September 13, 2019

16. Middlemarch.

Listen Later

55 minutes

An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly

furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this

pregnant little fact. Your pier-glass or extensive surface of polished steel

made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously

scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a

centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves

in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is

demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially and it is

only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric

arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These

things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism

of any person now absent.

We begin our cluster on Philosophical novels with

Middlemarch, George Eliot’s massive and

masterful “study of provincial life”. A sometimes overwhelming number of

characters populate a small manufacturing town in the English Midlands around

1830—but the novel focuses on a few “later-born [Saint] Theresas”. People like

Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate aspire to do some good in the world, but

what does “doing good” look like? And can good be achieved in the world

without a nuanced ethical relationship to the others who make up that world?

Chris and Suzanne explore how these questions play out in Eliot’s characters,

and also look towards Baruch Spinoza, who is quietly behind Eliot’s

philosophy.

Show Notes.

Middlemarch. [Project

Gutenberg.

Librivox.

Bookshop.]

The portrait of John

Locke.

Chaucer: Man of Law’s

Tale.

Teresa of Ávila.

Bernini: Saint Teresa in

Ecstasy.

Eliot’s translation of Spinoza’s Ethics will be republished next

year.

In the meantime, another translation of the Ethics.

In Our Time has a helpful episode about

Spinoza, and they mention Eliot at

the very end.

A.S. Byatt on

Middlemarch.

Ibn Tufayl: Hayy ibn Yaqzan.

Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon—we rely

on our lovely patrons!

...more

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The Spouter-Inn

By Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris Piuma

4.8

3030 ratings

September 13, 2019

16. Middlemarch.

Listen Later

55 minutes

An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly

furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this

pregnant little fact. Your pier-glass or extensive surface of polished steel

made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously

scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a

centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves

in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is

demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially and it is

only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric

arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These

things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism

of any person now absent.

We begin our cluster on Philosophical novels with

Middlemarch, George Eliot’s massive and

masterful “study of provincial life”. A sometimes overwhelming number of

characters populate a small manufacturing town in the English Midlands around

1830—but the novel focuses on a few “later-born [Saint] Theresas”. People like

Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate aspire to do some good in the world, but

what does “doing good” look like? And can good be achieved in the world

without a nuanced ethical relationship to the others who make up that world?

Chris and Suzanne explore how these questions play out in Eliot’s characters,

and also look towards Baruch Spinoza, who is quietly behind Eliot’s

philosophy.

Show Notes.

Middlemarch. [Project

Gutenberg.

Librivox.

Bookshop.]

The portrait of John

Locke.

Chaucer: Man of Law’s

Tale.

Teresa of Ávila.

Bernini: Saint Teresa in

Ecstasy.

Eliot’s translation of Spinoza’s Ethics will be republished next

year.

In the meantime, another translation of the Ethics.

In Our Time has a helpful episode about

Spinoza, and they mention Eliot at

the very end.

A.S. Byatt on

Middlemarch.

Ibn Tufayl: Hayy ibn Yaqzan.

Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon—we rely

on our lovely patrons!

...more