Maggie’s death and Dorothea’s growth — the sublimation of passion in George Eliot’s novels

IF 0.2 3区文学 0 LITERATURE

EXPLICATOR Pub Date : 2021-07-03 DOI:10.1080/00144940.2021.1960471

Xiaotong Guo

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Abstract

Passion has been regarded as one of the shared characteristics of George Eliot’s heroines, but even though it has been heatedly discussed, the implications of passion have not been clearly defined. For instance, John Ruskin once criticizes Maggie Tulliver from The Mill on the Floss for her “ungoverned excess of any appetite or passion” (467), and passion here can be understood as powerful feelings. Virginia Woolf, on the other hand, comments that these heroines “each has the deep feminine passion for goodness”, but they could not “find what they seek” no matter how hard they tried (482). Passion here surely indicates more than feelings. Gillian Beer argues that passions in George Eliot’s novels cannot be regarded as solely heterosexual affairs, but “vehement human need sustained past the accomplishment of the moment of desire” (86). In fact, I think it is exactly this vehement human need that vitalizes George Eliot’s heroines, and powerful feelings are its most obvious representation. Maggie Tulliver from The Mill on the Floss and Dorothea Brooke from Middlemarch are both equipped with a passionate impulse, but their fates are totally different. George Eliot never gives Maggie the chance to mature. Instead, she only lets her die to evade the struggle between passion and duty, the inherent problem among all of George Eliot’s heroines. Dorothea, however, gains her intellectual and moral growth and sublimates her passion into sympathy. I believe Spinoza’s teaching on passion can shed new light on this issue, but even though Spinoza’s influence on George Eliot has been widely recognized, his particular idea of passion has not been closely examined within George Eliot’s writings. This essay tries to make a little contribution to fill this gap by excavating how George Eliot sublimates passion in the narrative of her heroines’ growths, and how their growths correspond to Spinoza’s idea of passion. https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2021.1960471

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玛吉的死与多萝西娅的成长——艾略特小说中激情的升华

激情一直被认为是乔治·艾略特笔下女主人公的共同特征之一，但尽管人们对它进行了热烈的讨论，但激情的含义并没有得到明确的定义。例如，约翰·罗斯金（John Ruskin）曾批评《弗洛斯河上的磨坊》（The Mill on The Floss）中的玛吉·图利弗（Maggie Tulliver）“过度的食欲或激情”（467），这里的激情可以理解为强大的情感。另一方面，弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫评论说，这些女主人公“每个人都对善良有着深厚的女性热情”，但无论她们多么努力，都无法“找到自己想要的”（482）。这里的激情肯定不仅仅是感情。吉莉安·比尔认为，乔治·艾略特小说中的激情不能仅仅被视为异性恋，而是“人类强烈的需求持续到欲望的时刻”（86）。事实上，我认为正是这种强烈的人类需求激发了乔治·艾略特笔下女主人公的活力，而强烈的情感是其最明显的表现。来自The Mill on The Floss的Maggie Tulliver和来自Middlemarch的Dorothea Brooke都有激情，但他们的命运完全不同。乔治·艾略特从不给玛吉成熟的机会。相反，她只是为了逃避激情和责任之间的斗争而让自己死去，这是乔治·艾略特笔下所有女英雄的固有问题。然而，多萝西娅获得了她的智力和道德成长，并将她的热情升华为同情。我相信斯宾诺莎关于激情的教学可以为这个问题提供新的视角，但尽管斯宾诺莎对乔治·艾略特的影响已经得到了广泛的认可，但他关于激情的特殊思想并没有在乔治·艾略特的著作中得到仔细的审视。本文试图通过挖掘乔治·艾略特如何在女主人公成长的叙事中升华激情，以及她们的成长如何与斯宾诺莎的激情观相对应，来填补这一空白。https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2021.1960471

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EXPLICATOR LITERATURE-

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期刊介绍： Concentrating on works that are frequently anthologized and studied in college classrooms, The Explicator, with its yearly index of titles, is a must for college and university libraries and teachers of literature. Text-based criticism thrives in The Explicator. One of few in its class, the journal publishes concise notes on passages of prose and poetry. Each issue contains between 25 and 30 notes on works of literature, ranging from ancient Greek and Roman times to our own, from throughout the world. Students rely on The Explicator for insight into works they are studying.