Unique Representations of Moses in the Works of Harriet Martineau, Charlotte Brontë, and George Eliot

Abstract

Abstract This article uses two methods to examine George Eliot's poem “The Death of Moses,” which has not yet been fully analyzed. One is the comparative analysis of Moses represented by Eliot's contemporary writers, Harriet Martineau and Charlotte Brontë. The other provides a consideration of how this poem relates to some other works in Eliot's corpus, for example, “Agatha,” “Self and Life,” and “Mordecai's Hebrew Verses.” These methods clarify the uniqueness of each writer's representation and give us a better understanding of Eliot's ideas and intentions in “The Death of Moses.” Eliot creates a pathetic image of Moses, which symbolizes the weakness in the great prophet as well as the conflicting emotions caused by the inevitable experience of the human encounter with death. This poem is not only interesting as Eliot's version of midrash in the context of reworking of the bible, but it also deals with the concept of immortality, a theme that would be inherited by the later novelist Virginia Woolf. Furthermore, this poem invites us to be more sensitive to the interconnectedness of poems across authors and literary periods.