George Eliot and Victorian Historiography: Imagining the National Past

McCaw, Neil

In this new study of George Eliot's fiction, textual attempts to imagine a coherent and unified national past are seen as producing a contradictory vision of Englishness. It is a historiographical national identity, constructed in the image of predominant, and conflicting, trends in the Victorian writing of history. The inherent uncertainty caused by the shift between different perceptions of English history leads, in the later fiction, to an abandonment of contemporaneous grand narratives. The consequence is a history that anticipates a more modern, radical philosophy of history.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 2000-11-02

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9780312234133

DOI: 10.1057/9780230286948

Dimensions: 216cm x140cm

Pages: 203