so. T h e deconstructive impulse seems most powerfully at work in Welsh’s reading of Romola. H e presents it as a novel of “great subversive power” (p. 190). Eliot is seen with Romola o n the side of “memory a n d truth” (p. 190); Tito is o n the side of forgetfulness a n d deceit. But the contradictions in Romolu show that Eliot cannot dramatize the error of Tito’s ways without implicating Romola a n d http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History Duke University Press

George Eliot and Blackmail.

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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 1986 by University of Washington
ISSN
0026-7929
eISSN
1527-1943
DOI
10.1215/00267929-47-1-75
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

REVIEWS T h e deconstructive impulse is not limited to free play with a word, however; it also shows itself in the reading of novels. “That George Eliot set both Felix Holt and Middlemurch at the time of the first Reform Bill,” Welsh maintains, “has more to d o with the enthusiasm for knowledge in those years than it has to do with politics” (p. 40). Whereas we know from Eliot’s notebooks that she did extensive research on the politics of reform, we do not know that she did any research o n the explosion of information. Welsh quotes Bulwer’s England and the English to advance his thesis; but he proves nothing about Eliot-only something about Bulwer- by doing so. T h e deconstructive impulse seems most powerfully at work in Welsh’s reading of Romola. H e presents it as a novel of “great subversive power” (p. 190). Eliot is seen with Romola o n the side of “memory a n d truth” (p. 190); Tito is o n the side of forgetfulness a n d deceit. But the contradictions in Romolu show that Eliot cannot dramatize the error of Tito’s ways without implicating Romola a n d

Journal

Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History – Duke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 1986

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