GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE SAND : A COMPARATIVE STUDY Daniel Vitaglione A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 1990 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15069 This item is protected by original copyright I, Daniel Vitaglione, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 100,000 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. May 15, 1990 Signature..5 I was admitted as a research student under Ordinance No. 12 in October 1982 and as a candidate for the degree of Ph.D. in October 1982: the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St. Andrews between 1982 and 1990. May 15, 1990 Signature..- In submitting this thesis to the University of St. Andrews I understand that I am giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations for the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. I also understand that the title and abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker. May 15, 1990 Signature. I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of Ph.D. in the University of St. Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. h 2,^- Date Signature... ProQuest Number: 10167405 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10167405 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE SAND: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BY DANIEL VITAGLIONE Ph.D Thesis University of St. Andrews Department of English 1990 Thesis Abstract The thesis is a comparative study of George Eliot and George Sand. Numerous references to Sand in Eliot’s correspondence, as well as in Lewes’s criticism, show that the link between the two female authors was more profound than suspected. Lewes and Sand met and corresponded for a few years and his art theory is greatly indebted to Sand’s novels. Sand also exerted a profound influence on Eliot’s intellectual and artistic development before Eliot met Lewes. Sand was her ’’divinity.” However, it is Lewes who encouraged Eliot to follow in Sand’s footsteps. The thesis is thematic and compares first the impact of Sand’s religious novels such as Spiridion and Lelia. Then their social thought is examined, with novels such as Le peche de Monsieur Antoine and Felix Holt, the Radical. The third part deals with their conception of art, with special attention to the doctrine of Realism and to Sand’s rustic novels. Their conception of women is also examined as well as their position on the question of woman’s liberation. Finally, I compare their views of the complex relationship between femaleness and literature, in the light of recent feminist criticism. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION........... .................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT................. 35 CHAPTER TWO: SOCIAL THOUGHT................... ..120 CHAPTER THREE : ART............................. 189 CHAPTER FOUR: WOMEN................. 252 CHAPTER FIVE: ELIOT, SAND AND RECENT FEMINIST CRITICISM. ................ 363 CONCLUSION. ......... 383 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................. .389 A Note on the Editions Used For George Eliot’s novels, I have used the Oxford University Press Editions (The World’s Classics), with the exception of Romola, Adam Bede and Silas Marner for which I have used Penguin Classics. The majority of George Sand’s novels are still out of print, therefore, I have used the old Levy editions and some of the new reprints such as Editions d’Aujourd’hui and Editions de L’Aurore, In 1989 the latter began a long-awaited complete edition of her novels. INTRODUCTION There are few comparative studies of George Eliot.1 To analyse the influence of a specific author on her mind is a complex task. Eliot was such an "omnivorous reader,” as Gordon Haight2 remarks, that her intellect reflects a century more than specific authors or currents. However, a comparison between George Eliot and George Sand (1804-76), her illustrious predecessor in literature, is tempting. Critics and biographers of Eliot both in England and in France have often mentioned Sand. The comparison has naturally varied widely in length and quality according to the cultural preferences and literary expertise of the critic. Sometimes Sand’s name was evoked simply because she was another famous woman writing under a male pseudonym. At other times, when the relationship between France and England was at its worst, or when the literary fashion had changed, Sand was used to create a contrast with Eliot. The early comparisons were often superficial and over-emphasized the differences between the two writers, portraying Sand as an eternal Romantic, a dreamer, and a xThe only extensive comparative study I have been able to find is Barbara Smalley’s George Eliot and Flaubert: Pioneers of the Modern Novel, (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1974). 2Gordon S. Haight, George Eliot: A Biography, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968). 2 revolutionary, and describing Eliot as a great intellectual haunted by moral problems. The publication of Daniel Deronda shortly after Sand's death in 1876 was the occasion for several short comparative essays. The Saturday Review remarks that between Eliot and Sand there were several "points of likeness and difference ... full of suggestions about the nature of their art."3 According to the critic, the major differences lay in their style, while they shared a common "love of nature and power of describing it with complete success."4 The critic also remarks that Eliot’s novels were more melancholy than Sand’s, but pointed out that Eliot resembled Sand "in her portraits of the weak and dishonest men who succeed in making themselves acceptable to women."5 According to Sidney Colvin, similarities between Sand and Eliot were only superficial. Colvin believed that the two writers were indeed far apart. In his review of Daniel Deronda he wrote: "Their excellences are in few things the same. The flow of George Eliot’s writing we have felt is apt to be impeded with excess of thought while of writing which does flow ... George Sand ’Anonymous, "George Sand and George Eliot," The Saturday Review, 4 November 1876, p. 561. 4Ibid., p. 562. 5 Ibid. 3 is an incomparable mistress. But this is only the sign of deeper differences. George Sand excels in the poetical part of her art. George Eliot excels in the philosophical. Each is equally mistress of human nature and its secrets, but the one more by instincts, the other more by reflection. In everything which is properly matter of the intellect, the English writer is the superior of the French by far.”6 In the opening pages of her 1883 biography of Eliot, Mathilde Blind further opposed Eliot to Sand. Unfortunately she confined them to narrow cliches, and obscured thereby deeper affinities. According to her, Sand was ’’impassioned, turbulent, revolutionary.” In art she was above all ’’the great idealist of her sex.” Her novels were not ’’studies of life,” but ’’prose poems.” On the contrary, Eliot was "contemplative, observant, and instinctively conservative.” In art she was "the great realist of her sex.”7 Such remarks are not totally false, but they are incomplete and misleading. In another similar article, Mary Ponsonby in The Nineteenth Century dismissed the similarities as being superficial, and proceeded to show Eliot’s originality, 6Sidney Colvin, "Daniel Deronda," The Fortnightly Review, 20 (July 1876): 601-616, p. 614. 7Mathilde Blind, George Eliot, (London: Allen & Co, 1883), pp. 6-8. 4 using Sand as a point of contrast. According to her: "George Eliot and George Sand are two noms de plume which I suppose evoke more opposite trains of thought and sets of ideas than it is possible to understand at first sight. There seems little reason to link the two names together.”8 Ponsonby believed that Sand wrote best when she described her native Berry: "Sand is greatest when she is impersonal ... consider her worship of nature ... and the subtle magic description which pervades her adoration of her beloved Berry."9 In contrast, Eliot’s genius was "cramped and controlled by reason," and her novels were pervaded by "an overwhelming sense of tragedy and mysterious terror of things."10 Likewise, in his study of Eliot, George Cooke declared: "If one represents the head, the other represents the heart of woman."11 Among other critics who compared Eliot and Sand was Margaret Oliphant. Her article "Two Cities, Two Books", 8Mary Ponsonby, "George Eliot and George Sand," The Nineteenth Century, (October 1901): 607-616, p. 607. 9Ibid., p. 613. 1°Ibid., p. 616. 11Ge o r g e Cooke, George Eliot: A Critical Study, (Boston: Osgood, 1883), p.