One finds relevant and memorable scenes in nearly every book of hers: the tenderness and humanity of the character Silas Marner in the novel of that name, how Marner defeats the expectations of lazy town gossips (and the reader), and how wonderful it is to discover what people are really capable of. Although the particular social circumstances that Eliot describes may be more-or-less extinct in themselves, they have transformed and developed themselves and remain a part of us as historically developed human beings.

This network of thinkers also has, as Walsh indicates, important ramifications for our own work in politics, science and culture, and these figures need to be systematically studied to help stimulate new and progressive development in the 21st Century.Įliot’s fiction continues to illuminate the emotional potentialities and limitations of our own lives. For the creation of a master work of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment….”

She could not have produced what she did without the cultural ambience produced by the others.Īs another contemporary of Eliot’s, the critic Matthew Arnold, remarked, “ must have the atmosphere, it must find itself amidst the order of ideas, in order to work freely and these it is not so easy to command…. Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Vissarion Belinsky, not to say Darwin, Dickens, and Eliot herself, discovered something truly objective about human life. I think Walsh is quite correct to draw attention to Eliot’s historical context-the growth of industrial capitalism in Britain, but also the stunning developments in mid-Nineteenth Century European art and science as a whole. It was a sensitive and insightful choice and this article should be read through alongside Walsh’s article on “ Why We Need Byron”. Eliot’s novels remain some of the most important of the 19 th Century, and have a striking relevance to life today. The following letter was sent to the World Socialist Web Site in response to “ In praise of George Eliot’s Adam Bede on its 150th anniversary ”ĭavid Walsh’s piece on George Eliot rounds out the last year’s important anniversaries.

George eliot's adam