George Eliot's Adam Bede: An Overview

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General Materials

• A Brief Biography (Website in the U. K.)
• A George Eliot Chronology (Website in Japan)

General

• shows George Eliot at her best in her three most noteworthy qualities — lofty principles, lifelike delineation of character, and fine humour

Social, Political, and Cultural Contexts

• Literary relations
  • Eliza Lynn Linton on the novel

Theme and Technique

• Theme and Subject
  • Balancing the moral and the aesthetic
• Setting and Description
  • Anachronisms in the novel
  • Gerard Dow and Adam Bede
  • Moral action and the landscape in which it takes place
  • embodies Ruskinian critique of the picturesque
  • Eliot's skill at country-house portraiture: Hall Farm and the Chase in Adam Bede
• Characterization
  • Three Stages in the Development of Characterization in George Eliot's Fiction
  • Superb characterization
  • Ovidian idealization
  • Phenrology and Characterization
• Plot and Narrative Structure
• Symbol, Image, and Motif
• Genre and Style
  • Autobiography and Autobiographicality
  • Philosophic passages hamper the action (Linton)
  • Realism in Fiction

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Last modified 20 February 2000