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Middlemarch: The Language of Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Joseph Wiesenfarth
Joseph Wiesenfarth*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Abstract

The aesthetic theory pervading Middlemarch provides a context for interpreting the novel and understanding its references to the arts; consequently a language of art is important to the novel's (1) imagery, (2) aesthetic theory, and (3) iconography. (1) Although Dorothea Brooke is characterized in images of music and poetry, her Puritanic sensibility has hampered her aesthetic development, and the classical and Catholic artifacts of Rome oppress her senses as marriage to Casaubon oppresses her spirit. (2) To help her, Will Ladislaw teaches Dorothea the language of art, with the aid of Ruskin, Lessing, and Goethe—all champions of realism. (3) Eliot further dramatizes the relations of Casaubon, Dorothea, and Ladislaw by invoking the myth of Theseus, Ariadne, and Dionysus —a myth surrounded and amplified by allusions to literature and art. Guiding Eliot's use of the language of art in Middlemarch is Ruskin's aesthetic of Naturalist Idealism.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 97 , Issue 3 , May 1982 , pp. 363 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1982

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