George Eliot: The Conservative

The defining paradox of George Eliot's Felix Holt and the central claim of this essay is that the novel's radicalism and its conservatism amount to the same thing. What Felix himself discovers-above all through his failed effort to guide the election-day mob-is that purity of intention no...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inVictorian studies Vol. 49; no. 1; pp. 7 - 32
Main Author Horowitz, Evan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Bloomington Indiana University Press 22.09.2006
Subjects
Analysis
British & Irish literature
Conservatism
Democracy
Eliot, George
Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans) (1819-1880)
English literature
Parables
Parliaments
Political extremism
Political reform
Politics
Radicalism
Victorians
Voting rights
Working class
United Kingdom
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Summary:The defining paradox of George Eliot's Felix Holt and the central claim of this essay is that the novel's radicalism and its conservatism amount to the same thing. What Felix himself discovers-above all through his failed effort to guide the election-day mob-is that purity of intention no guarantee of success. To act to see intention dtorted by a range of forces that exceed conscious control. George Eliot's radicalism is caught in a similar trap, since every remedy seemed to her more likely to inflame than to relieve. Felix Holt thus demonstrates the limit not just of Felix's strain of political radicalism, but of every strain of radicalism-the impossibility of turning radical intentions into radical results. What remains, for Felix Holt as well as for Eliot's work more generally, is a radicalism the stakes of which are so high and the risks so acute that it can only act like conservatism.
ISSN:0042-5222
1527-2052
DOI:10.2979/VIC.2006.49.1.7