GEORGE ELIOT: FURTHER READING

Bibliography

Baker, William and John C. Ross. George Eliot: A Bibliographical History. London, England: British Library Publications, 2002, 676 p.

Provides a detailed and thorough bibliography of published critical commentary on Eliot's life and works through 2001.

Biography

Haight, Gordon S. George Eliot: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968, 616 p.

Offers a definitive biography.

Criticism

Austen, Zelda. "Why Feminist Critics Are Angry with George Eliot." College English 37, no. 6 (February 1976): 549-61.

Explains why feminists often criticize Eliot's novels, particularly Middlemarch, for reinforcing patriarchal systems; however, Austen argues that feminists have "something to learn" from Eliot's subtle thinking about a woman's place in a male-dominated society.

Critical Essays on George Eliot, edited by Barbara Hardy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970, 192 p.

Contains essays on Eliot's individual novels, with commentary on Eliot's oeuvre by W. J. Harvey and John Bayley.

Dee, Phyllis Susan. "Female Sexuality and Triangular Desire in Vanity Fair and The Mill on the Floss." Papers on Language & Literature 35, no. 4 (fall 1999): 391-416.

Compares female sexuality in William Makepeace Thackeray's and Eliot's novels, addressing the ways in which female characters "struggle to escape the male-initiated bonds of sexual desire."

Dillon, Steven. "George Eliot and the Feminine Gift." Studies in English Literature 32, no. 4 (autumn 1992): 707-21.

Explores the "gift," which refers to the protestant religious gift associated with John Milton, in terms of femininity in Eliot's works.

Heller, Deborah. "George Eliot's Jewish Feminist." Atlantis 8, no. 2 (spring 1983): 37-43.

Explores the complexity of Eliot's attitude towards Judaism and feminism in Daniel Deronda.

Hudd, Louise. "The Politics of a Feminist Poetics: 'Armgart' and George Eliot's Critical Response to Aurora Leigh." In Poetry and Politics (Essays and Studies 49), edited by Kate Flint, pp. 62-83. Cambridge, England: D. S. Brewer, 1996.

Discusses Eliot's critical response to Elizabeth Barrett Browning's epic poem Aurora Leigh, using examples from Eliot's writings in the Westminster Review to show that Eliot is engaging in a feminist debate.

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. "George Eliot as the Angel of Destruction." In The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer in the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, pp. 478-535. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.

In a seminal feminist interpretation of Middlemarch Gilbert and Gubar suggest that the novel should be read as an attempt on Eliot's part to resolve the conflict between two opposing sides of her personality, her "man's mind" and "woman's heart."

Graver, Suzanne. "'Incarnate History': The Feminisms of Middlemarch. "In Approaches to Teaching Eliot's Middlemarch, edited by Kathleen Blake, pp. 64-74. New York: Modern Language Association, 1990.

Addresses Eliot's ambivalence towards feminism in Middlemarch and suggests approaches to the novel in the classroom.

Lovesey, Oliver. "The Other Woman in Daniel Deronda." Studies in the Novel 30, no. 4 (winter 1998): 505-20.

Comments on the marginalization and restriction of female characters in Daniel Deronda.

Ringler, Ellin. "Middlemarch: A Feminist Perspective." Studies in the Novel 25, no. 1 (spring 1983): 55-60.

Argues that "feminists' uneasiness" about Eliot's novels in general and Middlemarch in particular is justified because Eliot ultimately reinforces "disjunctures between male and female social power."

Sypher, Eileen. "Resisting Gwendolen's 'Subjection': Daniel Deronda's Proto-Feminism." Studies in the Novel 28, no. 4 (winter 1996): 506-24.

Contends that Gwendolen Harleth, one of the heroines in Eliot's Daniel Deronda, displays many characteristics of early feminist thought because of her resistance to the limitations imposed by men.

West-Burnham, Joss. "Travelling towards Selfhood: Victorian Religion and the Process of Female Identity." In Women's Lives into Print: The Theory, Practice and Writing of Feminist Auto/Biography, edited by Pauline Polkey, pp. 80-95. Basingstoke, England: Macmillan, 1999.

Discusses Eliot's transition from faith to unbelief, including a suggestion of the implications of religion on the feminist tendencies in Eliot's writing.

OTHER SOURCES FROM GALE:

Additional coverage of Eliot's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: British Writers, Vol. 5; British Writers: The Classics, Vol. 1; British Writers Retrospective Supplement, Vol. 2; Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, 1832-1890; Contemporary Novelists, Ed. 7; Contemporary Popular Writers; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vols. 21, 35, 55; DISCovering Authors; DISCovering Authors: British Edition; DISCovering Authors: Canadian Edition; DISCovering Authors Modules: Most-studied Authors and Novelists; DISCovering Authors 3.0; Literary Movements for Students, Vol. 1; Literature and Its Times Supplement, Vol. 1; Literature Resource Center; Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Vols. 4, 13, 23, 41, 49, 89, 118; Novels for Students, Vol. 17; Poetry Criticism, Vol. 20; Reference Guide to English Literature, Ed. 2; Reference Guide to Short Fiction, Ed. 2; Short Stories for Students, Vol. 8; Twayne's English Authors; World Literature and Its Times, Vol. 3; and World Literature Criticism.