Ivanhoe 3 страница

George Eliot (1819-1881)

George Eliot

George Eliot ['dp:d3'elj3t] is the pen-name of Mary Ann Evans ['evanz], who began writing fiction when she was already middle-aged. Until then she had worked as a journalist. Mary's fa­ther was a land agent. She was born some twenty miles from Stratford-on-Avon, but spent her childhood on a farm in the Midlands. The girl studied at two private schools for young ladies. After her mother's death she left school at the age of seventeen. Since that time, to almost thirty she kept house for her widowed father. Along with her work in the house, she found time to study languages, biology and other sciences. Mary read a great deal and became interested in social and philosophical prob­lems. She became one of the most learned women of her time. After she had moved to London she translated some philosophi­cal works from German into English and acted as assistant editor of the Westminster Review.

George Eliot best works are: Adam Bede [bi:d] (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Silas fsailas] Marner (1861). These books are a wonderful study of English provincial life. They deal with rural society — the farmers, the small landlords and the clergy of Warwickshire. Eliot's works are also rich in descriptions of the English countryside, drawn with exactness and a deep love of nature. The persons she writes of are for the most part the com­mon people of the country and village, whom she knew from her earliest years.

George Eliot very skilfully reveals to the reader her heroes' psychology and moral conflicts. Their desires, passion, tempera­ment and human weaknesses are always struggling with their moral duty. That is why in her novels George Eliot deals mostly with the problems of religion and morality. Eliot shows an emo­tional sympathy and tenderness towards her heroes, praising their human dignity, unselfishness, honesty and frankness, and at the same time pitilessly unmasking the hypocrisy and wickedness of those who make them suffer.

The works of the later period — Romola fromab] (1863), Felix Holt [ 'fi:liks 'hault], the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1872) and Daniel Deronda [da'rrmda] (1876) — are much weaker. They contain less observation and fhspiration.

But George Eliot must be judged by the books in which she gave her talent, the books that brought her fame and made her one of the most distinguished English novelists of the period.

George Eliot's work belongs to the later period of the 19th century novel. She has sometimes been described as the first modern English novelist. Her great merit is a deep psychological analysis of the characters she portrays, and a keen observation of their inner world.

Дата добавления: 2015-06-27