feet of clay

[truepenny]

George Eliot isn't actually one of my favorite Victorian novelists, but I've always admired her for being tough-minded and feminist, so it's a little disappointing to discover that in fact she was neither.

She didn't think women should have the vote: "the very fact that 'woman seems to me to have the worse share in existence', she thought, should be the 'basis for a sublimer resignation in woman and a more regenerating tenderness in man'" (Haight 396), and in general seems to have subscribed to the repugnant Victorian ideology surrounding the Angel in the House:

We can no more afford to part with that exquisite type of gentleness, tenderness, possible maternity suffusing a woman's being with affectionateness, which makes what we mean by the feminine character, than we can afford to part with the human love, the mutual subjection of soul between a man and a woman--which is also a growth and a revelation beginning before all history.
(Eliot, qtd. in Haight, 397)

She did at least approve of women's education (she would have had to be a howling hypocrite not to), but the unconventionality of her life--as Haight's biography is making very clear--was a matter of a single decision on her part, the decision to "marry" George Henry Lewes. And the unconventionality of that decision was forced on her by the behavior of Lewes's legal wife and the state of the divorce laws, not by any wish on hers or Lewes's part.

As for the tough-minded part ... she was so incredibly sensitive to criticism that she convinced herself, Lewes, and her publisher John Blackwood that she was entirely unable to write if even a hint of disapproval of her writing was breathed in her presence. It looks more like a writer's offended amour propre to me--she cut off the series of Scenes from Clerical Life because Blackwood had the temerity to criticize "Janet's Repentance"--but it's perfectly clear that she and Lewes both believed devoutly in her fragility.


As Lewes wrote to Sara Hennell:

Marian [i.e., George Eliot] felt deeply the evil influences of talking and allowing others to talk to her about her writing. We resolved therefore to exclude everything as far as we could. No one speaks about her books to her, but me; she sees no criticisms. The sum total of success is always ascertainable, and she is not asked to dwell on the details.
     Besides this general conviction, there is a special reason in her case--it is that excessive diffidence which prevented her writing at all for so many years, and would prevent her now, if I were not beside her to encourage her. A thousand eulogies would not give her the slightest confidence, but one objection would increase her doubts. ...as it is very desirable she should suffer no more pain in this life that can possibly be avoided, I suppressed your mention of those whose bad judgment you reproved, because I knew it would occupy her thoughts and worry her during my absence. ...
     ... I only wanted to explain a general principle àpropos of a particular case. The principle is this: never tell her anything that other people say about her books, for good or evil; unless of course it should be something exceptionally gratifying to her--something you know would please her apart from its being praise.
(Lewes, qtd. in Haight, 369)

Picking up on a theme in the discussion of my most recent Sayers post, Lewes is clearly an example of a man who considers his wife his work, and Eliot was clearly more than willing to be his work (in fairness, he was also her work, but in a much less caretaker-y, nothing must interfere with the expansion of my friend the genius way).

Most writers (if not all) are morbidly sensitive about criticism, but we deal with it as best we can. It pains me to see someone otherwise so ruthlessly intelligent behaving ostrich-like and allowing herself--as a contemporary hack-writer Mrs. Oliphant put it--to be "kept in a mental greenhouse" (Oliphant, qtd. in Haight, 369). My ego would love it if I had someone to censor negative comments for me, but my writing would suffer immeasurably.
---
WORKS CITED
Haight, Gordon S. George Eliot: A Biography. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.

Comments

Margaret Oliphant

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't actually dismiss her as a hack; she wrote with wit and charm. And I think her autobiography is very interesting, even though (as usual for women's autobiographies, per Heilbrun) she downplayed a lot of her accomplishments.

Re: Margaret Oliphant

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I was following Haight's description of her: "George Eliot's prolific contemporary regarded literature as 'a commodity--a product sold in the market place,' and the only diffidence she showed over having turned out more than 200 volumes of fiction was in having to acknowledge them" (Haight 369, quoting Oliphant).

My definition of "hack" is precisely someone who defines literature as a commodity. (I would have no objection to describing Shakespeare as a hack, if we had proof that that's how he defined his plays; he was just a genius hack.) It doesn't necessarily mean their writing is sub par.

[libskrat]

Eh. I can't quite find it in myself to condemn, as I flatly refuse to write, hack or otherwise, because my skin is too thin for the inevitable (and necessary) criticism.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes, but, knowing you can't stand the heat, you stay out of the kitchen.

George Eliot, to extend the metaphor, was a master chef ... temperamental, as I suppose all great master chefs are supposed to be. But it just bothers me, partly because I hate the Artist as Delicate Flower routine anyway, and I hate to see someone like Eliot perpetuating it.

And maybe it's just that I've been fretful and fault-finding all week.

[cija.livejournal.com]

We can no more afford to part with that exquisite type of gentleness, tenderness, possible maternity suffusing a woman's being with affectionateness, which makes what we mean by the feminine character,[...]

But but but - isn't this just another variation of the question of 'female narrative structure' and the possible existence of same that got me so unreasoningly apoplectic in your comments section a few weeks ago (is there such a thing as female structure, a woman's life, a woman's way to tell a story blah blah blah)? That is, isn't she saying that so-called "femininity" is not mere weakness and frivolity, but rather a profoundly important aspect of the human character that should not be dispensed with as we women climb onward and upward towards dignity and respect, as would be implied if we accepted that "masculinity" was in all things a higher state?

Not that I agree with any of the assumptions embedded in that paragraph, but I think there are a number of feminists who are not unworthy of the name who do.

But in terms of practical ramifications of that sentiment, if they mean that in order to preserve this marvelous construct of femininity, women can't be exposed to the difficulties and responsibilities of public life, of course that's wrong and you're right.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Since I've been immersed in Victorian social history this week, that passage, to me, is a string of buzzwords associated with the ideas of separate spheres and the Angel in the House. And Haight's framing, which I didn't quote, "she insisted on the special moral influence of women that springs from physical and psychological differences" (Haight 397), is probably the thing that really pushed my buttons, because the Angel in the House rhetoric is all about "moral influence," which in reality translated to "lack of power."

Haight isn't particularly interested in her feminism or lack thereof, so it's difficult to say exactly what she meant. I'd like to read another, more recent biographer's interpretation. But it doesn't seem to me that she's talking about women's experience. She's talking about particular qualities which it suited Victorians to believe women had in greater quantities than men. And I find that kind of essentialism pernicious.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

There's also this thing, which is a very narrow line between saying I am supposed to be like that and only like that, and saying nobody should be like that because it's an invalid way to be.

Both of these things drive me crazy.

I want a spectrum of human behaviour, all of it fine to tell stories about, with all roles taken by any biological gender.

I don't want any limitations, whether they're trying to close me, or bits of me, in or out.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

What she said.

Permission to link to discussion

[oursin.livejournal.com]

This raises all sorts of questions for me about feminism, foremothers, expectations of exemplary women, etc (as well as Eliot-related issues). As I'm still thinking these out, and will probably post in my own LJ once I have my ideas a bit more organised, may I link to this?

Re: Permission to link to discussion

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes, you certainly may. Just let me know so I can come read it.

George Eliot, feminism, foremothers

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/oursin/4423.html) are my still far from coherent ramblings about this - I should probably not have tried to organise my thoughts on an exhausted Friday evening, but wanted to get something down while they were still fairly fresh in my mind.