A New-historical Reading On Middlemarch

As a milestone along both female and male literary history, George Eliot, thepseudonym of Marian Evans, is considered as one of the most brilliant Victoriannovelists. Her personal experiences and the historical texts cooperated togetherproducing so many great works. Midllemarch is one of her later works, which mainlytells Dorothea’s and Lydgate’s love stories, through which historical events and theimpacts were illustrated. New historicism is recently attracting more and moreattention. The paper intends to illustrate the textuality of histories and the historicityof the texts in the context of Middlemarch, both of which are the main doctrine of thetheory of New Historicism. Through analyzing the historicity and textuality ofMiddlemarch, subversion and containment is showed.The paper consists of three parts.Chapter One concerns on the problem of the texuality of histories. George Eliotreconstructs a Victorian provincial society in Middlemarch. She successfullyinterweaves political events with the local people’s daily life. Through the descriptionof the historical events, new-historicists find what has been unrevealed before.Chapter Two explains the historicity of the text, which demonstrates GeorgeEliot’s historical consciousness. The production of the text is George Eliot’snegotiation with the contemporary society. Both George Eliot’s personal experiencesand the social background contribute to the creation of the text, which also holdshistorical importance. The text is influenced by history and in return it aids to mouldthe history being part of the history.Chapter Three mainly focuses on the subversion and containment which isreflected in the text. The traditional women and men images are doubted andchallenged in the novel. The patriarchy society, the domination, is challenged andsubverted. But the subversion only seems kind of letting off. As a matter of fact, thereason why the domination allows such subversion is to contain it in its power system. Thus no real subversion would happen.