George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Psychology: Exploring the Unmapped Country

by Davis,Michael

• ISBN13: 9780754651727
• ISBN10: 075465172X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-10-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

In his study of Eliot as a psychological novelist, Michael Davis examines Eliot's writings in the context of a large volume of nineteenth-century scientific writing about the mind. Eliot, Davis argues, manipulated scientific language in often subversive ways to propose a vision of mind as both fundamentally connected to the external world and radically isolated from and independent of that world. In showing the alignments between Eliot's work and the formulations of such key thinkers as Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin, T. H. Huxley, and G. H. Lewes, Davis reveals how Eliot responds both creatively and critically to contemporary theories of mind, as she explores such fundamental issues as the mind/body relationship, the mind in evolutionary theory, the significance of reason and emotion, and consciousness. Davis also points to important parallels between Eliot's work and new and future developments in psychology, particularly in the work of William James. In Middlemarch, for example, Eliot demonstrates more clearly than either Lewes or James the way the conscious self is shaped by language. Davis concludes by showing that the complexity of mind, which Eliot expresses through her imaginative use of scientific language, takes on a potentially theological significance. His book suggests a new trajectory for scholars exploring George Eliot's representations of the self in the context of science, society, and religious faith.

Author Biography

Michael Davis is an Associate Lecturer with the Open University in London.

Table of Contents

General Editors' Preface	vi
Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction	1	(10)
1 The Mind and Body	11	(36)
The Power of the Body	14	(12)
The Unpredictable Subject: Eliot's Physical Language of the Self	26	(21)
2 The History of the Self: The Formation of Mind	47	(40)
Instinct and Heredity: Darwin	52	(17)
Eliot and Spencer: Memory and the Formation of the Mind	69	(18)
3 The Possibilities of Emotion	87	(32)
Emotion and the Body	89	(3)
Emotion and the Social Organism	92	(5)
The Fluidity of Emotion	97	(6)
Emotion, Reason and the Seed within the Self	103	(10)
Containing Emotion: Deronda	113	(6)
4 The Will, Consciousness, the Unconscious	119	(42)
The Problematic Concept of the Will	122	(7)
The Will and 'Personality'	129	(5)
The Conscious Mind	134	(13)
The Unconscious	147	(14)
5 The Science of 'Spirit': The Mind and Religious Experience	161	(28)
The Context of Eliot's Faith	164	(6)
Faith and Form	170	(3)
Faith and the Self: Romola	173	(7)
Faith and Science: Daniel Deronda	180	(9)
Conclusion: 'Separate yet Combined'	189	(8)
Bibliography	197	(10)
Index	207