From Author to Text: Re-reading George Eliot's Romola / Edition 1

by Caroline Levine, Mark W Turner

Overview

First published in 1998, this volume proposes to shift the critical emphasis from a canonical author to her uncanonical text – from George Eliot to her novel Romola – and contends that this choice both broadens the range of interpretive possibilities and brings them into sharper focus.

The editors invited a variety of critics to put their different critical models to work on Romola and the results are fertile and suggestive: among the issues explored here are the domestic politics of marriage, the relationship between narrative and epistemology, the materiality of the text, the novel’s relation to nineteenth-century narratives of martyrdom, and the gendering of space. Such theoretical eclecticism, when focused on a common reference point, necessarily opens out into a dialogue among critical and interpretive models. Theory throws light onto Romola, just as Romola throws light onto theory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138385771
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/23/2020
Series:	Routledge Revivals
Pages:	229
Product dimensions:	5.88(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Caroline Levine, Mark W Turner

Table of Contents

Part I. Rethinking the Text. 1. George Eliot v. Frederic Leighton: Whose Text is it Anyway? Mark W. Turner. 2. The Texts of Romola. Andrew Brown. Part II. Rethinking the Heroine. 3. Mapping Romola: Physical Space, Women’s Place. Shona Elizabeth Simpson. 4. ‘Telling the Whole’: Trauma, Drifting and Reconciliation in Romola. Julian Corner. 5. From Romola to Romola: The Complex Act of Naming. Susan M. Bernardo. Part III. Rethinking Authority. 6. George Eliot Martyrologist: The Case of Savanarola. David Carroll. 7. Power and Persuasion: Voices of Influence in Romola. Beryl Gray. 8. The Prophetic Fallacy: Realism, Foreshadowing and Narrative Knowledge in Romola. Caroline Levine. 9. ‘An Imperceptible Start’: The Sight of Humanity in Romola. Chris Greenwood. 10. Angels and Archangels: Romola and the Paintings of Florence. Leonee Ormond.