Eliot’s work is close in some ways to naturalism, which, however, did not prevent her from reproducing a typical picture of the life of the provincial philistinism in her novel “The Mill on the Floss” (Russian translation, 1860).

The works signed by the male name “George Eliot” are already a century and a half old. Life, way of life and traditions, against the backdrop of which the action of such novels as “Middlemarch”, “Siles Manner”, “The Mill on the Floss”, have long since receded into history, however, the concreteness and recognition of details, the psychological accuracy of the characters and relationships of the heroes, as well as masterfully the painted pictures of old England attract new and new generations of readers to them. Mary Evans, married to Cross, was not the only writer who preferred to publish her works under a man’s name - just remember such a well-known name in 21st-century literature as Georges Sand. However, such a subtle connoisseur of human souls as Charles Dickens, not being familiar with the writer, immediately guessed that the woman was calling herself George Elliot.

Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans ( Mary Ann Evans was born on November 22, 1819 in a house located in the Derbyshire countryside. Her father, Robert Evans, a native of Wales, was the manager of Arbury Hall, the family estate of the Barons of Newdigate, and her mother, Christina Pearson, was a farmer's daughter. The family already had two children of Robert from a previous marriage, as well as the eldest daughter Chrissie and son Isaac. Mary was considered an ugly girl, but she was smart and loved to read. Robert Evans understood that neither external data nor a dowry could provide his daughter with a profitable marriage and a worthy place in society, so he decided to give her a good education. From five to sixteen years old, the girl studied in closed schools.

In 1836, Christina Evans died. Mary took it into her own hands

and the entire household, she did not part with her father until his death in 1849. The girl was allowed to use the magnificent library of Archery Hall, and she perfectly studied the books of the classics, including those in Latin and Greek. In 1840, after her brother's marriage, Mary Evans and her father moved to the town of Foleshill, near Coventry. There she met the philanthropist manufacturer Charles Bray, who maintained wide contact with philosophers, writers, and liberal religious figures, in particular with Robert Owen, David Strauss, and Ludwig Feuerbach.

In 1846, Mary Evans anonymously published her first book, a translation of Strauss's Life of Christ. After her father's death, she traveled around Europe for some time, then came to London, where she settled in the house of her old friend from Coventry, the publisher John Chapman. He published the literary and philosophical magazine "Westminster Review", and after much hesitation and persuasion from Chapman, Mary, who began to call herself Marian, took the position of assistant editor in the magazine without pay. Simultaneously with the enormous work that had to be done in the magazine, Marian was translating Feuerbach’s book “The Essence of Christianity.” This translation was published in 1854 and was the only work that Marian Evans published under her real name. In the same year, she met the philosopher and critic George Henry Lewis. Despite the fact that Lewis was married to Agnes Jervis and had three children, he entered into an agreement with his wife for mutual freedom; Agnes's four children

Their father was the editor of the Daily Telegraph, Thornton Hart, and were formally considered to be the children of Lewis, and dissolution of the marriage was practically impossible under the laws of that time. Although extramarital affairs were not uncommon in Victorian England, and among writers and journalists they were very common, open communication was considered a challenge to society. The romance between Marian Evans and George Lewis began in 1854 and marked a new stage in her literary creativity. During the first months of their trip to Weimar together, Marian completed a translation of Baruch Spinoza's Ethics and began writing fiction.

In 1857, Blackwood Magazine began publishing a series of stories entitled “Scenes from the Life of the Clergy,” whose author was listed as George Elliott. The choice of a male pseudonym was not accidental - at that time, as to this day, “ladies’ prose” is a priori considered as frivolous entertaining reading; In addition, Marian did not want to attract readers' attention to her person and the peculiarities of her personal life. In 1859, Marian wrote her first major novel, Adam Bede. The background for this book was a time familiar to her from her father’s stories - the end of the 18th century. The novel enjoyed extraordinary popularity, and to this day is considered the best English novel in the “rural” style. This book was admired by Queen Victoria, who commissioned the artist Edward Corbould to create a series of paintings based on Adam Bede.

The next novel, “The Mill on the Floss” (1860), described the events that took place during the writer’s youth, and the heroine of this work, Maggie Theule

liver, in many ways resembled the young Mary Evans. On title page"Mills on the Floss" bore the dedication: "To my beloved husband, George Henry Lewis, I dedicate my third book, written in the sixth year of our marriage." The following year, the writer published her last “autobiographical” work, Silas Marner. In 1863, Marian Evans wrote the historical novel Romola, set in Renaissance Florence, and in 1866, the incisive social-critical narrative Felix Holt, Radical. This was followed by the poem “The Spanish Gypsy,” written in blank verse, but it, like the poetic experiments of young Mary Evans, was not successful. But the novel “Middlemarch” (1870), showing the story of the moral degeneration of the heroes, became her best book and became the glory of English literature. The last work The writer became "Daniel Deronda", written in 1876.

The success of George Elliot's novels softened public reaction to the Lewis-Evans union, especially since their relationship has stood the test of time; in 1877, the writer was even introduced to Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Louise. Lewis died in 1877. For two years, Marian prepared his last work, Life and Mind, for publication, and in May 1880 she once again challenged society: she married an old family friend, John Cross, who was fifteen years younger than her and was depressed after the death of her mother. However, the marriage turned out to be short: in December 1880, the writer died. Her ashes are buried in Highgate Cemetery, next to the grave of Henry Lewis.

In 1841 she moved with her father to Foleshill, near Coventry.
In 1846, Mary Ann anonymously published a translation of D. F. Strauss's Life of Jesus. After the death of her father (1849), she did not hesitate to accept the position of assistant editor at the Westminster Review and in 1851 she moved to London. In 1854, her translation of “The Essence of Christianity” by L. Feuerbach was published. At the same time, her civil marriage began with J. G. Lewis, a famous literary critic who also wrote on scientific and philosophical themes. In the first months of their life together, Mary Ann completed a translation of Spinoza's Ethics and in September 1856 turned to fiction.

Her first work was a cycle of three stories, appeared in Blackwood's Magazine in 1857 under the general title "Scenes of Clerical Life" and the pseudonym "George Eliot". Like many other writers of the 19th century (George Sand, Marco Vovchok, the Brontë sisters - “Carrer, Ellis and Acton Bell”, Krestovsky-Khvoshchinskaya) - Mary Evans used a male pseudonym in order to arouse in the public a serious attitude towards her writings and caring for the integrity of your personal life. (In the 19th century, her works were translated into Russian without disclosing her pseudonym, which was inflected like a man’s first and last name: “a novel by George Eliot”). Nevertheless, Charles Dickens immediately guessed a woman in the mysterious “Eliot”.
Anticipating her future and best creations, “Scenes” are full of heartfelt memories of the former, who had not yet known railways England.
Published in 1859, the novel Adam Bede, an extremely popular and perhaps the best pastoral novel in English literature, brought Eliot to the forefront of Victorian novelists. In “Adam Beede” George Eliot wrote about the times of her father’s youth (England at the end of the 18th century), in “The Mill on the Floss” (English: The Mill on the Floss, 1860) she turned to her own early impressions. The heroine of the novel, the passionate and spiritual Maggie Tulliver, has much in common with the young Mary Ann Evans. The most substantive of Eliot's "rural" novels is Silas Marner. The characters live lives that are convincing in the eyes of the reader; they are surrounded by a concrete, recognizable world. This is Eliot's last "autobiographical" novel. “Romola” (English: Romola, 1863) tells the story of Florence in the 15th century, and the paintings of Renaissance Italy are as read from books as they were fed by the memories of the “scene” of departing England. In Felix Holt the Radical (1866), returning to English life, Eliot revealed the temperament of an acute social critic.
Published in 1868, the long poem in blank verse “The Spanish Gypsy”, like her other experiments in poetry, did not stand the test of time.
Eliot's universally recognized masterpiece is the novel Middlemarch; published in parts in 1871-1872. Eliot shows how a powerful desire for good can be ruined by hidden weakness, how complexities of character nullify the noblest aspirations, how moral degeneration befalls people who were not initially bad at all. Eliot's last novel, Daniel Deronda, appeared in 1876. Lewis died two years later, and the writer devoted herself to preparing his manuscripts for publication. In May 1880, she married an old family friend, D. W. Cross, but died on December 22, 1880.

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Biography

In 1841 she moved with her father to Foleshill, near Coventry.

In 1846, Mary Ann anonymously published a translation of D. F. Strauss's Life of Jesus. After the death of her father (1849), she did not hesitate to accept the position of assistant editor at the Westminster Review and in 1851 she moved to London. In 1854, her translation of “The Essence of Christianity” by L. Feuerbach was published. At the same time, her civil marriage began with J. G. Lewis, a famous literary critic who also wrote on scientific and philosophical topics. In the first months of their life together, Mary Ann completed a translation of Spinoza's Ethics and in September 1856 turned to fiction.

Her first work was a series of three stories that appeared in Blackwood's Magazine in 1857 under the general title “Scenes of Clerical Life” and under the pseudonym “George Eliot.” Like many other writers of the 19th century (George Sand, Marco Vovchok, the Brontë sisters - “Carrer, Ellis and Acton Bell”, Krestovsky-Khvoshchinskaya) - Mary Evans used a male pseudonym in order to arouse in the public a serious attitude towards her writings and caring for the integrity of your personal life. (In the 19th century, her works were translated into Russian without disclosing her pseudonym, which was inflected like a man’s first and last name: “a novel by George Eliot”). Nevertheless, Charles Dickens immediately guessed a woman in the mysterious “Eliot”.

Anticipating her future and best creations, “Scenes” are full of sincere memories of the former England, which did not yet know the railways.

Published in 1859, Adam Bede, an enormously popular and perhaps the best pastoral novel in English literature, brought Eliot into the forefront of Victorian novelists. In “Adam Beede” George Eliot wrote about the times of her father’s youth (England at the end of the 18th century), in “The Mill on the Floss” (1860) she turned to her own early impressions. The heroine of the novel, the passionate and spiritual Maggie Tulliver, has much in common with the young Mary Ann Evans. The most substantive of Eliot's "rural" novels is Silas Marner. The characters live lives that are convincing in the eyes of the reader; they are surrounded by a concrete, recognizable world. This is Eliot's last "autobiographical" novel. Romola (1863) tells the story of 15th-century Florence, and the paintings of Renaissance Italy are as read from books as they were fed by the memories of the “scene” of bygone England. In Felix Holt the Radical (1866), returning to English life, Eliot revealed the temperament of a keen social critic.

Eliot's universally recognized masterpiece is the novel Middlemarch; published in parts in 1871-1872. Eliot shows how a powerful desire for good can be ruined by hidden weakness, how complexities of character nullify the noblest aspirations, how moral degeneration befalls people who were not initially bad at all. Eliot's last novel, Daniel Deronda, appeared in 1876. Lewis died two years later, and the writer devoted herself to preparing his manuscripts for publication. In May 1880, she married an old family friend, D. W. Cross, but died on December 22, 1880.

Biography

George Eliot (now Mary Ann Evans) belongs to a different generation of novelists than the early Victorian writers. Her destiny as a writer was different; her relationship with the modern literary process was more complicated, where the influence of the ideas of positivism and evolutionary development made itself felt more and more clearly. Eliot's era, although a continuation of the Victorian era, shows signs of a new, coming century.

A comprehensively educated woman who had an excellent knowledge of philosophy, mathematics, and natural science, who translated the German theologian D. F. Strauss, Feuerbach, and Spinoza, she was an excellent musician and introduced the English reading public to translations of Liszt’s articles on Meyerbeer. Eliot was well acquainted with Herbert Spencer; With the positivist philosopher Henry Lewis, she was in a civil marriage, for many years incurring the wrath of both relatives and representatives of the so-called high society, who did not accept her in their circles. Raised in a strict faith, she subsequently (in the early 40s) refuses to attend church and increasingly thinks about the moral meaning of religion. This was a period of schism in the church movement, when the so-called Oxford direction, a new type of Catholicism, clearly emerged (Newman).

For a long time, Eliot collaborated with the Westminster Review magazine, was a talented publicist and a serious philosopher-popularizer. Together with Lewis, she introduced her compatriots to modern German philosophy. The writer was an ardent admirer of the talent of W. Scott and the romantics. At the age of 20, she stated that Wordsworth and the English Romantics helped her understand and express herself and her feelings.

Prose in the 50s becomes static, which means it requires more careful detailed reproduction of everyday life, ordinary life. But this gives the reader the opportunity to take a closer and closer look at the person, to understand his actions, actions, and relationships with other people.

By the middle of the 19th century. the novel is already “saturated” with the philosophy of positivism and naturalism. The psychology of the hero was enriched by the depiction of hereditary factors influencing a person’s character, his temperament and social behavior. D. Eliot, familiar with the latest discoveries in natural science, used the factor of heredity when depicting character. The change in the structure of the novel was reinforced by Eliot's innovations. The plot ceased to exist as such. His function began to be essentially performed by the character of the character. Scenes provincial life, copied from life by Eliot, as well as portraits of her closest relatives, which became the prototypes of the heroes of her works, were created by the hand of the second master of prose half of the 19th century centuries. She introduces production processes into works of art, she equally scrupulously examines court records and records the gossip of provincial Minerva, and with an equal degree of conscientiousness she portrays a squire or a village priest, a member of parliament or a simple carpenter. Representatives of various professions fill the pages of her works - sailors, watchmakers, carpenters, priests, governesses and representatives of bohemians. Paying tribute to the work of W. Scott and J. Sand, she creates historical novels and uses already known plot motifs and ideas. The world of Eliot's novels seems to consist of two concentric circles. One, the internal one, consists of a small group of characters directly involved in resolving moral problems, the other is the external world, usually represented by a provincial environment. Here, as in The Human Comedy, there are doctors and priests, bankers and journalists, philosophers and practitioners, people not of this world, as well as heroes who fit well into bourgeois business circles.

Eliot's work can be divided into two periods.

The first is 1858-1861, when the novels were created: “Scenes of Provincial Life” (1858), “Adam Bede” (1859), “The Mill on the Floss” (1860), “Siles Marner” (1861).

The two periods of her creative activity are separated by the historical novel Romola (1863), which takes place during the time of Savonarola.

The second stage of D. Eliot’s work opens with the novel “Felix Holt, Radical” (1866). The novels “Middlemarch” (1871-1872) and “Daniel Deronda” (1876) belong to this period.

The works of the first period are mainly devoted to the life of the province, they reflect the childhood and youthful impressions of Eliot, who spent 1819-1835. in Warwickshire.

Eliot's first work, Scenes of Provincial Life, was highly praised by Dickens, who wrote to the author: “I have never seen such truth and such grace as the humorous and pathetic scenes of these stories breathe.” Scenes from Provincial Life included three stories: "Amos Barton", "Gilfil's Love Story" and "Janet's Repentance". Eliot chooses notoriously ordinary characters. In Chapter V of the story “Amos Barton” she even apologizes to the reader for the fact that her hero is such an uninteresting and mediocre person. But the main advantage of Eliot's heroes lies precisely in their simplicity, even mediocrity, which is the key to their moral purity and decency. The ironic and satirical pages of this story are associated with its main character - Countess Charlatskaya.

It is no coincidence that Eliot first introduces us not to the Countess herself, but to her dog. Toilets, especially fashionable ones, are the countess’s weakness, and who has no weaknesses, the narrator notes. The reader readily believes this, just as he perceives the difference between the modest life of the family of the priest Barton and the socialite.

The story carefully and lovingly depicts the life of the province, its measured way of life, and the leisurely conversations of ordinary people. The author’s frequently used technique of inappropriately direct speech perfectly characterizes the character and enriches our understanding of his character and place in society. Thus, Countess Charlatskaya constantly boasts of her advantage over everyone else, but at the same time she hypocritically justifies all her misdeeds, worrying about the afterlife.

The novel "Adam Bede" can rightfully be considered programmatic work writer, since the basic artistic principles, highly valued by her contemporaries, are implemented here. Eliot portrays the ordinary and prosaic as worthy of the most exquisite artistic expression. She describes Adam's carpentry shop with great skill and makes the reader physically feel the rhythm of the work and smell the pine shavings. Protocol records are also used here court session, which indicates the author’s attention to the document, the fact that becomes the object artistic image. The plot of the novel "Adam Bede" is based on the rivalry between the carpenter Bede and the nobleman Arthur Donnithorne over the farm worker Hetty Sorel. However, the writer is more interested in moral problems, which she poses in this novel, confronting two moralities - the morality of the artisan and the morality of the nobleman. Both contenders for Hetty's heart have merit. Adam Beed is honest, hardworking, frank and sincere.

Arthur Donnithorne is an educated, charming man, but completely disregards others, even close people. Attractive Hetty becomes his mistress, and then, abandoned by him, commits a crime - she kills her own child and ends up in hard labor. Some of Eliot's contemporaries saw a touch of vulgarity and naturalism in this novel. Responding to her opponents, Eliot wrote that one must love the beauty that lies not in the harmony of external, flashy attractiveness, but in the harmony of a person’s inner world, in the hard-working palms of working people. This is the source of Eliot’s peculiar democracy, who, following the romantics, saw beauty where it is imperceptible and invisible.

Of the minor characters in the novel, it is necessary to note Mrs. Poyser, who received a lease of land belonging to Donnithorne, Arthur's grandfather. In the character of this woman there is a lot of Walterscott’s folk characters, lively and apt in expressions, courageous and principled, not afraid of quarrels with the owner, always feeling their moral superiority over him. The question of W. Scott’s influence on Eliot’s work has not been sufficiently studied in our literary criticism, but it should be noted that traces of the influence of the work of the “Scottish wizard” are noticeable in “Adam Bede.” In the novels "Edinburgh Dungeon" and "Adam Bede" there are similar plot motifs, similar characters - Hetty and Effie Deans. Two women are fighting for the life and fate of Hetty and Effie - both determined and persistent. However, in Scott's case, Effie's sister Jenny seeks a meeting with Queen Caroline in order to beg her forgiveness for the frivolous Effie; in Eliot's novel, Dina Morris tries to influence Hetty with moral admonitions. However, the heroines of Scott and Eliot are different in their moral principles. Methodist Morris, trying to guide the lost sheep on the right path, wants to get Hetty to repent of infanticide, while Scott's heroine humanly pities her sister, wanting to save her. The moral side of positivist teaching, which Eliot especially welcomed, was to remind man not only of his rights, but also of his duties.

The criterion for evaluating the actions of heroes is determined precisely by how moral or immoral his behavior is.

Thus, in “Siles Marner,” the novel centers on the fate of Silas Marner, who was robbed by the son of the landowner Cass Danetan and who sheltered the illegitimate daughter of Cass’s second son, Godfrey. Godfrey's immoral act is punished by the fact that he is childless, and when he feels completely alone, he turns to Silas with a request to return his daughter, whom he once abandoned.

Eliot's ordinary people turn out to be bearers of the highest justice and morality, but they prefer to remain in their own environment. Eliot's best novel of the first period is "The Mill on the Floss" (1860), which is preceded by the short story "The Lifted Veil" - a melancholic story about the fate of Latimer, who married his dead brother's fiancée Bertha, who was cruel and soulless towards him. The story “The Mill on the Floss” deserves attention because in it the writer not only studies the nature of two types of heredity in two families - the Tullivers and the Dodsons, to which the main characters Maggie and Tom belong. By the way, the prototypes of the Dodsons and Tullivers were Eliot’s own relatives. The environment of some is a bourgeois, bourgeois environment in which the cult of entrepreneurship, profit, huckstering, and respectability reigns (the Dodsons). Completely opposite in spirit to the Dodsons, the Tullivers are kind, trusting, impractical people. They do not think about the number of torchbearers at the funeral, they often follow the voice of feeling rather than reason, so they end up in trouble. Tom has inherited the traits of his relatives - he has difficulty learning (Maggie helps him in his studies), he is narrow-minded, but practical and hardworking. Thanks to his practicality and efficiency, he restores his father’s fortune and achieves the return of the mill. The only thing that he has in common with Maggie is his affection for his sister, respect and admiration for her extraordinary nature.

Maggie is the complete opposite of Tom. This is an intelligent, emotional girl, free from the prejudices of the environment in which she grew up, not afraid of the gossip of her neighbors, bold and courageous, not thinking about the consequences of her often risky actions. Maggie captivates with her spontaneity, freedom, energy, and diversity of her spiritual needs. She can run away to a gypsy camp, get carried away by her cousin's fiancé, fall in love with the son of a lawyer who ruined their family. But in critical moment Maggie finds the strength to suppress her feelings in the name of duty. The moral principle in her character is nourished by a unique philosophy of life, different from hereditary factors. Essentially, Eliot, when creating the characters of her characters, is not completely faithful to the theory of heredity, as it might seem at first glance. Both Tom and Maggie, despite the complexity of their relationship, are reconciled by their common end - they both drown in the waves of the Floss. But the main thing is that their intention to never part is fulfilled. In letters to friends, D. Eliot wrote that the characters of the main characters were written with the same degree of care. The writer pays main attention to the inner world of the characters, that dynamic, intense struggle that occurs in Maggie’s soul when she discovers a world different from her own ideas and ideals.

Great changes took place in the worldview of D. Eliot herself. She moved further and further away from orthodox Christianity. She came to the recognition of any faith that contributes to the moral improvement of man. As the writer was ready to recognize various church teachings, her rationalism became more and more distinct, which sometimes led to a particularly clear and thorough reproduction of the realities of the outside world in her works. She was one of the first writers of Victorian England who came close to depicting the mechanism of the intellect, the process of thinking, which later became the property of the psychological novel.

This circumstance gives rise to a certain scientific quality in the description of the details of everyday life and furnishings, architecture, and interiors of Florence in the 15th century. in the historical novel Romola.

The characters of Savonarola, as well as Romola and her husband Tito Melem, are drawn quite objectively, in full accordance with the writer’s requirement to portray characters objectively and dispassionately, so that readers understand what they are bad and what they are good at. The characters undoubtedly obscure the background, which includes historical events. Perhaps, it is in the reproduction of historical events that Eliot is closer to Thackeray than to Dickens or W. Scott, if we mean the historical genre. She is interested in characters, not plot, facts human destiny, not the facts of history. People's life at the turning points of crisis in history remained outside the scope of Eliot's artistic depiction. However, her novelistic work of the second period develops in accordance with the changes that the novel genre undergoes in the second half of the 19th century.

This is evidenced by her novel “Felix Holt, Radical” (1866), where important questions political, social and moral character. The thematic range of her work is expanding - the novel depicts all circles of society in the 30s, the period of the bourgeoisie’s struggle for electoral reform. Felix Holt is the son of a weaver who learned the trade of a watchmaker. This educated young man does not at all strive to get into the middle strata of society, as the priest Mr. Lyon advises him. He is proud of his origin and is a true spokesman for the people's interests. His radicalism is true, not false. He is opposed by the “radical” from the landowners, Harold Transom, who made a huge fortune in the East and returned to his homeland to participate in the election campaign. He does not disdain any methods to get more voters. In this novel, Eliot's narrative is enhanced by ironic and satirical attacks on career politicians like Harold Transom, Jermyn's lawyer. The descriptions are extremely picturesque, well conveying the emotional state of the characters, the atmosphere in which the action takes place (for example, the scene telling about Mrs. Transom's expectation of her son).

Both the landscape and the situation in the house, the behavior of the servants - everything emphasizes the tension of the moment, the drama of which intensifies as the hero approaches his house. The dialogues between Felix Holt and Lyon and his daughter Esther are interesting. They reflect the literary tastes of the era, which even penetrated into the working environment. Felix Holt is a well-read young man, but he does not boast of his education, has his own opinion about everything and listens carefully to others. Russian populist revolutionaries (for example, P. N. Tkachev in the literary critical article “People of the Future and Heroes of the Philistinism”) saw in the character of Felix Holt the traits of a man of the future. But they did not always correctly assess the relationship between the characters and the position of the author of the work. And here Eliot’s positivist views are completely obvious, striving to remind each class of society to fulfill its duties (only then, according to the author, will society be improved). The main thing is that each class should think about the good of the whole nation. Felix Holt, however, is one of the significant goodies writers.

A special place in Eliot’s work of the second period is occupied by the novel “Middlemarch” (1871 - 1872). Before us are carefully painted pictures of the life of a provincial town with the large and small passions of its inhabitants, with deaths and births, with weddings and political debates. This novel realizes aesthetic program writer - to convey the flow of life, stopped by the will of the artist: “Here one is quietly sliding down the ladder of social status: next to him, another, on the contrary, is climbing up, moving from step to step. All around us we see unfortunate seekers of happiness, poor people who have become rich, proud gentlemen, representatives of their towns: some are carried away by the political current, others by the church movement, and they, without realizing it, collide with each other in whole groups amid this general excitement...

In a word, in old England we see the same movement, the same mixture of people that we meet in the history of Herodotus. This ancient writer, having begun his narrative about the past, took as his starting point, just like us, the position of women in society and the family.”

The main character of the novel, Dorothea Brooke, is an extraordinary energetic woman, intelligent and independent, sometimes she even gives the impression of being “emancipated,” reminiscent of Turgenev’s Eudoxia from Fathers and Sons. But Dorothea’s active nature is alien to empty dreams and groundless projects - the heroine strives for socially useful activities, wants to see a spiritual brother in her chosen one, wants to be his faithful assistant. However, Dorothea is somewhat akin to G. Flaubert's Emma Bovary. She idolized the pathetic egoist, narcissistic and narrow-minded pedant, the imaginary scientist Casaubon, who does not understand the breadth and richness of his wife’s nature. She sacrifices society for him, leads a secluded life, helping him create an “immortal” work, which turned out to be the fruit of a failed scientist, an immature intellect, and when Casaubon dies, for some time she cannot accept the offer of Will Ladislaw, who loves her.

Eliot convincingly conveys the spiritual atmosphere of the era, immersing the reader either in the narrow, provincial world of ordinary people and townsfolk, or in the rich inner world of the heroine. Dorothea Brooke creates an amazing intellectual atmosphere around herself. She charges with her energy and self-sacrifice even deeply uninitiated people, inert and lethargic. She cannot be compared with the great Christian martyrs, because the age is different - society does not need them, but she is ready to accomplish a feat in the name of an idea and a cause.

Like Eliot's previous novels, this novel has multiple subplots. The polycentric construction is well supported by the main characters - Dorothea, her sister Celia, Doctor Lydgate, Rosamund. The novel's mastery of composition and structure is evident in its storytelling style. In a huge book, the narrative is divided into episodes, each of which could become an independent story, but at the same time they are perceived as a single whole. A special place belongs to the banker Bulstrode, who made his fortune through fraud and even crime. Bulstrode is a prude and a hypocrite, covering up his vile deeds with ranting about private philanthropy.

As the writer improved her skills, she abandoned direct moralizing, although she was far from indifferent to the characters she created with such convincingness. She sought to capture the flow of life, rich and varied even in a boring provincial town. Eliot's interest in natural exact sciences helped her penetrate the secrets human nature no matter how difficult it may seem. Eliot's methods of revealing characters are different, just as the characters themselves are different. They can evolve (eg Dorothea Brooke). They can be static, but each time they give the impression of their uniqueness and apparent fluidity (for example, Celia), they can be extremely schematic, such as the character of Casaubon or Bulstrode. As a result, the reader is presented with a diversely presented mechanism of human actions and actions, presented analytically and critically, and this critical attitude is transmitted to the reader, striving to comprehend the essence of the nature of the heroes.

In Eliot's novel Middlemarch the dialogue is disguised. Dorothea lives a rich inner, intense and dynamic life, while her family life flows as if in a dream. And this inner life tells her, making a sacrifice in the name of Casaubon’s pseudoscience, that this is a false idol, invented by herself, seeking the ideal of the real. “And now she imagined how she spent days, months, years, rummaging among something decayed, collecting the fragments of a legend that was just a pile of rubbish dug out of ruins ... and thus preparing the ground for a theory that was just as unviable like a stillborn child."

Eliot, together with the heroine, gives a clear definition of Casaubon's fruitless attempts to come to some discoveries - it was like stringing stars on a thread. Like Marianne from Turgenev's Novi, Dorothea, after the death of her lover, becomes happy wife another and finds consolation in an active and full life. Both cross the line of boundless and meaningless faith in a fictitious ideal. In both destinies there were no pages in the novel to describe happiness.

Despite the abundance of characters, plot motives, episodes and scenes, numerous details, features of everyday life, retold gossip and assessments, the whole book forms a harmonious whole. This is an encyclopedia of English provincial life, it is presented subtly, intelligently, impartially and at the same time intelligibly. Moral Lesson taught by the author in this work. It is no coincidence that by the end of the novel the narrative returns to Dorothea. Her destiny concentrates what is universal and typical. She has noble heart, she was able to express her protest against imperfection environment, and “in such collisions, great feelings often turn into mistakes, and great faith into delusions. Her nature, receptive to everything high, more than once manifested itself in high impulses, although many did not notice them. In her spiritual generosity, like that river whose power Cyrus broke, it spread into streams, the names of which did not thunder throughout the world. But its impact on those who were next to it is enormous, for the well-being of our world depends not only on historical, but also on everyday deeds...”

These words contain the truth about the writer herself and about the fate of her creations, which, several decades after her death, experienced their rebirth, which once again confirmed the simple truth that everything ingenious remains for history and for humanity.

Biography

Real name: Mary Ann Evans. English writer. From the philosophy of positivism she borrowed the idea of ​​gradual evolution of society and class harmony. Author of the novels The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), and Middlemarch (1871-1872).

Under this pseudonym hid a woman, and a woman of a new type, who truly embodied the emancipated lady of the 19th century. Eliot was a feminist in the most radical form, and George Sand, in comparison, appears to be nothing more than a romantic dreamer. Upon first acquaintance with Eliot's works, it seems that hardly any English writer was distinguished by such pronounced masculine features as this novelist. But later you understand - just as it is impossible to hide wolf teeth under a hare mask, so you cannot hide female nature under positive philosophy and harsh judgments. And the more you “allow” rigidity and rationalism, the more obvious the author’s human weakness will be revealed.

However, it cannot be denied that Eliot is the most educated English novelist of the 19th century, and in this respect surpasses both Dickens and Thackeray. The artistic merits of her works may be disputed, but Eliot's powerful analytical mind is beyond doubt.

Mary Ann Evans came from a poor, but very respectable bourgeois English family, where traditions were strictly respected. Her father was a jack of all trades - he worked as a manager on other people's estates, managed the farm himself, and knew the intricacies of all agricultural work. Mary was her father's favorite - Mr. Evans saw the early, masculine, deep intelligence of his daughter. It’s just that nature endowed her with an unattractive appearance. “A small, thin figure with a disproportionately large, heavy head, a mouth with huge, protruding “English” mouths? teeth, the nose, although of a regular, beautiful shape, is too massive for a woman’s face, some kind of old-fashioned, strange hairstyle, a black dress made of light translucent fabric, revealing the thinness and bonyness of the neck and more sharply exposing the sickly yellowness of the face ... " - such an impartial portrait Eliot is given by S. Kovalevskaya, who highly valued life positions the writer and her work. True, Kovalevskaya met Eliot in those years when George was already approaching fifty, and one must make allowances for the fact that the above portrait was painted by a woman, albeit a fairly smart one. However, reviews from men about Eliot's appearance general impression differed little from Kovalevskaya’s opinion. A great connoisseur of female beauty I.S. Turgenev noted that he had rarely met such an unattractive woman as the English writer seemed to him, making the reservation that Eliot was the first lady who made him believe in the insane charm of an ugly woman.

It must be said that Eliot’s charm, unlike her intelligence, took a long time to mature. Until the age of 32, Mary remained an old maid and lived with her father, earning a piece of bread. She received an ordinary English education in a private boarding school, where special attention was paid to religious instructions, and for a long time she was a zealous Puritan. However, Puritanism came to naught under the influence, apparently, of a purely female rebellion against loneliness, poverty of existence and lack of warmth.

Mary gave up going to church after reading books by radical thinkers. Only nine months later, her father’s anger and the pleas of her family persuaded her to a compromise decision - to accompany Mr. Evans to church. However, the girl could no longer come to terms with the world around her. Closed, painfully sensitive to any dissonance, Mary always lived in her own world, created by her. Complex, painfully worried about her own imperfection, she might never have risen above the fear of falling and making mistakes if the circumstances of the second half of her life had not turned out so successfully.

Nobody knows from what starting point success in life can begin. For Mary, the run to fame began with the death of old Mr. Evans. Freedom made it possible for the overripe girl, who was left completely alone, to find a circle of acquaintances equal to her in terms of education and mental needs. Through the philosopher Herbert Spencer and the publisher Chapman, with whom she established close business contacts, Mary met George Henry Lewis. With this man, our heroine realized that she too could be liked, that fate had given her a “piece of the pie” of female happiness.

Although not possessing an attractive appearance, Mary, however, perfectly mastered even more powerful weapon, striking men's hearts on the spot. She knew how to listen, but not in the way that “darlings” can dissolve in a partner, but in the way that only smart women can listen. “She was a bad storyteller and didn’t stand out much in the general conversation, and even rarely took part in it,” S. Kovalevskaya wrote about Eliot. - But she mastered the art to the highest degree, so to speak, of drawing a person into a conversation; she not only caught and guessed on the fly the thoughts of the person with whom she was speaking, but seemed to suggest them to him, as if unconsciously guiding the course of his thoughts. “I never feel as smart and profound as I do when talking with George Eliot?” one of our mutual friends once told me...” Well, what man can resist the opportunity to feel like a genius of thought?” It turns out that the first feminists did not put In any case, Lewis's admiration for his girlfriend gave Mary self-confidence and contributed to her decision to start writing.

By the time Mary and Lewis met, the latter was one of the leaders of English positivism, and although his main work, “The Physiology of Everyday Life” (1859-1860), had not yet been written, Lewis was famous in literary and scientific circles. The complexity of their relationship was that Lewis was married and had three sons, which, of course, made Mary’s marriage to her beloved impossible. In 1853, when our heroine began to live openly with Lewis, the entire Evans family turned away from her. However, Mary did not even reckon with the anger of her beloved brother Isaac. She rather indifferently accepted the small pricks inflicted on her pride when, already being a famous writer, she was not accepted in secular salons and when even those who highly valued Eliot’s talent avoided introducing her to their wives and daughters.

But in Lewis, Mary found a reliable friend who literally revealed her talent. Contemporary evidence about Lewis's personality and even his appearance is so contradictory that one might think that we are talking about different people. One thing is clear that this man was extraordinary, very sociable and charming. Many note that he was the complete opposite of his friend: cheerful, lively, a wonderful storyteller, he gathered people around him with ease and even seemed somewhat superficial next to the thoughtful, ponderous Mary. In any case, no matter what they say about Lewis - his happy literary destiny, yes, apparently, our heroine owes her women’s well-being to her unnamed husband. With his help, Mary Evans turned into George Eliot. With this pseudonym, the writer signed her first work of fiction in January 1857, the short story “The Sad Fate of the Honorable Amos Barton.” Perhaps Lewis would not support his girlfriend's painful pride, he would not flaunt it even with obvious exaggeration her merits, the triumph of our heroine would not have taken place. So feminism is just a product of a good attitude towards smart women.

The novel that made Eliot famous was published in 1859 and was called Adam Bede. Critics compared her book to the works of Dickens and Thackeray, who themselves were delighted with the new writer and, together with other readers, were eager to find out the true name of the “great stranger.” We must pay tribute psychological abilities Dickens - he guessed by some nuances that the author of the sensational work was a woman, but even the publisher of her books at first did not suspect this, receiving the manuscripts from Lewis’s hands.

But one day Lewis invited the publisher to dinner, promising to introduce him to the “great stranger.” The three of us had lunch for a very long time, and when the guest expressed regret that Eliot had not shown up, Lewis laughingly introduced his wife to the puzzled publisher. This is how the pseudonym of the author of the acclaimed novel “Adam Bede” was revealed for the first time. There were impostors who tried to appropriate the name George Eliot. Mary Ann Evans soon had to write a letter to The Times revealing the secret of her authorship.

The novel “The Mill on the Floss” (1860) also brought Eliot fame, which now increased every time a new book was published. Our heroine quickly became famous. She was even forgiven for her unusual marriage. Now many themselves sought to meet her. At Saturday receptions in her London home one could see the most outstanding writers, philosophers, journalists, English and visitors, and many did not even have the pleasure of talking with the writer. Lewis was still the soul of the party, and Eliot always sat on the sidelines, in her constant Voltaire chair, protected from the lamp by a wide lampshade, and devoted her conversation only to one chosen one.

Eliot's position in society seemed very curious. On the one hand, she violated moral standards by sharing a bed with a man who was not her husband, and even while his wife was alive. On the other hand, Eliot’s authority as a writer was so indisputable in matters of morality that in England she was looked upon as a mentor, a teacher of life, a Sibyl. Queen Victoria herself, famous for her strict moral principles, was an ardent admirer of Eliot and recommended the writer’s novels to her granddaughters.

Lewis died in 1878. It would seem that Eliot, having lost such a devoted friend, should have fallen into despair, however, a few months after the death of her husband, she, despite old age, remarried. And again her marriage shocked the public of the English capital. This time her chosen one was the unmarried, free, but thirty-year-old John Walter Cross.

S. Kovalevskaya, looking closely at the union of Eliot and Lewis, found that Mary got along with her friend without passion, but rather out of calculation. She accompanied her conclusions with a subtle psychological background, pointing out that their marriage was not reflected in any of Eliot’s works, while any detail that worried the writer was immediately covered on the pages of her novels. Consequently, Kovalevskaya reasoned, the affair with Lewis did not touch Eliot’s soul, and in general, judging by Mary’s writings, she had a lot of rationality, logic and very little feeling. The union with Lewis was probably a well-thought-out step, an act by which she determined her future life.

With the last legal husband, everything was probably wrong. The aged Eliot loved this kind, stupid handsome man. “What was most striking about him... were his brown eyes, simple-minded and loyal, like those of a large Newfoundland dog, and a mouth that, in its thin outline and nervous twitching of the lips, would rather have suited a woman’s face and somehow even contradicted the completely healthy, frank expression of the rest figures." Eliot still looked like an old woman, she didn’t bother to look younger next to her “fresh” husband, but there wasn’t a hint of anxiety or concern about the opinions of others in her.

No one ever found out the true intentions of the young man who married the famous writer. By the way, he was wealthy enough to want to take over Eliot’s fortune, and our heroine was smart and cynical enough to promise to my young husband part of her wealth - she prudently bequeathed what she had acquired to Lewis’s children from his first marriage, thereby atonement for her guilt before them. Perhaps Cross really loved his wife and admired her intelligence; perhaps he was solving his internal psychological problems. It’s a pity that history is not interested in the further lives of the husbands of famous wives, and we don’t know how Cross’s fate turned out after Eliot’s death. Maybe, knowing this, we would have revealed the secret of our heroine’s last years.

In many of her novels, Eliot loved to resolve life's most difficult knots with death. This is what happened in The Mill on the Floss, when Maggi, the heroine, dies after sacrificing her love for her cousin. In Middlemarch, Mr. Cazabon dies before the conflict is brought to its logical conclusion. Death in Eliot's works became a reconciliator of all the problems into which human passions dragged her heroes. When the writer was once told about this, she replied: “Haven’t you noticed that this really happens in life? I personally cannot give up the conviction that death is more logical than is usually believed. When the situation in life becomes too strained, when the outcome is nowhere in sight, when duties, the most sacred, mutually contradict one another, then death appears, suddenly opens new paths that no one had thought of before, and reconciles what seemed irreconcilable. How many times has it already happened that trust in death gave me the courage to live.”

Eliot knew what she was saying... She died unexpectedly, never having had time to tire of her young husband, having not outlived her popularity.

Biography

George Eliot is one of the recognized classics of English literature. However, few people know that under the pseudonym George Eliot is hiding... a woman. And not just any woman, but one of the most educated and versatile women of her time.

Mary Ann Evans (real name of George Eliot) was born on November 22, 1819 in provincial England. Her father was a builder and part-time carpenter. The mother ran the household and was known as a woman of unbending character, practical and active.

Three children, Christina, Isaac and Mary Ann had little fun in a small, boring town. Twice a day a mail carriage with a coachman in bright red livery passed by their house. Watching the passing carriage was the children's greatest entertainment. Mary Ann later described life in her hometown this way: “They lived here strong men who returned from the coal mines in the morning, they immediately collapsed on a dirty bed and slept until dark. In the evening they woke up only to spend most of their money with friends in a pub. Here lived the workers from the textile factory, men and women, pale and exhausted from working long hours into the night. The houses were neglected, as were the small children, for their mothers devoted all their strength to the loom.”

However, Mary Ann's parents belonged to the middle class, and the children did not know hunger or cold. But they were oppressed by the life around them. From early childhood, Mary Ann did not want to put up with this routine. When she was only four years old, she sat down at the piano and played it as best she could. She could not distinguish one note from another, and did this only so that the servants could see what an important and sophisticated lady she was!

But her mother’s health suddenly began to deteriorate, and when the girl turned five, she and her sister were sent to boarding school, where they spent 4 years. At the age of 9 she was transferred to another, larger school. Mary Ann loved to study and soon surpassed the rest of her students. But most of all, the girl loved to read, and she kept her first book, “Lynette’s Life,” until the end of her days. Then she began to write books herself. She wrote her first book like this: her friend lost a book that Mary Ann did not have time to finish reading. Then Mary Ann decided to write the end for herself, and wrote a whole thick volume, which was subsequently read to the whole school.

When Mary Ann was 16 years old, her mother died. The elder sister soon got married. And Mary Ann had to take over the entire household. So from a schoolgirl she turned into a housewife, whose life was limited to “four walls.” But the all-consuming love for books and thirst for knowledge remained. She read the most serious scientific works in history and philosophy. She even found good teacher, who began to teach her French, German and Italian languages. Another teacher taught her music. A little later she began to learn Greek, Latin and spanish languages. Later in one of her books she will write: “You will never be able to imagine what it means to have a male mentality and remain in slavery to a female body.”

Soon, largely under pressure from Mary Ann, the family moved to live in Big city, where Mary Ann finally had educated friends and an enlightened social circle. She was especially close friends with Bray's husband and wife, who influenced her intellectually and spiritual development considerable influence. After the death of her father, Mary Ann and the Bray family travel to the Continent, where she visits Paris, Milan and Geneva, visits theaters and museums, meets famous people and attends lectures on experimental physics. After this long trip she has so little money left that, in order to continue taking music lessons, she decides to sell her Encyclopedia Britannica.

Soon after returning to England, Miss Evans meets Mr. Chapman, the editor of a major metropolitan magazine, who was so impressed by Mary Ann's erudition and abilities that he offered her the position of assistant editor - an unusual position for a woman at the time, which had previously been occupied exclusively by men. Mary Ann agreed and moved to London. How different life in the capital was from life in a provincial town! The doors of the best houses opened for Miss Evans, she met great people and the best minds of our time. Now she is immersed in work with her head. At that time she was 32 years old. Then she met George Lewis, a witty and versatile man, a brilliant intellectual, and a good actor, who wrote “The History of Philosophy,” two novels, and collaborated with many metropolitan magazines. Despite this, he was very unhappy in his personal and family life. That he fell in love with Mary Ann is not at all surprising. She, at first, only admired him, and, perhaps, felt sorry for him and his three sons because of family troubles. “Mr Lewis is kind and considerate and has gained my respect in many ways. Like few people in this world, he is much better than he seems. A man who has intelligence and soul, although he hides them behind a mask of frivolity.”

Meanwhile, Mary Ann's health began to deteriorate, she became very tired from constant work, and was plagued by constant headaches. And in 1854, she left the magazine and left with Lewis and his three sons for Germany. Her many friends condemn this union, which was not sanctified by marriage, and consider it big mistake in her life.

To earn a living, while Lewis was writing his great work, The Life of Goethe, Mary Ann wrote articles for various German magazines, and not a single article was published under her name - to preserve the reputation of the magazine, no one should know that these articles were written by woman!

After returning to England, already at the age of 37, Mary Ann finally decides to write a novel, for the first time since her childhood experiences. “Writing a real novel was always my childhood dream,” said Mary Ann Evans, “But I never dared to do it, although I felt that I was strong in plot, dialogue and dramatic description.” After she wrote the first part of Scenes from Clerical Life, she read it to Lewis. "We both cried over her and then he kissed me and told me he believed in me."

Lewis sent the novel to one of the publishers under the pseudonym "George Eliot" - the first name that came to mind - saying that it was a novel by one of his friends. The novel was accepted for publication and Mary Ann received a check for £250. This encouraged the writer so much that the next two novels were written in one breath. George Eliot's popularity began to grow, and even Thackeray himself (author of Vanity Fair) said of him: “This is great writer! And Charles Dickens, noting the humor and pathos of the novels, guessed that the author must be a woman!

For her fourth book, Adam Bead, which received stunning success and was subsequently translated into many languages, Mary Ann Evans has already received 4 thousand pounds, poverty and deprivation are left behind. And since many contenders for the authorship of the novel began to appear, the real name of the writer had to be revealed.

With ever-increasing royalties from their books, Evans and Lewis acquired a large estate on which they quiet life, meeting only a few friends. Lewis's health deteriorated greatly and he died in 1878. For Mary Ann, this loss was irreparable. She lost his love and his support. After all, he idolized her all his life. And he wrote about her: “From the time I knew her (and to know her means to love her), my life received a new birth. It is to her that I owe my prosperity and my happiness.”

At that time, their family friend was John Walter Cross, a prosperous banker, many years younger than Mary Ann. He became an indispensable assistant in her affairs after Lewis's death. She was extremely depressed, and Cross did everything he could to bring her out of this state. Both were lonely, and gradually the kinship of their souls led to the birth of love. In May 1880, a year and a half after Lewis's death, they married. Mary Ann wrote then: “Thanks to marriage, I seem to have been reborn again. But I would still willingly give up my life if it could bring Lewis back to life.”

One December day of the same year, Mary Ann caught a severe cold and died 2 days later. Her family life lasted only six months! She was buried in a London cemetery. On her gravestone is a quote from one of her poems:

"Oh, may I join the invisible chorus of those immortals who will live forever in better creatures."

Next to her grave is the grave of George Lewis.

Biography

George Eliot (pseudonym; real name Mary Ann Evans, Evans) (November 22, 1819, Arbury, Warwickshire - December 22, 1880, London), English writer.

Mary Ann (later shortened to Marian) was born in a small rural parish in the heart of England. “George Eliot” is her pseudonym, under which she published her first story, “The Sorrowful Lot of the Reverend Amos Barton” (1857), which she compiled with two others in the collection “Scenes from the Life of the Clergy” (1858), and with which she signed her subsequent works. In her youth, she attended educational institutions for girls and read a lot, replenishing the meager diet of knowledge that was given out there. She stayed with her father, caring for him until his death in 1849, then moved to London. In October 1853 she challenged public opinion, when she met the scientist and writer J. G. Lewis, who separated from his wife, but could not, according to English law, dissolve his marriage. Marian and Lewis's long life together had a beneficial effect on their common destiny: both managed to realize their talent. Lewis wrote a series of studies that earned him a name, and Marian Evans became George Eliot.

Sibyl

The artist's gift was combined by George Eliot with analytical warehouse mind. She was one of the most educated women of the era, closely followed the development of philosophical, sociological and natural scientific thought, and edited for many years literary section magazine "Westminster Review", translated into English language"The Life of Jesus" by D. F. Strauss, "The Essence of Christianity" by Feuerbach and "Ethics" by Spinoza. Human open-minded, she welcomed the French Revolution of 1848, although for England she considered only the path of gradual reforms acceptable. Her worldview could be called radical conservatism.

The life of George Eliot, not rich in bright events, lived in accordance with her inherent keen sense of duty to loved ones and love of order and regularity, was marked by exceptional spiritual and intellectual activity. The authority of the writer was enormous, one might say, indisputable, both in the sphere of literature and morality. They looked at her as a mentor, a teacher of life. She was called the Sibyl. Queen Victoria herself was her zealous admirer. Prominent writers of different generations, from the seasoned Turgenev to the young Henry James, visited Prior's House, the London residence of the Lewises, to show George Eliot their respect and sympathy.

Master

George Eliot wrote seven novels, stories, essays and poems. Her work, like that of her contemporary Anthony Trollope, became the link connecting the English social-critical novel of the 1830-1860s. (Dickens, Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell) and psychological prose turn of the 19th-20th centuries. In many ways, the views and creative attitudes of George Eliot were determined by the philosophy of positivism. She owes him, in particular, the importance she attached to heredity and the conviction that a person’s actions in his youth influence both his own destiny and the destinies of those around him. In the stories and novels “Adam Bede” (1859), “The Mill on the Floss” (1860) and “Siles Marner” (1861), the writer gravitated toward depicting the everyday, while striving for extreme accuracy and objectivity in the drawing. Here she was helped by the experience accumulated over thirty years of living in the province. And since from her youth she was distinguished by a penetrating mind, tenacious gaze and excellent memory, then her countrymen, reading these books and later written “Middlemarch” (1872), only wondered how Mr. Eliot got such a thorough knowledge of their parish affairs, gossip and everyday stories: they could not help but “recognize” her characters.

Beginning with historical novel"Romola" (1863), in which Savonarola was written, the writer sought to saturate the novels - "Felix Holt, Radical" (1866), "Daniel Deronda" (1876) - with philosophical, political and sociological material. But it was precisely “politics” that she was least successful in; here her manner sometimes became overly informative, if not poster-like. But precisely at three latest novels The writer’s skill showed itself most powerfully - the mastery of revealing in writing human personality, individual character in all its multidimensionality, inconsistency and ambiguity. A character cast in the flesh of living, intense, beating and rebellious feelings: “The intensity of passions in Middlemarch permeates not only the plot, but also the image Each chapter has its own trajectory of strong feelings The sophistication of the novel lies in George Eliot’s interpretation of feeling as an important factor determining human behavior" (English literary critic Barbara Hardy). “Middlemarch” is not named here by chance: this is George Eliot’s most perfect work - a wide panorama of English life in the first third of the 19th century, an artistic cross-section of the entire society in miniature, an encyclopedia of the human heart.

Bibliography

Novels:

* 1859 - Adam Bede
* 1860 - Mill on the Floss (eng.
* The Mill on the Floss)
* 1861 - Silas Marner
* 1863 - Romola
* 1866 - Felix Holt, the Radical
* 1871/72 - Middlemarch
* 1876 - Daniel Deronda

Poems:

* 1868 - The Spanish Gypsy
* 1869 - Agatha
* 1871 - Armgart
* 1873 - Stradivarius
* 1874 - The Legend of Jubal
* 1874 - Arion
* 1874 - A Minor Prophet
* 1879 - A College Breakfast Party
* 1879 - The Death of Moses
From a London Drawing Room
Count That Day Lost
I Grant You Ample Leave

Other:

* 1846 - Translation of the Life of Jesus by D. F. Strauss
* 1854 - Translation of “The Essence of Christianity”, author L. Feuerbach
* 1858 - Scenes of Clerical Life, story
The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton
Mr Gilfil's Love Story
Janet's Repentance
* 1859 - The Lifted Veil
* 1864 - Brother Jacob
* 1865 - The Influence of Rationalism
* 1879 - Impressions of Theophrastus Such

Film adaptations

- “Scenes from Clerical Life”:

* 1920 - Mr. Gilfil's Love Story. UK, film. Dir. - A.V. Bramble. Starring: R. Henderson Bland, Mary Odette and others.

- "Adam Bead":

* 1915 - Adam Bede. USA, short film. Dir. - Travers Vale. Starring: Franklin Ritchie, Louise Vale and others.
* 1918 - Adam Bede. UK, film. Dir. - Maurice Elvey. Starring: Bransby Williams, Ivy Close and others.
* 1991 - Adam Bede. UK, TV movie. Dir. - Giles Foster. Starring: Iain Glen, Patsy Kensit and others.

- “Mill on the Floss”:

* 1915 - The Mill on the Floss. USA, film. Dir. - Eugene Moore. Starring: Mignon Anderson, Harris Gordon and others.
* 1937 - The Mill on the Floss. UK, film. Dir. - Tim Whelan. Starring: Frank Lawton, Victoria Hopper and others.
* 1940 - Hatred (Spanish: Odio). Mexico, film. Dir. - William Rowland. Starring: Antonio Bravo, Narciso Busquets, Joaquin Coss and others.
* 1965 - The Mill on the Floss. UK, series. Dir. - Rex Tucker. Starring: Jane Asher, Barry Justice and others.
* 1978 - The Mill on the Floss. UK, mini-series. Starring: Philip Locke and others.
* 1997 - The Old Mill (English: The Mill on the Floss). UK-France, TV film. Dir. - Graham Theakston. Starring: Emily Watson, Cheryl Campbell, James Frain and others.

- "Siles Marner":

* 1909 - A Fair Exchange. USA, short film. Dir. - D.W. Griffith. Starring: James Kirkwood, Mack Sennett and others.
* 1911 - Silas Marner. USA, short film. Dir. - Theodore Marston. Starring: Frank Hall Crane, Marie Eline and others.
* 1913 - Silas Marner. USA, short film. Dir. - Charles Brabin. Starring: Yale Benner, Robert Brower and others.
* 1916 - Silas Marner. USA, film. Dir. - Ernest C. Warde. Starring: Frederick Warde, Louise Bates and others.
* 1920 - Are Children to Blame? USA, film. Dir. - Paul Price. Starring: Em Gorman, Alex Shannon and others.
* 1922 - Silas Marner. USA, film. Dir. - Frank P. Donovan. Starring: Crawford Kent, Marguerite Courtot, Robert Kenyon, Nona Marden, Ricca Allen and others.
* 1964 - Silas Marner. UK, series. Starring: David Markham, Moray Watson and others.
* 1985 - Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe. UK, TV movie. Dir. - Giles Foster. Starring: Ben Kingsley, Jenny Agutter, Patrick Rycart and others.
* 1994 - A Simple Twist of Fate. USA, film. Dir. - Gillis MacKinnon. Starring: Steve Martin, Gabriel Byrne, Laura Linney and others.
* 1996 - Ties of the heart (French Les liens du coeur). France, TV movie. Dir. - Josie Diane. Starring: Tchéky Karyo, Florence Darel, Christopher Thompson and others.

- "Romola":

* 1911 - Romola (Italian: Romola). Italy, short film. Dir. - Mario Caserini. Starring: Maria Caserini, Fernanda Negri Puget, Amletu Novelli and others.
* 1924 - Romola. USA, film. Dir. - Henry King. Cast: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, William Powell and others.

- "Felix Holt":

* 1915 - Felix Holt. USA, short film. Starring: Helen Bray, Kate Bruce and others.

- "Middlemarch":

* 1968 - Middlemarch. UK, mini-series. Starring: Michele Dotrice, Donald Douglas and others.
* 1994 - Wind of Change (English: Middlemarch). UK, mini-series. Dir. - Anthony Page. Starring: Juliette Aubrey, Robert Hardy, Douglas Hodge and others.

- "Daniel Deronda":

* 1921 - Daniel Deronda. UK, film. Dir. - W. Courtney Rowden. Starring: Reginald Fox, Ann Trevor and others.
* 1970 - Daniel Deronda. UK, mini-series. Starring: John Nolan, Martha Henry and others.
* 2002 - Daniel Deronda. UK, TV movie. Dir. - Tom Hooper. Starring: Hugh Dancy, Romola Garai, Hugh Bonneville and others.

- Other

* 1911 - Santa Cecilia. Italy, short film. Dir. - Enrique Santos. Starring: Bruto Castellani, Gastone Monaldi and others.
* 2002 - George Eliot: A Scandalous Life. UK, TV movie. Dir. - Mary Downes. Starring: Maureen Lipman, Harriet Walter and others.

English literature

George Eliot

Biography

Eliot George (pseudonym; real name Mary Ann Evans, Evans) (November 22, 1819, Arbury, Warwickshire - December 22, 1880, London), English writer.

Mary Ann (later shortened to Marian) was born in a small rural parish in the heart of England. “George Eliot” is her pseudonym, under which she published her first story, “The Sorrowful Lot of the Reverend Amos Barton” (1857), which she compiled with two others in the collection “Scenes from the Life of the Clergy” (1858), and with which she signed her subsequent works. In her youth, she attended educational institutions for girls and read a lot, replenishing the meager diet of knowledge that was given out there. She stayed with her father, caring for him until his death in 1849, then moved to London. In October 1853, she challenged public opinion when she met the scientist and writer J. G. Lewis, who was separated from his wife, but could not, according to English law, dissolve his marriage. The long life together of Marian and Lewis had a beneficial effect on their common destiny: both were able to realize their talent. Lewis wrote a series of studies that earned him a name, and Marian Evans became George Eliot.

George Eliot combined the gift of an artist with an analytical mind. She was one of the most educated women of the era, closely followed the development of philosophical, sociological and natural scientific thought, edited the literary section of the Westminster Review for many years, translated into English “The Life of Jesus” by D. F. Strauss, “The Essence of Christianity” by Feuerbach and "Ethics" of Spinoza. A person of broad views, she welcomed the French Revolution of 1848, although for England she considered only the path of gradual reforms acceptable. Her worldview could be called radical conservatism.

The life of George Eliot, not rich in bright events, lived in accordance with her inherent keen sense of duty to loved ones and love of order and regularity, was marked by exceptional spiritual and intellectual activity. The authority of the writer was enormous, one might say, indisputable, both in the sphere of literature and morality. They looked at her as a mentor, a teacher of life. She was called the Sibyl. Queen Victoria herself was her zealous admirer. Prominent writers of different generations, from the seasoned Turgenev to the young Henry James, visited Prior's House, the London residence of the Lewises, to show George Eliot their respect and sympathy.

George Eliot wrote seven novels, stories, essays and poems. Her work, like that of her contemporary Anthony Trollope, became the link connecting the English social-critical novel of the 1830−1860s. (Dickens, Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell) and psychological prose of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In many ways, the views and creative attitudes of George Eliot were determined by the philosophy of positivism. She owes him, in particular, the importance she attached to heredity and the conviction that a person’s actions in his youth influence both his own destiny and the destinies of those around him. In the stories and novels “Adam Bede” (1859), “The Mill on the Floss” (1860) and “Siles Marner” (1861), the writer gravitated toward depicting the everyday, while striving for extreme accuracy and objectivity in the drawing. Here she was helped by the experience accumulated over thirty years of living in the province. And since from her youth she was distinguished by a penetrating mind, a tenacious gaze and an excellent memory, then her fellow countrymen, reading these books and later written “Middlemarch” (1872), only wondered where Mr. Eliot got such a thorough knowledge of their parish affairs, gossip and everyday stories: they could not help but “recognize” its characters.

Beginning with the historical novel Romola (1863), in which Savonarola was introduced, the writer sought to saturate the novels - Felix Holt, Radical (1866), Daniel Deronda (1876) - with philosophical, political and sociological material. But it was precisely “politics” that she was least successful in; here her manner sometimes became overly informative, if not poster-like. But it was in the last three novels that the writer’s skill manifested itself most forcefully - the skill of revealing in writing the human personality, individual character in all its multidimensionality, inconsistency and ambiguity. A character cast in the flesh of living, intense, beating and rebellious feelings: “The intensity of passions in Middlemarch permeates not only the plot, but also the image Each chapter has its own trajectory of strong feelings The sophistication of the novel lies in George Eliot’s interpretation of feeling as an important factor determining human behavior" (English literary critic Barbara Hardy). “Middlemarch” is not named here by chance: this is George Eliot’s most perfect work - a wide panorama of English life in the first third of the 19th century, an artistic cross-section of the entire society in miniature, an encyclopedia of the human heart.

Eliot George (1819-1880) - English writer. Real name: Mary Ann Evans. She was born on November 22, 1819 in a rural parish on the Arbury estate in Warwickshire in central England. Educated in educational institution for girls. She spent the first part of her life caring for her father. After the death of his father in 1849, he decides to move to London. In 1853, despite the opinion of the London public, she began to live with the scientist and literary figure J. G. Lewis, who was still married at that time. This union had a beneficial effect on the destinies of both. Lewis became widely known for a number of studies he wrote, and Mary Ann became a writer under the pseudonym George Eliot.

The writer's life was quiet, but intellectually and spiritually rich. George Eliot had enormous authority in the literary field, she was widely known not only in her country, but also in Russia, Queen Victoria herself was among her admirers. The writer has written seven novels, stories, essays and poems. George Eliot's literary activity began in the late 50s of the nineteenth century, her first book “Scenes from the Life of the Clergy” was published. Eliot is considered one of the most educated women of that era; for a long time she was the editor of the literary magazine Westminster Review and was involved in translating foreign books into English. Her most significant work is “Middlemarch”. First, in 1871, its first part was published, and in 1872 the second was published. The last novel, entitled “Daniel Deronda,” appeared in 1876.

After the death of J. G. Lewis in 1878, the writer devoted all her time to publishing his manuscripts. In 1880, George Eliot remarried to family friend D.W. Cross. The writer died in London on December 22, 1880.

Mary Ann Evans(real name George Eliot) was born on November 22, 1819 in provincial England. Her father was a builder and part-time carpenter. The mother ran the household and was known as a woman of unbending character, practical and active.

Three children, Christina, Isaac and Mary Ann had little fun in a small, boring town. Twice a day a mail carriage with a coachman in bright red livery passed by their house. Watching the passing carriage was the children's greatest entertainment. Later, Mary Ann described life in her hometown this way: “Strong men lived here, who returned from the coal mines in the morning, they immediately collapsed on a dirty bed and slept until dark. In the evening they woke up only to spend most of their money with friends in a pub. Here lived the workers from the textile factory, men and women, pale and exhausted from working long hours into the night. The houses were neglected, as were the small children, for their mothers devoted all their strength to the loom.”

However, Mary Ann's parents belonged to the middle class, and the children did not know hunger or cold. But they were oppressed by the life around them. From early childhood, Mary Ann did not want to put up with this routine. When she was only four years old, she sat down at the piano and played it as best she could. She could not distinguish one note from another, and did this only so that the servants could see what an important and sophisticated lady she was!

But her mother’s health suddenly began to deteriorate, and when the girl turned five, she and her sister were sent to boarding school, where they spent 4 years. At the age of 9 she was transferred to another, larger school. Mary Ann loved to study and soon surpassed the rest of her students. But most of all, the girl loved to read, and she kept her first book, “Lynette’s Life,” until the end of her days. Then she began to write books herself. She wrote her first book like this: her friend lost a book that Mary Ann did not have time to finish reading. Then Mary Ann decided to write the end for herself, and wrote a whole thick volume, which was subsequently read to the whole school.

When Mary Ann was 16 years old, her mother died. The elder sister soon got married. And Mary Ann had to take over the entire household. So from a schoolgirl she turned into a housewife, whose life was limited to “four walls.” But the all-consuming love for books and thirst for knowledge remained. She read the most serious scientific works on history and philosophy. She even found a good teacher who began to teach her French, German and Italian at home. Another teacher taught her music. A little later, she also began to learn Greek, Latin and Spanish. Later in one of her books she will write: “You will never be able to imagine what it means to have a male mentality and remain in slavery to a female body.”

Soon, largely under pressure from Mary Ann, the family moved to live in a big city, where Mary Ann finally had educated friends and an enlightened social circle. She was especially friendly with husband and wife Bray, who had a significant influence on her intellectual and spiritual development. After the death of her father, Mary Ann and the Bray family travel to the Continent, where she visits Paris, Milan and Geneva, visits theaters and museums, meets famous people and attends lectures on experimental physics. After this long trip she has so little money left that, in order to continue taking music lessons, she decides to sell her Encyclopedia Britannica.

Soon after returning to England, Miss Evans meets Mr. Chapman, the editor of a major metropolitan magazine, who was so impressed by Mary Ann's erudition and abilities that he offered her the position of assistant editor - an unusual position for a woman at the time, which had previously been occupied exclusively by men. Mary Ann agreed and moved to London. How different life in the capital was from life in a provincial town! The doors of the best houses opened for Miss Evans, she met great people and the best minds of our time. Now she is immersed in work with her head. At that time she was 32 years old. Then she met George Lewis, a witty and versatile man, a brilliant intellectual, and a good actor, who wrote “The History of Philosophy,” two novels, and collaborated with many metropolitan magazines. Despite this, he was very unhappy in his personal and family life. That he fell in love with Mary Ann is not at all surprising. She, at first, only admired him, and, perhaps, felt sorry for him and his three sons because of family troubles. “Mr Lewis is kind and considerate and has gained my respect in many ways. Like few people in this world, he is much better than he seems. A man who has intelligence and soul, although he hides them behind a mask of frivolity.”

Meanwhile, Mary Ann's health began to deteriorate, she became very tired from constant work, and was plagued by constant headaches. And in 1854, she left the magazine and left with Lewis and his three sons for Germany. Her many friends condemn this union, which was not sanctified by marriage, and consider it the biggest mistake in her life.

To earn a living, while Lewis was writing his great work, The Life of Goethe, Mary Ann wrote articles for various German magazines, and not a single article was published under her name - to preserve the reputation of the magazine, no one should know that these articles were written by woman!

After returning to England, already at the age of 37, Mary Ann finally decides to write a novel, for the first time since her childhood experiences. “Writing a real novel was always my childhood dream,” said Mary Ann Evans, “But I never dared to do it, although I felt that I was strong in plot, dialogue and dramatic description.” After she wrote the first part of Scenes from Clerical Life, she read it to Lewis. "We both cried over her and then he kissed me and told me he believed in me."

Lewis sent the novel to one of the publishers under the pseudonym "George Eliot" - the first name that came to mind - saying that it was a novel by one of his friends. The novel was accepted for publication and Mary Ann received a check for £250. This encouraged the writer so much that the next two novels were written in one breath. George Eliot's popularity began to grow, and even Thackeray himself (author of Vanity Fair) said about him: “This is a great writer!” And Charles Dickens, noting the humor and pathos of the novels, guessed that the author must be a woman!

For her fourth book, Adam Bead, which received stunning success and was subsequently translated into many languages, Mary Ann Evans has already received 4 thousand pounds, poverty and deprivation are left behind. And since many contenders for the authorship of the novel began to appear, the real name of the writer had to be revealed.

With ever-increasing royalties from books, Evans and Lewis acquired a large estate, in which they led a quiet life, meeting only a few friends. Lewis's health deteriorated greatly and he died in 1878. For Mary Ann, this loss was irreparable. She lost his love and his support. After all, he idolized her all his life. And he wrote about her: “From the time I knew her (and to know her means to love her), my life received a new birth. It is to her that I owe my prosperity and my happiness.”

At that time, their family friend was John Walter Cross, a prosperous banker, many years younger than Mary Ann. He became an indispensable assistant in her affairs after Lewis's death. She was extremely depressed, and Cross did everything he could to bring her out of this state. In May 1880, a year and a half after Lewis's death, they married. Mary Ann wrote then: “Thanks to marriage, I seem to have been reborn again. But I would still willingly give up my life if it could bring Lewis back to life.”

One December day of the same year, Mary Ann caught a severe cold and died 2 days later. Her family life lasted only six months! She was buried in a London cemetery. On her gravestone is a quote from one of her poems:

"Oh, may I join the invisible chorus of those immortals who will live forever in better creatures."

Next to her grave is the grave of George Lewis.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia notes:

"...E.'s novels (including "Felix Holt, Radical", vol. 1-3, 1866, Russian translation 1867; "Middlemarch", vol. 1-4, 1871-72, Russian translation 1873) were popular in Russia, they were highly valued by N. G. Chernyshevsky, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I. S. Turgenev, L. N. Tolstoy.”

Mary Ann Evans preferred to write realistic works, so Mary Ann's first and only genre work was the story “The Lifted Veil” (1859), about a man with the gift of foresight. This is one of the classic works of Victorian Gothic. In one of Evans' most significant novels, Silas Marner, The weaver of Raveloe (1961), published the same year as Big hopes Dickens, despite the realism of what is happening, events develop according to the plan of one of our favorite fairy tales, “Rumplestiltskin”. The main character: the weaver Silas Marner, according to the description of the villagers, has supernatural powers, is small in stature, as if he belongs to a long-lost race. Rumpelstiltskin dreams of exchanging his gold for a child, and Silas Marner, having lost his wealth, gains a golden-haired foundling.