Plasticity, Form, and the Matter of Character inMiddlemarch
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4370232 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pearl Brilmyer, S Pearl Brilmyer (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 130 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 60-83 |
| Publication date | 2015-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Representations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0734-6018 • E-ISSN: 1533-855X |
| Publisher | University of California Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1525/rep.2015.130.1.60 |
| OpenAlex | W2274603760 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
This essay tracks George Eliot’s construction of a layer of descriptions of characters as soft matter—as liquids, polymers, and other types of condensed matter in a malleable state—in her 1874 novel Middlemarch , elucidating what Brilmyer calls a physics of character from within its pages. In so doing, it suggests that even the most notoriously “brainy” of novels—on the level of its descriptions—resists a too-easy alignment of its characters with individual human psychologies
Geometry · Physics · Plasticity · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · History · Mathematics
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2021 (5) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |