|
|
Article: "To obey and to trust": Adam Bede and the politics of deference.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Studies in the Novel
- Article date:
- September 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 University of North Texas. 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)
|
I have arrived at faith in the past, but not faith in the future (George Eliot to William Blackwell, 6 May 1859, Letters 3:66)
Commenced in 1857 and published in 1859, Adam Bede, like most of George Eliot's novels, is noticeable for its apparent lack of topicality and the absence of any reference to the political debates of the day. (1) Opening in 1799, Adam Bede elides a history of political conflict--Swing riots, Luddites, and Chartism--that would have resonated with particular clarity for Victorian readers in the reform-minded 1850s. Set in England's rural and remembered past, the novel represses an equally powerful memory of agricultural unrest and reform ...