George Eliot and the Novel's Place in her Career

Eliot: The Mill on the Floss

In this course, Dr John Rignall (University of Warwick) explores George Eliot's 1860 novel, The Mill on the Floss. The course begins by thinking about George Eliot herself and the place of the novel in her career. In the second module, we turn to the character of Maggie Tulliver and the role of women in the novel, before thinking in the third module about the portrayal of ordinary life in the novel ('the pride and obstinacy of millers and other insignificant people… have their tragedy too'). In the fourth module, we think about the use of language in the novel, focusing in particular on the difference in register between the narrator and his characters, as well as the use of figurative language in the novel, before turning in the fifth module to consider the ending of the novel – and ending which has been considered problematic by some.

George Eliot and the Novel's Place in her Career

In this module, we trace the personal and professional life of Mary Ann Evans from her earliest translations from German ('The Life of Jesus' by David Strauss and 'The Essence of Christianity' by Ludwig Feuerbach) to the completion of her second novel, The Mill on the Floss.