Tragedy and society: The novels of George Eliot
type: CreativeWork
description: Eliot's belief that reform must begin with the individual led naturally to her appreciation of tragedy as the best means of arousing human sympathy and inspiring social activity. I locate Eliot's early social ideas in her essays, drawing attention to similar ideas about reform in the writings of her contemporaries, particularly Feuerbach and Marx. I also discuss the aesthetic components of Eliot's theory of tragedy: the collision between the individual and the general, the fellowship of human suffering, the pressure of inheritance, and the tragic actor's submission to social laws.
abstract: Eliot's belief that reform must begin with the individual led naturally to her appreciation of tragedy as the best means of arousing human sympathy and inspiring social activity. I locate Eliot's early social ideas in her essays, drawing attention to similar ideas about reform in the writings of her contemporaries, particularly Feuerbach and Marx. I also discuss the aesthetic components of Eliot's theory of tragedy: the collision between the individual and the general, the fellowship of human suffering, the pressure of inheritance, and the tragic actor's submission to social laws.
author: Marck, Nancy Anne
language: eng
keywords: Literature, English
date published: 2011-05-07T12:06:51Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:25:12Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/19415