New Historicism

Name                  :        Gohil Hetalba I.

Std                       :        M.A. I        Sem :          II

Roll No.              :        8

Topic                   :        New Historicism

Papers                :        Paper No.  8 Cultural Studies

Submitted To     :        Dr. Dilip Barad

                                      Department of English M.K. Bhavnagar

University

v    New Historicism

The term ‘new historicism’ was coined by the American critic Stephen greenbelts whose book renaissance self fashioning from more to Shakespeare (1980) is usually regarded as its beginning.

New historicism has been the accepted name for a mod of literary study that its perfoments appose to the formalism they attribute both of the ‘new criticism’ and to the critical ‘deconstruction’ that followed it what is most distivetive in this mode of historical study is chiefly the consequence of concepts and practices of literary analysis and interpretation and evaluation. New historicists conceive of a literary text as ‘situated’ within the totality of the institutions, social practices & the discourses.

In an oft-quoted phrase, Louis Montrose described the new historicism as “a reciprocal concern with the historicity of texts and the textuality of history.” A number of historicists claim that these cultural and ideological representations in texts serve mainly to reproduce, conform, and propagate the complex pourer structures of domination and subordination which characterize a given society.

We find considerable diversity and disagreements among individual exponents of the new historicism. Many historicists assign the formative period of some basic constructs to the early era of capitalism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries new historicists acknowledge that they themselves, like all authors, are “subjectivities” that have been shaped and informed by the circumstances and discourses specific to their era, hence that their own critical writings in great part construct, rather than discover ready-made, the textual meanings they describe and the literary and cultural histories they narrate.

The concepts, themes, and procedures of new historicist criticism took shape in the late 1975s and early 1980s , most prominently in writings by scholars of the English renaissance. New historicist procedures also have parallels in the critics of African, American and other ethnic literatures who stress the role of culture formations dominated by white Europeans in suppressing, marginalizing or distorting the achievements of non-white and non-Europeans people. In the 1990s, various forms of new historicism, and related types of criticism that stress the embeddedness of literature in historical circumstances, replaced deconstruction as the reigning mode of advent-grade critical theory and practice.

v    Definition:-

“New historicism is that it is a method based on the parallel reading of literary and non-literary texts, usually of the same historical period”.

  New historicism refuses to ‘privilege’ the literary text: instead of a literary, foreground and a historical ‘background’ it envisages and practices a mode of study in which literary and non-literary texts are given equal weight and constantly inform or interrogate each other.

In the definition of new historicism given by the American critic Louis Montrose:-

He defines it as a combined interest in the textuality of history, the historicity of texts’. It involves’ an intensified willingness to read ‘all’ of the attention traditionally conferred only on literary texts’ so new historicism embodies’ a paradox, it is an approach to literature in which there is no privileging of the literary. A new historical essay will place the literary text within the ‘frame’ of a non-literary text.

Louis Montrose in the first silence of the essay discussed later. I would like to recent an Elizalathan dream not Shakespeare’s ‘A midsummer night’s dream but one dreamt by Simon Forman on 23 January 1597’. This dramatic openings often cite date and place and have all the force of the documentary, eyewitness account, strongly evoking the quality of lived experience rather than ‘history’ since these historical documents are analyses in their own right, we should perhaps call then ‘contexts’ rather than ‘contexts’. This process is well described by Richard Wilson and Richard Dutton in the introduction to their collection of essay new historicism and renaissance drama:

“Where (earlier) criticism had mystified Shakespeare’s as an incarnation of spoken English, it (new historicism) found the plays embedded in other written texts, such as penal, medical and colonial documents.” Read within this archival continuum what they represented was not harmony but the violence of the puritan attack on carnival, the imposition of slavery, the rise of patriarchy the hounding of  deviance, and the crashing of prison gates during what jocular called ‘the age of confinement, at the dawn of cerebral society.’

v    New and old historicism

The earlier approaches made a hierarchical separation between the literary text, which was the object of value, the jeavel, as it were and the historical ‘background’, which was merely the setting, and by definition of less worth.

The practice of giving equal weighting it literary & non-literary material is that the first and major difference between the ‘new’ and ‘old’ historicism.

A second important difference between old and new historicism is encapsulated in the word ‘archival’ in the phrase the phrase the archival continuum.

v    New historicism and Foucault

New historicism is anti-establishment, always implicitly on the side of liberal ideals of personal freedom. Foucault’s pervasive image of the state is that of ‘panoptic’ (all-seeing) surveillance. The pan option was a design for a circular prison.

Discourse is the whole ‘mental set’ and ideology which encloses the thinking of all members of a given society. There is a multiplicity of discourses. Here the state is seen as a monolithic structure and change becomes almost impossible. Foucault’s work looks at the institutions which enable this pourer to be maintained.

A single historical text is sometimes the single witness. The interpretative weight thus placed upon a single document is often very great. Hence, one should not accept admiration of the methods by historians.

v    Advantages and disadvantages

It is founded upon poststructuralist thinking. It presents its data and draws its conclusions. The material itself is often fascinating and wholly distinctive. The political edge of new historicist writing is always sharp, but at the same time it avoids the problems frequently encountered in ‘straight’ Marxist criticism.

New historicism juxtaposes literary material with contemporary non –literary text. They ‘defamiliarise’ the canonical literary text. They focus attention on issues of state power and how it is maintained. They make use in doing so of especially Derrida’s notion that every facet of reality is textures as determined by dominant discursive practices.

v    Example from fairies Queen

In Spenser’s fairies Queen, Elizabeth can project herself as the Queen whose virginity has mystical and magical potency because such images are given currency in court masques, in comedies & pastoral epic poetry. The figure oh Elizabeth stimulates the production and promotion of such work and imagery. Thus, history is textualised and texts are historicized.

v    Cultural Materialism

The British critic graham Holderness describes cultural materialism as ‘a politicized from of historiography’ It can be called the study of historical material within a politicized framework. This term was made current in 1985 when it was used by Jonathan dollinore and Alan sin field as the Sublette of their edited coactions of essay political Shakespeare. The characteristic of cultural materialism are-

(1)             Historical context

(2)             Theoretical method

(3)             Political commitment, and

(4)             Textual analysis

Ø   The emphasis on historical context undermines the transcendent significance traditionally accorded is the literary text. The word ‘transcendent’ roughly means timeless for example studies of Shakespeare’s plays are proved is be timeless.

Ø   The emphasis on theoretical method signifies the break with liberal humanism and the absorbing of the lessons of structuralism, post-structuralism etc.

Ø   The emphasis on political commitment signifies the influence of Marxist and feminist perspectives and the break from the conservative framework.

Ø   The stress on textual analysis locates the critique of traditional approaches where it cannot be ignored.

The two words in the term cultural materialism are further defined ‘culture’ will include ‘all’ forms of culture while ‘materialism’ signifies the opposite of idealism an idealist belief would be that high culture represents the free and independent play of the talented individual mind

In cultural materialism there is an emphasis on the working of the institutions through which shakpeare is company, the film, industry, the publishers who produce textbooks for school and college, and the national curriculum which lays sown the requirement that specific Shakespeare plays be studied by all school pupils.

Cultural materialism takes a good deal of its outlook from the British left wing critic Raymond Williams. Williams’s intuited the term structures of feelings’

These are concerned with meanings and values as they are lived and felt structure are found in literature. The cultural materialism is much more optimistic about the possibility of change. It involves past to ‘reading’ the present.

v    Difference between cultural materialism and new historicism.

Cultural materialist tend to concentrate on the interventions where by men and women make their own history where as new historicists tent it focus on the less than ideal circumstances in which they do so that is on the ‘power of social and ideological’ structures’ which restrain them.

Cultural materialists see new historicists as cutting themselves off from effective political position by their acceptance of a particular version of post structuralism when new historicists claim that Foucault gives them entry into a non-truth-oriented from of historicist’s study of texts.

  

Literary Theory & Criticism

Name                  :        Gohil HetalbaI.

Std                       :        M.A. I        Sem :          II

Roll No.              :        8

Topic                   :        Literary Theory & Criticism

Papers                :        Paper No.  7 

Submitted To     :        Dr. Dilip Barad

                                      Department of English M.K. Bhavnagar

University

Rasa Theory

          Indian ancient criticism was a mildestone in itself. Ancient criticism is rich and beyond comparison. The vedic texts annauced that the poets were “gods”. They projected the term ‘kavi’ for the poets. A human being could become poet only in so far as he attained to the nature and status of a god. The poet was the seer of truth having a subtle, profound and penetrating, consciousness. He was a creator or maker, the builder, fashioner and lastly he embodied the principle of delight( ) He saw the principle of beauty in all things and was filled with utter ecstasy and raised the earth to the level of Heaven. The vedic conception of a poet took into account all aspects of poetry its creation, its manifestation and its impact upon the reader The vedic kavi was also yogi and ‘Jagrat’ (the waking state), the Upanishads spoke of subtler states such as (swapna) the dream state(susupti) deep sleep and (turiya) the transcendental state not mention infraconscious levels. He could also see objectively what he has created and evaluate it.

          Every vedic scholar who has learnt his traditional way would talk about the importance of ‘swera’ and how it determines the meaning. The critic is one who is capable of ‘                ’. Bharata was the first art critic to define ‘          ’ for us the literary Theories are classified into-

1)                Language namely ‘alankara’ and ‘vakroti’(principle of figuratweness & principle of deviation)

2)                Style and compositional value, namely, ‘gunaf dosa’ (excellence faults) ‘riti’ (made of expression), and ‘aucitya’ (proproety)

3)                Verbal symbolism, namely, ‘dhvani’

4)                Aesthetic experience namely, ‘rasa’

5)                Narrative, namely mahavakya

6)                Discourse analysis namely, yukties

7)                Comprehensive analysis

‘Rasa’ Theory has its arigin in the Natyasastra of Bharata. ‘Rasa’ claims the object or meaning should be conveyed in literary composition and it’s nature should have an emotional effect. It has diverse human experience on man’s heart and mind.

          Bharata demonstrates to enumerate the whole rangte of emotions, or states of being born of experience and to analyse the structure emotions as cause, physical correlate(effect) and their effect on man’s being. Thus ‘Rasa’ can be said to be a theory of literary experience. Bharata gave the analysis of its sources, nature and its categoeies Dhanika-Dhananjaya reexamined Bharata’s typology of drama and added to it a typology of ‘uparupakas’ subplays, plays within plays, and one-act plays.abhinava gupta enriched this theary by elucidating its philosophic foundations and by analyzing, it in depth the aesthetics in terms of nature, cognition and effect of literary experience.

          The ‘Rasa’ theory has been accepted as the core literary theory by all mayor pacticians both before and after Abhinavgupta. Pt.jaganath and viswanatha also contributed to Rasa Theory.

          ‘Rasa’is said to arise when the athayibhava in the individual is awakened by his peaception of the vibhavasanubhavas, vyabhicaribhawas and sattuic bhawas.

          Vibhava is the stimuli like the story, the stage and the actors responsible for the awakening og the sthayi The vibhavas are of two kinds

(1)             Alambana vibhave

It is the basic stimulus that is capable of arousing the sentiment, whereas

(2)              Uddipana vaibhava is the enhacing stimuli, the environment in which the basic stimulus is located.

In case of arousing the sentiment of pity or ‘karuna rasa’, the perception of an old weak woman on the stage is called alambana vibhava and the thatched hut in which the old woman is being and the atmosphere around is of negbct and poverty can be rightly called ‘uddipana’ vibhava.

Yet it is important to note that vibhava is not the ‘cause’ of proelucing  any emotin but only the mealium by which pases to spectator by means of sympathetic induction This way in aesthetic concition of induction, everything is a medium and not a cause and it so happens because what is transferred is always a generalired feeling which can neither be called result nor it can be called a knowledge. This change implies not the production of any new emotion in the spectator but not only the awakening of ‘latent’ sentiment

‘Anubhava’ is the deliberate manifestations’ of feelings on the part of the actor. They include various gestures and glances of the actor which are intended to develop the basic stimulus or the vibhava.

          ‘Vyabhicaribhavas’ are the transient emotions arising in the cause of maintaining and developing the baisic mood they are the ancillary emotions which are determined by the baisic emotions  and vyabhicaribhavas in turn reinforces the basic mood.

    If the basic mood is love, ‘riti’ joy in union and anguish in separation will be the accompanying ancillary emotions.

     Sattvic bhava are the involuntary expressions such as blushing, perspiration tec. Which arise as a result of experiencing and portrayal of the emotion.

          When all the above factors join the sthajibhava is aroused in the spectator thata becomes ‘Rasa’, it actually develops into ‘rasa’ when it is aroused and brought to a relishable condition as a result of the complex stimuli ‘Rasa’ arises as a consequence of all these factors is distinct from all of them as a dish is distinct in taste from each of its ingredients.

·                   Process of rasanubhava by Abhinavagupta

Abhinavagupta believes that grasping the full significance of the words and their meanings there is a mental intuition as a result of which the actual temporal and spatial character of the situation is withdrown from the mental field and the emotion suggested there in toses its individual character which becomes dissociated from such condition as might have led is to any motivation. Pathological results are always due to a sense of self struggle, self-emotivation, loss and son on. In Rasa, we live through the experience of pure sentiment bereft of all its loval characters and personal emotive associations in the subconscious and unconscious regions there are always complexities. When through artistic creation a purely universal emotional fear armour, etc, are projected in the mind they become affiliated or appereception or implicit recognition of identity immediately changes the artistic joy there is a kinship and identity among all art-enjoyers.

    Abhinavagupta’s teacher Bhatta Tauta in ‘Kawya-kawluka says that a dramatic play is not a physical occurrences. The man who plays Rama’s role does not appear to us that he cannot be the same ‘Rama’ about valmike wrote. He stands somewhere midway between the pure actuality and the pure ideality. Revealing new types of pleasures and pains, unlike those associated with our egoistic instincts and the success or failures of their strivings. “This is teachnically called Rasasvadance, camatkaara , carvana which literally means the ‘experiencing of a transcendent exhilaration’ from the enjoyment of the roused emotions inherent in our own personality”

                   The ‘rasa’ theary has been accepted as the core literary theory by all major poeticians both before and after Abhinavagupta. Anandvardhana integrates ‘rasa’ theory with his ‘dhvane’ theory. “Dhucine” is the method, the means for achieving or evoking ‘rasa’ which is the effect of suggestion.

  ‘Rasa’ is the constant aesthetic pleasure in all literature its divisions are based on sthayibhavas  which evoke the rasas, states of mind. The ‘rasa’ is a state or condition produced in the spectator a single feeling and a pleasurable one. Bharata’s Natyasastra-‘rasasutra vibhavanubhava vyabhicari samyogada rasanispatti’ has been interpreted in a different way from the different point of view-

(1)             Who is the sabstratium(asraya) of ‘rasa’.

(2)             Have it is experienced

There are various opinions on ‘rasa’. It is ungiven that ‘rasa’ exists in the heroine(Lollata)

                             Also it is suggested that the experience of “Rasa” is a matter of inference (sankuka). Bhattanayaka cleary depicted that ‘rasa is experienced by the spectator, that it is the spectator’s aesthetic experience that the enjoyment of ‘rasa’ is a subjective experience. Bhattanayaka differentiated poetic language from ordinary language the poetic language besides abhidha, primary meaning has two other functions

(1)             Bhavakatha univer satization or stripping ‘vibhava’ and ‘sthayibhava’ of individuall and personal aspects, is the abstraction of the emotion , by the spectator from its immediate location and context.

(2)             Bhayakatva-tasting or experiencing the emotion in one’s self-consuning for one self the emotion represented in the performance text.

          There are three stages in the realization of ‘rasa’ in literature accordingly are-

(a)Cognition of the forman, intellectual elements of the poem means to the second stage

(b)Idealisation of things in poetry or drama by the power of imagination in the reader/spectator.

          (c) intensification of the inexpressible effective emotional condition of the reader/ spectator

                    The eight rhetorical sentiments(Rasas) recognized in drama and dramatic representation are

(1)             Erotic

(2)             Comic

(3)             Pathetic

(4)             Furious

(5)             Heroic

(6)             Terrible

(7)             Odious

(8)             Marvelous

                    The high-sauled Druhina(Brahima) proclaimed the above rhetorical sentiments.

Bhava & Rasa

Bhava and Rasa are the emotional states turned out from the rhetorical sentiments(raras) or it may be opposite. It is a matter of actual perception that the rhetorical sentiments are turned out of the emotional states and not that emotional states are turned out of the sentiments. There are traditional couplets about this.

“The emotional states are known by the designers of the dramatic art because they (the bhavas) bring to the spectators an emotional awareness of the sentiments as connected with various modes of action or dramatic representation”

“The term ‘rasa’ has a twofold significance. It means the ‘aesthetic content of literary art and also ‘aesthetic relish’ which the reader-spectator enjoys”.

“As from a seed a tree grouse, and from the tree flower and fruit, so all the sentiments stands as the root the emotional states have their settled position for the sake of tebhyah the purpose of manifesting the sentiments (rasas).

The sources of origin of these ‘rasas’ are the four basic sentiments ‘erotic’ ‘jurious’, the heroic and the odious.

The comic sentiment becomes possible from the erotic, and the pathetic from the jurious, the origin of the marvelous is from the hroic, and of the terrible from the odious.

A mimicry or imitation of the erotic is fittingly described as the sentiment of laughter And the consequence of the jurious is to be known as pathetic sentiments the heroic is properly described as the marvelous and the odious is terrible.

The erotic sentiment is light green (syama), the comic is described as white (sita), pathetic is grey (kapta) and fearful is red (rakta), the heroic is yellow-red (gaura), terrible is black, the odious is (blue)(rala) and the marvelous is yellow.

The ‘erotic’ (sentiment) has visnu as deity, the ‘comic’ is pramatha, the furious is rudra, the pathetic is yama, odious is mahakala, terrible is kala, the jderoic is mahendra and the marvelous has Brahma as its deity.

Bharatamuni ascribed the natyasastra to many reiualistic Indian critics during the last two hundred years, Bharata is the makers of Rasa theory. One cannot deny his fascinating insight in the psychology of aesthetic reception was a phenomenal triumph of intellect, it is necessary to remind ourselves that the natyasastra is not devoted solely to the exposition of ‘rasa’ theory.

Middle march as a study of Provincial Life

Name                  :        Gohil Hetalba I.

Std                       :        M.A. I        Sem :          II

Roll No.              :        8

Topic                   :    Middle march as a study of Provincial Life

Papers                :        Paper No.  6  Victorian Age

Submitted To     :        Dr. Dilip Barad

                                      Department of English M.K. Bhavnagar

University

“MIDDLE MARCH” AS A STUDY OF PROVNCIAL LIFE.”

·        GEORGE ELIOT (1819 – 1880)

                   Many Ann Evans wrote under the pen name of George Eliot. She had religious and spiritual speculation. Her novels deal with the tragedy at ordinaries lives unfolded with an intense sympathy and deep in sight into the truth of character. For her the development of human soul, or the study of its relationship to the greater things beyond itself, is the all important theme. There is little striking incident in her novels, but her plots are skillfully managed. Behind all her writing there lies a sense of the tragedy of life, in which sin or folly brings its own retribution.

·        INTRO

                   Middle March is a study of provincial life and the scene is laid in the provincial town of Middle March in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is a love story principally dealing with the affairs of Dorothea Brooke and Mr. Rossamond unicyending in despair. “In Middle March the psychology tends more clearly towards an intuitive idea of mind and consciousness. Her most powerful novel, even if it is not inspired or the most harmoniously constructed, is the last in which the activity of her courageous, ever moving mind has been expressed in terms of scenes and figures family to herself and thus endowed with artistic reality.

-         Cazamin

·        SETTING OF THE NOVEL

                   Middle March is George Eliot’s sixth novel. The reaction to the novel has been a mixed one. Contemporary reviewers, in general, admired it four its life likeness for its characters which they felt were very true to life. In Middle march, the novelist returns once again to the English Midlands in which her girlhood had been passed and which had fertilized her imagination. The location of Middle march has been left indeterminate and vag the setting has not been precisely delineated, as is the case with the other early novels like ‘Adam Bede’. ‘Mill on the Floss and Silas Murder But most critics identify Middle march with ‘Coventry with which George Eliot was well familiar. The action takes place in Middle march or in localities close to it like Tipton Grange. Lowick manour Freshitt Hall, etc. George Eliot is once again on familiar grounds and Midland scenes and sights have been realistically and feelingly sketched. The time of action of the novel is the period immediately preceding the reform Act of 1832.

                   Middle march acquires a symbolic significance, symbolic of English, rural life in the 1830’s. What happens in Middle march was happening in provincial society all over England. Contemporary political and social problems are harmonized with private and personal life.

·        MULTIPLICITY OF CHARACTERS

                   The canvas of Middle march is a crowded one. It is a long novel running into over eight hundred minutely printed pages in the penguin edition. There is a host of characters, so many that all of them cannot even be named in the space. The main characters may be divided into four groups. The first one is Brooks – consisting of Mr. Edword Brooke, his two nieces- Dorothea, the elder sister and Celia, the younger one. The reside at Tipton Grance near the town of Middle march secondly, there are the Vincy the father and head of the family is Mr. Walter Vincy, The elder son is Fred Vincy, the daughter is Rosamand Vincy and Mrs. Lucy Vincy, wife of Walter Vincy. The third one is the Garth family including Caleb Garth, Mary Garth, Mrs. Garth, Alfred Garth and Christy Garth. The fourth family is of Mr.EdwardCasaubon, a clergy and scholar, residing at Lowick Manour, and his cousin Ladislaw other important characters are Peter Featherstone, a rich miser who is the owner of stone court. Joshu Rigg, Nicholas Bultstrode a rich miser who is the owner of stone court. Joshu Rigg, Nicholas Bulstrode a rich banker his wife Harriet Bulstrode, Sir James Chettam, an amiable Baronet who marries Celia, and Tertius Lydgate a doctor of advanced views and an outsider in Middle March of the Minour character, the more important ones are Mr. and Mrs. Cadwallader Reverend Mr. Tykes the curate, Trumbull, the auctioneer etc. The list is a long one and it is by no means exhaustive or all inclusive.

·        TITLE

                   As the title suggest, the novel gives us a realistic, vivid and comprehensive picture of provincial life of England. The picture is such that if there is any hero in the novel it is the society of Middle march. The novelist remembers her early girlhood and this gives the picture of truthfulness and vividness of her portrait of provincial life. In the 1830’s provincial life was the same in every part of England for the railways had not yet destroyed rural isolation and seclusion. The action in the novel takes place in Middle march or the neighboring parishes of Tipton, Lawic or Freshets. A host of characters belonging to every profession, age group and walk of life have been brought in, and through their action and interactions life in a limited region Middle march and its environs has been faithfully recorded. As Quentin Anderson points out, “it is a landscape of opinion”, and not any natural landscape, which is dominant in the novel?

·        TRADITIONAL SOCIETY

                   The limited isolated community has certain well marked characteristics. Everything new or transformation is seen with suspension. Railways which are yet distant and far off are regarded as a threat to the agriculture and their conservative life style, class distinction are taken for granted and every class carries with it, its own privileges class difference protects a person, even when he or she behaves in a way inappropriate for the class to which he or she belongs shields her effectively. It never goes away from the mind of Mr. Brooke, or anybody else that his activities in favour of the reform Bill could work in the direction of reducing his hereditary privileges as a land owner. Nor does Lydgate see the slightest incongruity between his professional ambitions, his deep interest in science, and his traditional way of life.

·        FAMILY BACKGROUND

                   A.O.J.Cockshut says about the society of Middle march “Birth still counts for a good deal, but money is more important, the strength of the position of a man like Mr. Brooke is that he combines both advantages, and has never really been forced into the recognition that to advantages are separable”. In this society manly was everything. It was considered superior to the education George Eliot was aware of the merchant class hangering behind upper class people. Fred went far riding horse, trading and dull sporting dinners. To live as gentleman needed lots of money played an important role as to degrade the person’s morality. Status was given importance characters were eager to get rank in the society.

·        TRADE IN MIDDLE MARCH

                   Rosamond was attracted to wards Lydgate because of his Northumberland connections. The idea of professional status is not fully developed. There are also honest workmen who devoted themselves to their own trade Caleb Garth is one of that kind. “His classification of human employment was rather crude… He divided them into business, politics, preaching, learning and amusement. He had nothing to say against the last four; but he regarded them as a reverential pagan regarded other gods of their own. It is an irony that Fred Vincy disgusts his middle class father by taking work under this excellent business man, and the renouncing upper class ambition. Even Mr. Brooke does not like his two nieces tos meet the daughter of manufacture except on public occasions; his double standards are seen here.

·        WOMAN AND THE SOCIETY OF MIDDLE MARCH

                   Celia is an interesting representive of the kind of woman who is entirely happy with the feminine, nursery world. Their uncle as usual unconsciously expressed the conventional view with perfect exactness when he says to Casaubon Dorothea’s husband : “Get Dorothea to read few light things Smollett; Roderick Random, Humphrey clinker; they are a little broad, but she may read anything now she’s married you know.” Woman’s reading her public acts depends on the marital status. They are expected to obey and fall in line, as Mary Evans herself was expected to do as a girl. This society was transitional. The poor tenants raised their voice against their landlords. They demanded better conditions of living Mr. Hawley regards Mr. Brooke to be a –

“Damned bad landlord.”

Their feelings changed though the old order still continues.

·        CONFLICT IN THE TOWN

                   Old and new both existed in Middle march. Old was dominant but new was future. Religion was divided into two. One is the practical kindly, unidiomatic tradition of Anglicanism, the best representative of which is Mr.Farebrother. The other is vehement and fanatical, is loosely called EvangelicalBulstrode and Tyke represented this trend. In Middle march, the two sects are in conflict, and the order is suspicious of the new. A.O.J.Cokshu –

                   “The relations between the Evangelical and the old fashioned, decent, traditional Anglicanism are well given in the exchange between Mr.Vincy and Balustrade at the end of chapter 13. Mr.Vincy is asking Bulstrode to give Mr. Featherstone a certificate that Vincy’s son had not been borrowing money on the doubtful security of his expectations from Featherstone’s will. Balustrade accuses Vincy of “worldliness and inconsistent folly”, and asks how he can give a certificate in proof of a negative proposition about which he can have no certainly.”

                   For Mrs.Farebrother, Anglicanism is linked with class system –

                   “When I was youngs, Mr.Lydgate, there never was question about right and wrong. We knew our catechism and that was enough. We rearmed our creed and our duty every church parson had the same opinions.

·        MELANCHOLY IN MIDDLE MARCH

                   R.H.Hutton says, “It is a world not in sympathy with lofty aspirations, and to make this world convincing, and real, it was essential for her to give such a solidity and complexity to her picture of the world by which her hero’s and heroine’s idealism was to be more or less tested and partly subjugated as would justify the impression that she understood fully the character of the struggle. We doubt if any other novelist, whoever wrote could have succeeded equally well in this melancholy design, could have framed as complete a picture of English country and country town society with all its rigidities, jealousies and pettiness, with its through good nature, stereotyped habits at thought, and very limited accessibility to higher ideas and have threaded all these pictures together by a story, if not of the deepest interest still admirably fitted for its peculiar purpose of showing how euplastic in such an age as ours to the glowing emotion of an ideal purpose.”

·        THEMES IN THE NOVEL

                    There is the theme of the noble aspiration frustrated body by a repressive environment manner of opportunity and “The spots of commonness” in the character concerned. Dorothea and Lydgate are the two main characters who are frustrated in this way. There is also the theme of Theresa complex exemplified through the story of Dorothea who is said to be a self projection, an externalization of the Theresa complex in the novelist herself. The theme of self education is there in this novel. A depiction of the slow process through which a character sheds his ego and his delusions and attains spiritual regeneration and a better and filler life. Another theme is the clash of the old and the new, a depiction of how the past shapes the future and how the future is controlled and determined by present.

·        PLOT OF THE NOVEL

                   The novel’s plot is complicated. It is made up of four different stories.

[A]  Dorothea – Casaubon – Ladislaw story :-

                   Dorothea marries a man twice to herself. He dies within a year of their marriage. Dorothea inherits Casaubon’s property if she does not marry Ladislaw, Casaubon’s protégé. But in the end of the novel Dorothea takes right decision and marries will and thus disinherits Mr.casaubon’s property. She understood that her first decision was just lofty aspiration.

[B]  Rosamond – Lydgate story :-

                   Both married each other in false impression. Rosamond wanted to live extravagant life like upper class people where as Lydgate though was a doctor could not earn that much. Both left Middle march. Lydgate died later on Rosamond marries well to do physician and settles elsewhere.

[C]  Fred Vincy – Mary Garth story :-

                   Their childhood loves grows to maturity. Fred becomes a good person marries Mary, inherits his uncle’s previous estate and lives peacefully with his children. He and marry had to suffer a lot but things ended well.

[D]  Bulstrode’s Episode :-

                   His way of livelihood, the relation of his shady past and its consequences. He was blackmailed for past deeds.

                    There is also the story of miser Featherstone who made two wills and thus created fuss. These different stands were interwoven into an organic whole. Middle march like other novels has faults. The novel is full of pessimism, gloom and melancholy. There is also a character and incidents are concerned.

·        CONCLUSION

                   The novel has some weak points yet it can be called classic.

                  

           “The book is full of high feeling, wisdom and acuteness. It contains some of the most moving dramatic scenes on pure literature. A scene like that of Dorothea in her night of agony, a scene like that in which the greatness of her nature ennobles for a moment the smallness of Rosamond’s is consummate a like in conception and in style. The characters are admirable in their vigor and individuality, as well as in the vividness and fullness of illustration with which they are exhibited.”

                   It gives us a complete, realistic view of English provincial society in 1830’s and this setting is closely integrated with the four or five stories which form the plot of the novel. The result is an artistic harmony which makes “Middle march George Eliot’s greatest work, and says, Edith Simcox –

                   “It has scarcely a superior and very few equals in the whole range of English fiction.”