Middlemarch by George Eliot

This was another thoroughly enjoyable English novel, providing an in depth cross section of 19th century life in a small town setting.  Much in the tradition of Austen, it is beautifully written with an emphasis on romance, marriage, the nature of relationships, English obsession with rank in society and a healthy dose of didactic for young men and women.  Goodness still prevails for the characters of Eliot, it would appear.

In the Teaching Company course called The English Novel, which devotes two full chapters to Eliot, it had set up Middlemarch as divergent from Austen, Dickens, Thackeray and Scott.  I found it an evolution rather than a divergence.

The course points at that by mid 19th century certain English novelists were rethinking the genre after new exposure to the growing dynamism and complexity of French (Flaubert) and Russian (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky) writers.  These newer, foreign influences included global issues of suffering, war, social justice and more that many English authors had avoided up to that time.

While Middlemarch does open the door to more worldly issues (Parliamentary elections, political fairness, medical/scientific advancement), I didn't see them as a real divergence from the historical context of Thackeray in Vanity Fair or Dickens' illumination of the plight of the urban poor.

But it was a thoroughly enjoyable novel in the English tradition.

But for reasons mentioned above I will move past Eliot for the time being, continuing on with the English Novel course in search of new 19th century literary traditions.