https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ Theses Digitisation: https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/research/enlighten/theses/digitisation/ This is a digitised version of the original print thesis. Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Totality and Autonomy: George Eliot and the Power of Narrative b y Andrew Bertrand Lynn Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Literature University of Glasgow September, 1999 ProQuest Number: 10394962 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 10394962 Published by ProQuest LLO (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 LLO. ProQuest LLO. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 - 1346 f ’ -%6wn JJ eRsItyI I a Abstract This study aims to explore George Eliot’s early fiction in terms of her response to the two competing philosophical traditions of Spinoza and Kant. The dispute between these two traditions begins from differing claims regarding the possibility of metaphysical knowledge, and this of course will have important consequences for both ethics and aesthetics. I argue that Eliot, through her fiction, contributed powerfully to this debate, and my central concern will be her choice of the novel genre as a medium for these ethical and philosophical interventions. The first part of this study sets out the terms of this historical debate, and considers Eliot’s distinctive philosophical, ethical and literary programme, which I describe as a ‘religion of immanence’. I offer readings of Scenes o f Clerical Life and Adam Bede in relation to various philosophical issues such as Spinoza’s three kinds of knowledge, Kantian ethics and aesthetics, hermeneutics and biblical criticism, and the literary theory of the early Romantics. The second part of this study draws together these various historical strands, and In a sustained reading of The Mill on the Floss attempts to place Eliot within a post-Romantic paradigm, which is seen as a way of unifying the two traditions with which Eliot engages. I show how Eliot’s fiction interacts with the literary theory of the Jena Romantics, and most importantly their conception of music as a paradigm for a non-representational approach to language and literature. I also discuss Eliot’s use of the Bildungsroman model, which throws up surprising connections between hermeneutics and that other intense search for origins, Darwinism. I argue that George Eliot’s negotiation of these philosophical issues is played out through narrative, which is at the heart of a distinctive ethical and literary project that draws upon the rich resources of the Aristotelian tradition. Contents Preface iv Acknowledgments vii Abbreviations and Conventions ix Part One: George Eliot’s Religion of Immanence I Introduction: The Philosophical Background 1 II Bondage, Acquiescence, and Blessedness: Spinoza’s Three Kinds of Knowledge and Scenes o f Clerical Life 25 III Beyond Hermeneutics: and the Power of Narrative 67 : Part Two: The Mill on the Floss and Narrative Pity IV George Eliot and the Early Romantics 115 V Bildung, Hermeneutics, and Darwinism 164 VI Conclusion: George Eliot and Aristotelian Ethics 192 Bibliography 223 Preface This study aims to explore George Eliot’s early fiction in terms of her response to the two competing philosophical traditions of Spinoza and Kant. I need to say at the outset that this is not primarily an influence study, although it will have to identify and explicate the elements of the thought of these two major philosophical figures with which Eliot engages. Indeed, it is precisely as an engagement with the philosophical and ethical questions raised by these two thinkers that I would prefer to characterise the present work, although I do not pretend that any conclusions I draw will be definitive from a philosophical point of view. I will be considering these philosophers in relation to Eliot’s work, and will therefore be working with standard interpretations of Kant and Spinoza, rather than offering original interpretations. I have the more modest aim of demonstrating that Eliot, far fiom being the enthusiastic amateur philosopher of the biographies—incorporating philosophical ‘ideas’ into her fiction which nonetheless did not contribute materially to her art—was on the contrary eminently qualified philosophically for the task that she set herself, and that her ethical and aesthetic concerns (and towering achievements) are meaningless unless considered against the background of her philosophical position. I will argue that a forceful and coherent philosophical and ethical position underpins her entire narrative quest, and my central concern will be her choice of the novel genre as a vehicle for these philosophical and ethical interventions. For reasons of clarity, I have divided this study into two distinct but related parts. Broadly speaking, the first part sets the philosophical framework for the whole study, while the second part picks up major themes introduced in the first part, and tries to locate Eliot within a post-Romantic paradigm. In using the term post-Romantic I am referring to Eliot’s critique of Romantic individualism, as well as to her debt to Romanticism’s critique of the IV Enlightenment. Eliot’s post-Romanticism can be seen in some way as an attempt to unify the two historical strands of Spinoza and Kant through an Aristotelian approach to narrative and ethics. The first chapter is an introduction to my argument, and tries to explicate the philosophical background to Eliot’s project, which I describe as a ‘religion of immanence’. I begin by exploring Spinoza’s philosophical and political project, and in particular his doctrine of the three kinds of knowledge. I also discuss the reception of Spinoza’s ideas by three of Eliot’s contemporaries who assumed the task of introducing Spinoza to an English-speaking audience: George Henry Lewes (whose impact on Eliot’s fiction should not be underestimated), Matthew Arnold, and J. A. Fronde. The discussion then broadens out to set out the terms of the debate to which Eliot was a powerful contributor, albeit through the oblique medium of fiction. This chapter is followed by a rather ambitious attempt to read Eliot’s first fictional work. Scenes of Clerical Life, against the backdrop of Spinoza’s three kinds of knowledge. This is a necessary preliminary to the rest of the study, as it clearly shows Eliot’s Spinozistic antecedents, as well as her response to Kantianism, while at the same time pointing us towards the conclusion that, ultimately, Eliot reformulates Spinoza’s third kind of knowledge as a way of negotiating the dispute between Spinoza and Kant about the possibility of metaphysical knowledge. I hasten to add that I do not offer the Scenes as an analogy for the three types of knowledge—I merely wish to suggest that Eliot’s engagement with Spinoza and Kant is ultimately a literary one, and that this dispute, if it can be decided at all, will be decided—or at any rate approached—through narrative. The third and final chapter of the first part of this study presents a wide- ranging and detailed reading of Eliot’s first full-length novel, Adam Bede, In this chapter I firmly establish the nature of Eliot’s narrative project, which is also a hermeneutic quest for meaning, and a search for a philosophical and V ethical gi'ounding for knowledge. I shall begin to locate Eliot as a post- Romantic by introducing the work of the Jena Romantics (those key figures at the historical juncture of modernity and Classicism), and in particular the founding father of hermeneutics, Schleiermacher. The second part of this study continues to situate Eliot within a post- Romantic framework, and develops a reading of The Mill on the Floss over three chapters, each devoted to different philosophical and ethical concerns. Chapter four shows in a more sustained way how Eliof s work interacts with the philosophy and literary theory of the Jena Romantics, and suggests that her turn to their ideas can be seen as an attempt at unifying the two competing traditions with which we have been concerned. This chapter also discusses the concept of music as a paradigm for a non-representational approach to language and literature, one which characterises the work of the Jena Romantics, and which will be seen to have important philosophical implications. Chapter five discusses Eliof s use of the Bildungsroman, and explores how Eliot adapted the model in The Mill on the Floss. While ultimately it was unsuited to her needs in the form bequeathed by Goethe, it will nonetheless throw up surprising connections between hermeneutics and that other intense search for origins, Darwinism. The sixth and final chapter shows that Eliot’s attempt to unify the. competing traditions of Spinoza and Kant is predicated on a narrative and ethical approach derived from Greek philosophy, and Aristotle in particular.