Zion's Mimetic Angel: George Eliot's "Daniel Deronda"
Although George Eliot wrote Daniel Deronda with a great enthusiasm for Zionism and sympathy for the Jewish people, its hero Daniel rings hollow in the opinion of most critics. He is especially weak insofar as he is a Jew and a Zionist. Magically morally insightful like George Eliot's "ange...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2004
|
| In: |
Shofar
Year: 2004, Volume: 22, Issue: 2, Pages: 105-115 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
|
| Summary: | Although George Eliot wrote Daniel Deronda with a great enthusiasm for Zionism and sympathy for the Jewish people, its hero Daniel rings hollow in the opinion of most critics. He is especially weak insofar as he is a Jew and a Zionist. Magically morally insightful like George Eliot's "angelic" heroines, he strikes most critics as priggishinstead of inspiring. He was raised as a privileged Gentile, unaware of his Jewish heritage. Eliot substitutes his bloodlines for the morally sensitizing experiences of oppression that give her heroines mimetic realism. Eliot makes Daniel a Jew in the interests of her nontheisticethics, which require local or patriotic affections to avoid chilly, deracinated abstract morality. Daniel abandons English culture to take on a Judaism that is hardly cultural, much less religious; Eliot creates a "sympathetic," purely racial Jew, stripped of Jewish culture, and neither religious nor cognizant of the political realities of Zionism. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1534-5165 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Shofar
|