ANALYSIS OF EPIGRAPH AS A PECULIAR TONGUE IN GEORGE ELIOT’S NOVELS

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, Eliot’s use of maxims, quoted as epigraphs, and her mimesis of them, in order to demonstrate the moral implications of the form.