George Eliot and Schiller

Intertextuality and cross-cultural discourse

Though Friedrich Schiller enjoyed prominent literary standing and great popularity in nineteenth century literary England, his influence has been largely neglected in recent scholarship on the period.

First published in 2003, this book explores the substantial evidence of the importance of the playwright and philosopher’s thought to George Eliot’s novelistic art. It demonstrates the relationship between Schiller’s work and Eliot’s plotting of moral vision, the tensions in her work between realism and idealism, and her aesthetics. It also contends that the immense continental underpinnings of Eliot’s writing should lead us to resituate her beyond national boundaries, and view her as a major European, as well as English, writer.

This book will be of interest to those studying 19th Century English and European literature.