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16. Middlemarch.
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!
View all episodes
By Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris Piuma
4.8
3030 ratings
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!
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