GEORGE ELIOT AND THE ANGLICAN READER

Abstract

Eliot uses Anglican frameworks for her representation of Dissenters, Catholics and Jews. These frameworks are variously explicit, implied and found in the general form of Eliot's depiction of religion in the space of literature. While Eliot appears to favour a tempered, socially practical Anglicanism, these frameworks probably tell us little about Eliot's own views on religion. They do however highlight the literary techniques that Eliot used to represent religion as a difficult and ever shifting relation between enthusiasm, egoism and ethics.