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Article: 'Une question lancinante': Further thoughts on space in the Chansons de Geste.
- Article from:
- The Modern Language Review
- Article date:
- January 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Modern Humanities Research Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Chapter 6 of George Eliot's novel, Silas Marner, is set, it will be recalled, in the public house called The Rainbow, a name suggestive of the biblical covenant and the Christian prefigurement that situates grace in Nature, in contrast to the destructive deluge in The Mill on the Floss. (1) It seems a locus of the pastoral that Oliver Goldsmith had thought lost forever,
where nut-brown draughts inspired,
Where grey-beard mirth, and smiling toil retired,
Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round. (2)
The entire chapter consists of the conversation among the villagers in ...