Eliot's angels: George Eliot, René Girard, and mimetic desire
"In this innovative study, Bernadette Waterman Ward offers an original rereading of George Eliot's work through the lens of René Girard's theories of mimetic desire, violence, and the sacred. It is a fruitful mapping of a twentieth-century theorist onto a nineteenth-century novelist,...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subito Delivery Service: | Order now. |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
[2022]
|
| In: | Year: 2022 |
| Reviews: | [Rezension von: Ward, Bernadette Waterman, 1959-, Eliot's angels : George Eliot, René Girard, and mimetic desire] (2024) (Taylor, Matthew)
|
| Further subjects: | B
Eliot, George (1819-1880)
Criticism and interpretation
B Girard, René (1923-2015) B Eliot, George - 1819-1880 B Girard, René - 1923-2015 B Criticism, interpretation, etc |
| Parallel Edition: | Electronic
Electronic |
| Summary: | "In this innovative study, Bernadette Waterman Ward offers an original rereading of George Eliot's work through the lens of René Girard's theories of mimetic desire, violence, and the sacred. It is a fruitful mapping of a twentieth-century theorist onto a nineteenth-century novelist, revealing Eliot's understanding of imitative desire, rivalry, idol-making, and sacrificial victimization as critical elements of the social mechanism. While the unresolved tensions between Eliot's realism and her desire to believe in gradual social amelioration have often been studied, Ward is especially adept at articulating the details of such conflict in Eliot's early novels. In particular, Ward emphasized the clash between the ruthless mechanisms of mimetic desire and the idea of progress, or, as Eliot states, 'growing good;' Eliot's Christian sympathy for sacrificial victims against her general rejection of Christianity; and her resort to 'Nemesis' to evade the systemic injustice of the social sphere. The 'angels' in the title are characters who appear to offer a humanist way forward in the absence of religious belief. They are represented, in Girardian terms, as figures who try to rise above the snares of the mimetic machine to imitate Christ's self-sacrifice but are finally rendered ineffectual. Very few studies have tackled Eliot's short fiction and narrative poetry. Eliot's angels gives the short fiction its due."-- |
|---|---|
| Item Description: | Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Physical Description: | x, 408 Seiten, 23 cm |
| ISBN: | 0268202648 |