Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life - Couverture souple

Eliot, George

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0451517504 ISBN 13 : 9780451517500

Editeur : Penguin, 1990

Synopsis

Used book in good condition, due to its age it could contain normal signs of use

A propos du livre

Extrait

WHO that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa,' has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one morning hand - in - hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors? Out they toddled from rugged Avila, wide - eyed and helpless - looking as two fawns, but with human hearts, already beating to a national idea; until domestic reality met them in the shape of uncles, and turned them back from their great resolve. That child - pilgrimage was a fit beginning. Theresa's passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many - volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her. Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self - despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self. She found her epos in the reform of a religious order.
That Spanish woman who lived three hundred years ago was certainly not the last of her kind. Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far - resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill - matched with the meanness of opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and sank unwept into oblivion. With dim lights and tangled circumstance they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness; for these later - born Theresas were helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul. Their ardour alternated between a vague ideal and the common yearning of womanhood; so that the one was disapproved as extravagance, and the other condemned as a lapse.
Some have felt that these blundering lives are due to the inconvenient indefiniteness with which the Supreme Power has fashioned the natures of women: if there were one level of feminine incompetence as strict as the ability to count three and no more, the social lot of women might be treated with scientific certitude. Meanwhile the indefiniteness remains, and the limits of variation are really much wider than any one would imagine from the sameness of women's coiffure and the favourite love - stories in prose and verse. Here and there a cygnet is reared uneasily among the ducklings in the brown pond, and never finds the living stream in fellowship with its own oary-footed kind. Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of nothing, whose loving heart -beats and sobs after an unattained goodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances, instead of centering in some long recognisable deed.

Présentation de l'éditeur

COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME

* * * * *

Like the previous writings of George Eliot, it finds the material of its wonderful creations, not in poetic, imaginative flights above the sphere of common life, but in a tender, religious sympathy with the actual workings of our prosaic humanity. The author exhibits an insight into the secret heart of onr nature scarcely less subtle and manifold than that of Shakespeare, and with the incisive, masterly touches of her pen produces a series of images, glowing with the warm breath of vitality, andso consonant with the revelations of experience, as scarcely to awaken the suspicion of art. Her delicacy of conception is fully matched by her vigor of execution. * * * Such a rare cabinet of character-sketches is perhaps not to be found in any other single production of English literature. With no grimace or distortion of feature, each personage exhibits some salient trait which takes him out of the sphere of commonplace, and furnishes a new study for the illustration of human nature. The flue dissection of motives shows the cunning hand of a great analyst. Nor is less constructive ability displayed in the synthetic genius with which the most effective elements are combined in a living whole.

In the delicate discrimination of the intricate folds of character, in the marvelous insight with which the essence of special individualities Is disintegrated and reproduced, in the nice sagacity with which the changing forms of good and evil are traced out amidst their blended combinations in the same person, George Eliot is without a rival in the modern school of fiction. Each of her grand creations is the work of a noble inspiration, showing a masterful genius like that of the immortal lights of painting and sculpture. But they may claim even a still higher merit than this. They are the evangels of humane ethics, proclaiming the supremacy of truth to the nations, and the law of integrity and honor to the individual.

—N. Y. Daily Tribune.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Penguin
• Date d'édition: 1990
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0451517504
• ISBN 13: 9780451517500
• Reliure: Poche
• Nombre de pages: 832
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Terminal Video; n.pederzini@terminaldistribuzione.com; ; Via Bruno Buozzi, 24/26,; Granarolo dell'Emilia BO,; Italie