Blooms Literary Themes - THE HEROS ... - ymerleksi - home

Middlemarch(George Eliot),.“Middlemarch and the Hero’s Journey”by Merritt Moseley,University of North Carolina at AshevilleMiddlemarch (1871–72) is, as its title hints, about middling ormoderate matters. Set in the middle of England in the middle of thenineteenth century among middle-class people, it features moderate,unspectacular deeds and states of being. It could hardly be furtherfrom the kind of setting and plot readers that find in The Iliad orMoby-Dick. It approaches heroism in a way more appropriate to therealist novel than the epic poem or tragic drama. Nevertheless, itdemonstrates the possibilities of heroism in an essentially private lifeand even the domestic sphere. During her journey, Dorothea Brookeshows a resolve and courage that match those of the more famous,more spectacular heroes of literary history.Middlemarch is one of the greatest novels of the nineteenthcentury. It is also a high point for achievement in serious prose fictionand especially important as a model of the genre, a work that hashad lasting importance. As Harold Bloom describes, “If there is anexemplary fusion of aesthetic and moral power in the canonical novel,then George Eliot (real name Marianne or Mary Anne Evans) is itsbest representative, and Middlemarch is her subtlest analysis of themoral imagination” (298). George Eliot’s masterpiece not only callsfor comparison with the supremely long, ambitious, multiplot novels131