George Eliot's Daniel Deronda: An Overview

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General Materials

• A Biographical Introduction

Social, Political, and Cultural Contexts

• “The most wearisome, the least artistic, and the most unnatural of all George Eliot's books” — Eliza Lynn Linton
• Literary relations

Theme and Technique

• Theme and Subject
• Atonement, law, and inheritance in the novel
• The noble aim and meaning of the story
• Setting and Description
  • Wordsworthian non-visionary landscapes
  • Turnerian visionary landscapes
• Characterization
  • Three Stages in the Development of Characterization in George Eliot's Fiction
  • Ovidian idealization
• Plot and Narrative Structure
• Symbol, Image, and Motif
  • prophetic pictures
  • Mallinger portrait collection as symbol
  • Eliot and the aristocratic "Conversation Piece" from eighteenth-century painting
• Genre and Style
• Examples of the novel's wit and humor

Bibliography

Eliot, George. Daniel Deronda. Ed. Graham Handley. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. [now the standard scholarly text] PR4658

Related Web Resources

• WGBH Masterpiece Theater site on Daniel Deronda

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Last modified 5 July 2014