An Objective Aural-Relative in Middlemarch

Capuano, Peter J.

doi:10.1353/sel.2007.0034

sel

2007

DOI: 10.1353/sel.2007.0034

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An Objective Aural-Relative in Middlemarch

Peter J. Capuano¹

Abstract: This essay contends that musical sound—formally described and ideologically inscribed in Schopenhauerian philosophy—offers an alternate mode of realism in a novel traditionally praised for its imagistic precision. It traces George Eliot’s construction of realism as well as her formulation of sympathy in Middlemarch to the decisions she made in 1853 as the co-editor of the Westminster Review. The essay avoids positing the replacement of the optical by the aural, but rather considers how Schopenhauer’s influence… Show more

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Cited by 5 publications

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“…See Kyprianides (), Dubois (), and Richardson () on sound in Dickens. See Hadjiafxendi (), Capuano (), Sousa Correa (), and Orr () on sound in Eliot. See Celeste () for an astute analysis of “dialectical soundscapes” in Gaskell.…”

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Victorian gothic soundscapes

Schlauraff

2018

Literature Compass

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Resounding with wails, groans, creaks, thunders, bells, and a score of other unsettling and often unidentifiable sounds, the Victorian gothic emerges against the backdrop of what John M. Picker has called "a period of unprecedented amplification" that necessitated new modes of listening. While critics have increasingly acknowledged the significance of the audible world to Victorian literature, and sound studies has exposed new approaches to addressing the acoustic dimensions of texts, the gothic soundscape remains largely unexamined. This article identifies the shared qualities of the sonic world and Victorian gothic fiction, building on two key definitions of sound to expose how the genre absorbed, manipulated, and leveraged the soundscape to spark terror among characters and readers alike. It then offers an overview of scholarship on the gothic and sound, focusing primarily on the past twenty years. Although a number of critics investigate the role of music in gothic fiction by Ann Radcliffe, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Wilkie Collins, among others, few move beyond it to consider the soundscape in its entirety. The final section calls attention to some of the shared keynotes among Victorian gothic texts and suggests possible approaches to more sustained scholarly work on their dynamic soundscapes.

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Victorian gothic soundscapes

Schlauraff

2018

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Feeling Real in Middlemarch

Star¹

2013

elh

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This article enters the discussion of nineteenth-century realism and ontology by considering the phenomenology of reality-perception in George Eliot’s Middlemarch . As I show, Eliot’s formal innovations display a persistent concern, allied with contemporary studies of perception, with visual limitation as the defining quality of character reality. Eliot, I argue, creates a distinctly phenomenal realism by suggesting aesthetic reality to be something we designate and engage with through phenomenal as opposed to access consciousness. In this way, I also develop a new account of realist ethics: figuring limitation as the condition of both reality-perception and agency in the realization of self as contingent part.

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Writing Mary Garth: Locating Middle Ground Among Female Characters in George Eliot's "Middlemarch"

Coonradt¹

2012

George Eliot - George Henry Lewes Studies

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An Objective Aural-Relative in Middlemarch

Cited by 5 publications

References 25 publications

Victorian gothic soundscapes

Victorian gothic soundscapes

Feeling Real in Middlemarch

Writing Mary Garth: Locating Middle Ground Among Female Characters in George Eliot's "Middlemarch"

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