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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.
'[A] relevant and valuable resource for Eliot scholars, particularly for students of Eliot’s revision process and her adoption of scientific thought into her novel-writing practice’. —Doreen Thierauf, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
‘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’
‘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’
Melissa Anne Raines has studied literature in both the US and the UK. She has completed extensive research on the manuscripts of George Eliot, as well as the manuscripts of Anthony Trollope and Thomas Hardy. She teaches at the University of Liverpool.
Preface; Introduction; A Note on the Text; PART ONE: 'THE UTMOST INTRICACIES OF THE SOUL'S PATHWAYS'--SYNTAX AND INDIVIDUALITY; Listening for the 'Strain of Solemn Music' in ‘The Mill on the Floss’; Awakening the 'Mere Pulsation of Desire' in ‘Silas Marner’; ‘Romola’ and the 'Pain of Resistance'; Hearing the Many Whispers 'in the Roar of Hurrying Existence' in ‘Felix Holt, The Radical’; PART TWO: 'THE MERCY OF THOSE SORROWS'--SYNTAX AND SYMPATHY; The Initial 'Transformation of Pain into Sympathy' in ‘Adam Bede’; 'The View Which the Mind Takes of a Thing' in Anthony Trollope’s ‘The Small House at Allington’; ‘Middlemarch’ and the Struggle with the 'Equivalent Centre of Self'; Developing the 'Outer Conscience' in ‘Daniel Deronda’; Notes; Bibliography; Index