George Eliot
A Critical Study of her Life, Writings and Philosophy

Cooke's Study seeks to prioritise the interpretation and criticism of Eliot's works, and offers a thorough examination of Eliot's writing.

George Willis Cooke (Author)

9781108019613, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 September 2010

450 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.5 cm, 0.57 kg

American Unitarian minister George Willis Cooke (1848–1923) worked for almost thirty years in Unitarian churches across the United States before turning full-time to scholarly pursuits in 1900. Cooke, a voracious reader who was largely self-taught, attended Meadville Theological School in Illinois but never graduated. A radical in theology and politics, he was drawn to the transcendentalist authors and in 1881 published a critical study of the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Cooke's George Eliot: A Critical Study of her Life, Writings and Philosophy (1883) probably emerged from those same philosophical impulses. The book was published just after Blind's biography, but Cooke asserts that with a small exception his work was complete when hers appeared; moreover, his study prioritises the act of 'interpreting and criticising [Eliot's] teachings' over the details of her life, and the book's organisation reflects this hierarchy, giving insights into the contemporary reception of George Eliot.

Preface
1. Early life
2. Translator and editor
3. Marriage
4. Career as an author
5. Personal characteristics
6. Literary traits and tendencies
7. Theory of the novel
8. Poetic methods
9. Philosophic attitude
10. Distinctive teachings
11. Religious tendencies
12. Ethical spirit
13. Earlier novels
14. Romola
15. Felix Holt and Middlemarch
16. Daniel Deronda
17. The Spanish Gypsy and other poems
18. Later essays
19. The analytic method
20. The limitations of her thought
21. Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]