‘An inordinate number of words’: Epigraphs in Daniel Deronda

Abstract

While it may be the modern reader’s habit to skip or skim the epigraphs, their use in George Eliot’s novels generated a substantial amount of notice. By the time Eliot published Daniel Deronda, her epigraphs had grown substantially in number and length, and most readers found them tiresome. Critics cited the novel’s first epigraph, which relates to the arbitrary nature of all beginnings, as a prime example of Eliot’s sententiousness. Formally, epigraphs illuminate the difficulty of deciding where a narrative actually begins. They raise questions about the extent to which beginnings establish the parameters of what will follow, and whether endings determine how we understand beginnings. This article contests the assertion that Eliot’s epigraphs are inordinately long, or long-winded. It first considers the influence of Laurence Sterne on Eliot’s novel to argue for the importance of digression to the novel’s form. It then examines Eliot’s use of maxims, quoted as epigraphs, and her mimesis of them, in order to demonstrate the moral implications of the form. Finally, it uses Barthes to trace the maxim to the character most associated with it: Grandcourt. His linguistic concision suggests that, in this novel, digression and concision are loaded with their own moral valences.