George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872)
Clare Walker Gore on George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872)
Famously described by Virginia Woolf as ‘one of the few English novels written for grown-up people’, Middlemarch is often regarded as George Eliot’s masterpiece.
Written at the height of her powers, this ambitiously multi-stranded novel follows the fortunes of a group of young people as they try to find their way in the sleepy midlands town of Middlemarch in the years leading up to the Great Reform Act of 1832.
In tracing their triumphs and setbacks, their romantic disappointments, missed opportunities, second chances and moments of grace, Eliot weaves a kind of everyday epic out of their insistently ordinary yet unforgettable experiences.
Through exploring the inner lives of her outwardly unremarkable characters, Eliot tackles some of the great questions and controversies of her day – the proper pace and scope of political reform, the perils and promise of scientific discoveries, the rise of secularism – and re-draws the boundaries of the realist novel in the process.
This lecture will examine Eliot’s treatment of the idea of ‘progress’, arguing that Middlemarch is best read as a profoundly hopeful novel about disappointment.
Live online lecture and seminar with Clare Walker Gore, Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge
Saturday 26 April 2025
18.00-20.00 British Summer Time
19.00-21.00 Central European Time
Fees
£32.00 Full price
£27.00 Students
£27.00 CAMcard holders
Live online via Zoom.
The lectures are recorded and made available to participants to listen again for 48 hours after the live lecture. The seminars are not recorded.
Clare Walker Gore on George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872)
Famously described by Virginia Woolf as ‘one of the few English novels written for grown-up people’, Middlemarch is often regarded as George Eliot’s masterpiece.
Written at the height of her powers, this ambitiously multi-stranded novel follows the fortunes of a group of young people as they try to find their way in the sleepy midlands town of Middlemarch in the years leading up to the Great Reform Act of 1832.
In tracing their triumphs and setbacks, their romantic disappointments, missed opportunities, second chances and moments of grace, Eliot weaves a kind of everyday epic out of their insistently ordinary yet unforgettable experiences.
Through exploring the inner lives of her outwardly unremarkable characters, Eliot tackles some of the great questions and controversies of her day – the proper pace and scope of political reform, the perils and promise of scientific discoveries, the rise of secularism – and re-draws the boundaries of the realist novel in the process.
This lecture will examine Eliot’s treatment of the idea of ‘progress’, arguing that Middlemarch is best read as a profoundly hopeful novel about disappointment.
Live online lecture and seminar with Clare Walker Gore, Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge
Saturday 26 April 2025
18.00-20.00 British Summer Time
19.00-21.00 Central European Time
Fees
£32.00 Full price
£27.00 Students
£27.00 CAMcard holders
Live online via Zoom.
The lectures are recorded and made available to participants to listen again for 48 hours after the live lecture. The seminars are not recorded.
Clare Walker Gore on George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872)
Famously described by Virginia Woolf as ‘one of the few English novels written for grown-up people’, Middlemarch is often regarded as George Eliot’s masterpiece.
Written at the height of her powers, this ambitiously multi-stranded novel follows the fortunes of a group of young people as they try to find their way in the sleepy midlands town of Middlemarch in the years leading up to the Great Reform Act of 1832.
In tracing their triumphs and setbacks, their romantic disappointments, missed opportunities, second chances and moments of grace, Eliot weaves a kind of everyday epic out of their insistently ordinary yet unforgettable experiences.
Through exploring the inner lives of her outwardly unremarkable characters, Eliot tackles some of the great questions and controversies of her day – the proper pace and scope of political reform, the perils and promise of scientific discoveries, the rise of secularism – and re-draws the boundaries of the realist novel in the process.
This lecture will examine Eliot’s treatment of the idea of ‘progress’, arguing that Middlemarch is best read as a profoundly hopeful novel about disappointment.
Live online lecture and seminar with Clare Walker Gore, Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge
Saturday 26 April 2025
18.00-20.00 British Summer Time
19.00-21.00 Central European Time
Fees
£32.00 Full price
£27.00 Students
£27.00 CAMcard holders
Live online via Zoom.
The lectures are recorded and made available to participants to listen again for 48 hours after the live lecture. The seminars are not recorded.