The author George Eliota controversial figure of her time, was born Mary Ann Evans in Warwickshire Britain. She was fortunate to acquire an unusually good education for a woman of the 19th century. She acquired a knowledge of the French and Italian languages, in the schools where she went as a boarder, while after her return home, on the death of her mother, she was permitted to study Latin and German.
In 1841 she moved with her father to Coventry, where would come into contact with the radical thinkers Charles Bray and Charles Haenelwhich would affect her relationship with religion. In early 1842, she questioned the historical foundations of Christianity so much that she renounced her faith and stopped attending church services. It was a decision that brought her into sharp conflict with her father. After spending a period between 1849 and 1850 in Switzerland, he returned to Britain. Encouraged by London publisher John Chapman, Evans published a review of Westminster Review and excited by the reception accorded her by the literary world, she determined to try to earn a living as a writer in the British capital.
He met many English and American literary figures.
During her involvement with the magazine, she met many English and American literary figures, the most important perhaps being Herbert Spencerauthor of Social Statics (1851) and the George Henry Lewisfounder of the radical weekly newspaper Leader. The latter was “typically” only married to Agnes Jervis, as the latter had given birth to the children of his friend and partner, Thornton Hunt. Meeting the young writer, Lewis would enter into a relationship with her which would last until the end of his life and would have all the characteristics of a “marriage”.
Showed significant emphasis on detail as well as accuracy.
The couple traveled abroad, where Evans began work on her first essays and novels. Returning to England in the 1860s, he would agree to publish them under the name George Eliot. From the beginning, Eliot demonstrated a strong emphasis on detail as well as accuracy as a writer. In his case Romolafor example, one of the least popular but critically acclaimed novels of her time, not only he meticulously studied Florentine costumes and dialogue – the setting of this particular novel – during a trip to Italy in 1861, but he refused to change his structure losing three thousand pounds. Several hits would follow with the Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life (Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life) of 1871-72 is considered by many to be her prose masterpiece.
Among the subjects of her works are music, art as an activity of inscrutable human value, the notion that the past shapes the present, and the conflict in a woman’s life between a great duty and the prospect of a happy marriage. Like many of her contemporaries, Eliot it wasn’t limited to just one genre. Her poems, both narrative and lyric, although not as complete in some cases as her prose, deal with similar issues.
After Lewis’s death, and for several years, Eliot would withdraw from the world, devoting her time to work. In May 1880, at the age of 61, she married the 40-year-old banker John Cross. In December, shortly after they had returned to London, she herself breathed her last.
Column editor: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigoni-Despina Poimenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
