"The book I came back to
George Eliot’s Middlemarch. I couldn’t cope with it
as a student; it wasn’t until I was grown up, and married,
and a parent, and trying to teach it myself, that I realised
its majestic scope and depth." — Philip Pullman in
The Guardian, Fri 23 Dec 2022 05.00 EST
Another instance of scope and depth —
"The Amber Spyglass" Log24 post of Wednesday.
See also other references here to Middlemarch.
From the new URL mythspace.org, which forwards to . . .
http://m759.net/wordpress/?tag=mythspace —
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From Middlemarch (1871-2), by George Eliot, Ch. III — "Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of Mr. Casaubon's mind, seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine extension every quality she herself brought; had opened much of her own experience to him, and had understood from him the scope of his great work, also of attractively labyrinthine extent. For he had been as instructive as Milton's 'affable archangel;' and with something of the archangelic manner he told her how he had undertaken to show (what indeed had been attempted before, but not with that thoroughness, justice of comparison, and effectiveness of arrangement at which Mr. Casaubon aimed) that all the mythical systems or erratic mythical fragments in the world were corruptions of a tradition originally revealed. Having once mastered the true position and taken a firm footing there, the vast field of mythical constructions became intelligible, nay, luminous with the reflected light of correspondences. But to gather in this great harvest of truth was no light or speedy work." |
See also the term correspondence in this journal.
Cartoon version of George Eliot, author of Middlemarch ,
and Ada Lovelace, programming pioneer —
See as well an earlier vision of a data cube for mythologies
by Claude Lévi-Strauss —
In memory of a French film publicist who worked with Clint Eastwood
in 1971 on the release of "The Beguiled" —
From a New York Times graphic review dated Sept. 16, 2016 —
It's Chapter 1 of George Eliot's "Middlemarch."
Dorothea Brooke, young and brilliant, filled with passion
no one needs, is beguiled by some gemstones . . . .
The characters, moving through the book,
glitter as they turn their different facets toward us . . . .
Cf. a glitter-ball-like image in today's New York Times philosophy column
"The Stone" — a column named for the legendary philosophers' stone.
The publicist, Pierre Rissient, reportedly died early Sunday.
See as well Duelle in this journal.
(Continued from yesterday's Sunday School Lesson Plan for Peculiar Children)
Novelist George Eliot and programming pioneer Ada Lovelace —
For an image that suggests a resurrected multifaceted
(specifically, 759-faceted) Osterman Omega (as in Sunday's afternoon
Log24 post), behold a photo from today's NY Times philosophy
column "The Stone" that was reproduced here in today's previous post —
For a New York Times view of George Eliot data, see a Log24 post
of September 20, 2016, on the diamond theorem as the Middlemarch
"key to all mythologies."
"Those seeking an understanding of the historical elements
of Jesus’ saga might find it profitable to engage the vast work
of David Friedrich Strauss, the German intellectual, whose
monumental 'The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined' was
translated into English in the 19th century by George Eliot.
(At times, the translation reads like a scholarly 'Middlemarch,'
much to its credit.)"
— Jon Meacham in the Easter Sunday print edition of
The New York Times. The above passage is
paragraph 10 of Meacham's article.
See also "Over the Mountains" (Log24, Feb. 21, 2018).
Judith Wilt on the fictional Casaubon of Middlemarch —
Related material from Wikipedia:
The non -fictional Casaubon and Ultramontanism.
From the former:
"Neither side could understand that Casaubon's reading of
the church fathers led him to adopt an intermediate position
between Genevan Calvinism and Ultramontanism."
See as well Wilt on "Storytelling and Catholicism"
(Boston College syllabus, Spring 2016), and Enda's Game
(Log24, April 5, 2016).
The title refers to the previous post.
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From Middlemarch (1871-2), by George Eliot, Ch. III — "Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of Mr. Casaubon's mind, seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine extension every quality she herself brought; had opened much of her own experience to him, and had understood from him the scope of his great work, also of attractively labyrinthine extent. For he had been as instructive as Milton's 'affable archangel;' and with something of the archangelic manner he told her how he had undertaken to show (what indeed had been attempted before, but not with that thoroughness, justice of comparison, and effectiveness of arrangement at which Mr. Casaubon aimed) that all the mythical systems or erratic mythical fragments in the world were corruptions of a tradition originally revealed. Having once mastered the true position and taken a firm footing there, the vast field of mythical constructions became intelligible, nay, luminous with the reflected light of correspondences. But to gather in this great harvest of truth was no light or speedy work." |
See also the term correspondence in this journal.
As the Key to All Mythologies
For the theorem of the title, see "Diamond Theorem" in this journal.
"These were heavy impressions to struggle against,
and brought that melancholy embitterment which
is the consequence of all excessive claim: even his
religious faith wavered with his wavering trust in his
own authorship, and the consolations of the Christian
hope in immortality seemed to lean on the immortality
of the still unwritten Key to all Mythologies."
— Middlemarch , by George Eliot, Ch. XXIX
Related material from Sunday's print New York Times —
Sunday's Log24 sermon —
See also the Lévi-Strauss "Key to all Mythologies" in this journal,
as well as the previous post.
Recent Log24 entries on Hamlet suggest a look at Giorgio de Santillana's Hamlet's Mill on the Web.
There is a useful transcription by Clifford Stetner. See also an excellent review of Hamlet's Mill by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.
The work of Giorgio de Santillana (like that of Stetner) suggests in turn the following recently quoted advice–
"…you should read Middlemarch every five years or so. Every time… it's a different book, and an even more powerful one."
— Robert Weisbuch, quoted at Critical Mass on Jan. 23.
Related material: Mr. Casaubon and the Key to All Mythologies.
For a simpler key, see On Linguistic Creation.
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