Towards The Reconciliation Of Hebraism And Hellenism In Middlemarch

The term "Hellenism" is a modern designation deriving from "the Hellenistic period" in history roughly from 323 BC to 31 BC when Greek language and culture are dominant in and reign over non-Greek societies. Distinct from the classicism inherited from Greek and grounded on the Bible (mainly the Old Testament), Hebraism is an identification with the nature, character and qualities of the Hebrew people. The boundary line between classical and biblical cultures has been drawn since the third century CE. From then on, numerous thinkers including Hegel, Heine, and Arnold have contributed to the development of the idea of the antithesis between Hellenism and Hebraism. Among them, Arnold is the one who removes their classical referents, conceptualizes and popularizes the two terms, providing a framework for future study. In order to apprehend how George Eliot incorporates Arnoldian distinction between Hellenism and Hebraism into her novel Middlemarch and how Eliot and Arnold differ in view of this pair of concepts, this thesis appropriates Arnold's analysis of Hellenism and Hebraism as an essential reference point for studying the novel Middlemarch. In addition, the thesis borrows Liu Feng's differentiation of broad senses and narrow senses of Hellenism and Hebraism in order that the analysis could be clearer.In his seminal work of cultural criticism Culture and Anarchy, Arnold explicates the substance of Hellenism and Hebraism and the interdependent relations between them. Hebraism represents the moral side of humanity. Hellenism, on the other hand, represents the intellectual side of humanity. This thesis argues that Dorothea, Ladislaw and Lydgate are metaphoric examples of Hebraism and Hellenism in Middlemarch. Dorothea incarnates Hebraism in its narrow sense. Ladislaw and Lydgate embodies Hellenism in its broad sense and narrow sense respectively. George Eliot models the trio after Hebraism and Hellenism and arranges three marriages to explicate three cases of Hebraism and Hellenism. The first case is Hebraism without Hellenism, exemplified by Casaubon-Dorothea marriage. The second case is Hellenism without Hebraism, illustrated by Lydgate-Rosamond marriage. The third case is the reconciliation between Hebraism and Hellenism, symbolized by Ladislaw-Dorothea marriage.In the first two cases, Eliot exposes thoroughly the problems of emphasizing one spirit to the exclusion of the other, which are exactly what Matthew Arnold has cautioned the Victorians about in Culture and Anarchy. In the third case, through reconciling the two forces, Eliot makes her characters reach a state which Arnold upholds to be an ideal one of humanity, though Eliot herself is reluctant to accept the fact that Dorothea's moral idealism is reconciled and reduced to mere civic virtues. The two of them share a common ground of achieving a balance between the two forces, but they are different in many ways on this matter. Arnold's dialectics about Hellenism and Hebraism is highly theoretical, while George Eliot puts this through examination by making it a practice in real life. Arnold advocates Hellenization of the Hebraist state through individual refinement, whereas Eliot justifies the synthesis of Hellenist spirit and Hebraist spirit through marriage.The contribution of this thesis is that it probes into the theme of marriage in Middlemarch from a novel angle of Arnold's Hellenism-Hebraism dialectics and scrutinizes the subtle difference between Arnold and Eliot on the issue of Hellenism and Hebraism through their original works:Culture and Anarchy, and Middlemarch, both of which has rarely been done in such depth before by critics. Moreover, this thesis offers a unique perspective to understand the characters, their marriage and George Eliot's thoughts on Hellenism and Hebraism.