Middlemarch FAQ

questions from our read-a-long, posed by readers and answered by me

We had so many great questions in our question form for Middlemarch during week 1 that I’ve decided to keep all of our FAQ open and evolving as a separate “post,” where I can continually add the questions + answers throughout our read-a-long.

Here they are!

Questions from week 3

On those pesky epigraphs…

“I assume Eliot is employing/selecting the epigraphs to provide foreshadowing/themes to that specific chapter? I've been reading the chapter, going back to the epigraph and then analyzing it further—looking up the history, digging for deeper meanings to them.”

I think so! That is how I’m reading the epigraphs. They end up being a fun rabbit hole for some of the chapters; others feel like the connection may be looser or a bit more satirical than foreshadowing.

I love that you’re spending time analyzing the epigraphs!

On scholarly arrangements

“I keep circling back to the question our narrator asks: "How should Dorothea not marry?" The implied answer is perhaps that she should avoid marrying at all. Which makes me wonder if Dorothea's attachment to Casaubon is nothing to do with marriage and more about the opportunity to have a scholarly endeavor which, as a woman, she would not have had. Jane Austen, on the other hand, seemed most interested in her characters finding the right mixture of virtue, stability, and wealth. Eliot is questioning the idea of marriage as an end in itself for women (Dorothea marries in order to have an intellectual/spiritual project), whereas Austen was proposing a methodology by which women could achieve the best possible match.”

I think you’re onto something exciting here in how you’re reading the purposes of “making a match” for Victorian women.

Your reading of the initial question, “How should Dorothea not marry?” is provocative. I read the question as wholly rhetorical: How could a girl like Dorothea, who is both pretty and in good class standing, not end up marrying someone? The narrator then tells us about a few of Dorothea’s perceived “faults,” which are tied to her intense religiosity and feverish bouts of prayer, as well as her whims for grand plans when it comes to using her eventual inheritance. (How would she end up unmarried? Well…if she lets her religious side run the show, it might be hard for her to make a good match even though she comes from a good family…)

The way you’re reading Dorothea’s desire to marry Casaubon as a way to explore scholarly pursuits is great — there’s definitely something there. Dorothea is one of many rather infamous “brides” in literature of this time, including Elizabeth Bennet and also, I would add, the Brönte heroines, especially Jane Eyre. There are so many stories of women settling into marriages at this time. Elizabeth really gets the jackpot with Darcy: he’s the “best possible match,” as you say. I think we’ve seen in Middlemarch that Dorothea believes she’s identified the “best match” in Casaubon, but we know more about him than she does at this time — and our narrator has been dropping hints that it’s going to be a less-than-ideal situation for Dorothea (and moreso as we get into week 4’s chapters)!

Keep an eye on your core question here: Eliot’s “idea of marriage,” compared to other authors in this time period. How is marriage defined? What are its benefits? What are its costs? Who enjoys marriage? Who doesn’t? These are fantastic lenses to use as you analyze the novel.

On making time for Eliot

“Not really a question, but I've been thinking about what you've taken on in reading this classic for the first time yourself and simultaneously guiding the group through it. You must be thinking on multiple levels at all times. I hope it's not taking away too much of your enjoyment of experiencing the novel for yourself. I appreciate your work so much.”

Thank you so much for this comment. It is really tricky to read a novel and guide others through it at the same time! It’s very fun and keeps my mind engaged while we work through all the layers here.

What I’m enjoying the most is that I feel solidly back in my “grad school self” when I’m reading with you all, and it doesn’t take away from the fun I’m having. In fact, it’s helping me stay motivated even when the chapters start to feel a little sloggy. Thank you so much for reading with me and being along for the ride!

On all that religion…

“This week I was wondering what’s up with the Catholic-Protestant background, both in the plot and in Eliot’s own context? I feel like it might be helpful to have a little framing (especially if it continues to come up in the book) but have avoided looking into it too much for fear of plot spoilers!” - Giancarlo

Hi Giancarlo!

This is such a good question and I wish I knew more about it, too. I’m also trying to avoid too many spoilers as I do my research each week, lol. What I can tell you, in the broadest sense of summary, is that religion and politics are deeply interwoven during this time period, and that Eliot sets the novel within a specific time period when there were new “reforms” being passed that would start to change long-held patterns and seats of power. Specifically, the novel seems headed into discussing the social reactions to this period of reform, and specifically to the eventual passing of the Reform Act of 1832.

Here is something I did find that has been helping me!

Middlemarch is set against the backdrop of political reform (1829–32). With the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829, Catholics in England got back some of their rights, including the right to be elected to Parliament. The Catholics had a long history of persecution in England, beginning when King Henry VIII withdrew from the Catholic Church in 1534 and set up the Church of England in opposition to the Roman Church. Thereafter, allegiance to Catholicism was suspect or even treasonous, and people were expected to be loyal to the Church of England, synonymous with the state. Catholics had to practice their religion in secret and could not buy land, hold office, or inherit property. The Penal Laws imposed fines and sometimes prison sentences on people who did not attend Anglican (Church of England) services.

The Roman Catholic Relief Act was championed by the Whigs and decried by the Tories. The Tory Party was associated with the Church of England and was the party of the landed gentry, which is why Mr. Brooke's friends do not want him to stand as a Reform candidate. The Whig party supported electoral reforms, the abolition of slavery, and restoration of the rights of Catholics. The Whig party was also the home of religious dissenters like Mr. Bulstrode.

The Whigs took control of Parliament in 1830 and tried to pass a Reform Bill, which would have significantly expanded the vote to white male members of the middle class—any man who owned at least 10 pounds worth of property. The bill was intended to address unequal representation in government. At the time, large industrial cities such as Birmingham and Manchester had no representatives in government while underpopulated rural areas ruled by wealthy landowners had many representatives. For example, one rural county had 44 representatives while the heavily populated city of London had four. Neither the first nor second Reform Bill passed, but by 1832, reform was accomplished. The Reform Bill of 1832 reassigned government seats and extended the right to vote to small landowners. These changes benefited the middle class but did little to extend government participation to the working or poor classes. Nonetheless, the Reform Act of 1832 began an era of wider participation in the electoral process.

On choosing an analytical lens

“How do you decide what temporal lens to analyse classic literature through? Through a modern lens, we can be shocked by the treatment of women and their role in society in the novel, but that was standard in the time the novel was set and written.”

I love this question so much, for so many reasons. One of the main reasons I love it is that there’s such an earnestness behind it that says to me: “I have a desire to read this book deeply, but in a way that is fair.”

And that, my friend, is the true hope of all good faith literary criticism.

When you’re reading classic literature in graduate school, you get to know different literary lenses by applying many of them to the same novel, and even the same passages of the same novel, to see how each one “cracks open” the story to unique insights.

Part of doing this successfully and fairly is doing this with an awareness of the time period in which a novel is set. Like you said: there’s a gulf between how women were treated in 1830s England and how women expect to be treated in 2025 in the United States. It does us really well to be aware of those gulfs in understanding and context.

But here’s the thing: You can choose pretty much any critical lens to read the novel through and it will make room for you to be shocked on one level, but to understand it on another.

So, for example, if we decided to read the novel through the lens of feminist theory, we’d want to pay attention to the dynamics of the novel that have to do with things like: patriarchal power (men are evidently in charge of pretty much everything socially and politically), androcentrism (a worldview that centers men as the “norm” and everyone else as a deviation from that norm), marriage customs and traditions (clothing worn, ages to be wed, honeymoon lengths, etc). These would just be some examples of how a feminist lens would start to look at the novel; and it would also leave things out.

The books that feminists wrote in 1970 to analyze Edith Wharton or Jane Eyre or George Eliot’s writing may not ring as “true” to us today as it did in 1970; the “feminist” observations we make about the women in the novel today may not feel relevant in 10 or 15 years. That’s part of the economy of ideas in play here; our context is not the “purest” just because it’s the most recent. And older generations weren’t necessarily wrong (sometimes they were!) about their interpretations using the lens(es) they had available.

What we have today that is a fantastic evolution, I believe, in the field of criticism, are the ideas of intersectionality — which help us to account for the ways that any singular reading of “class” or “gender” or “race” doesn’t give us a full picture of the dynamics really at play in a given story.

A lens of race would look at how white the novel is and when, where, and how any discussion of race comes into discussion. It might reveal a lot to us about whiteness, definitions of power, and other dynamics of the time — and it would also leave things out.

A lens of queer theory would look at the establishment of heterosexual relationships as the heart of this particular society, and would wonder about where we see exceptions to that system. It might help us read some of the characters in new ways, with new questions, but it would also leave things out.

Etc, etc, etc.

So, when we’re thinking about temporal lenses specifically, or thinking about which “time period” we bring to the novel’s context, that’s where patience and self-awareness comes in. We navigate all of these tensions, and sometimes they feel exaggerated when it comes to classic literature.

Just know: you’re asking exactly the right question. There’s no “singular” correct lens to apply here; it’s all a dance between yourself and text, what you’re noticing and what it might inform, and how you might use literary theories and different critical lenses to understand and unpack what you’re experiencing in the story.

…That was a very long-winded answer. I hope it helps!

Questions from week 2

Finding your rhythm with Eliot

“It’s my first time reading a book like this. Can you give any tips about how to understand the language w a little more ease? I’ve never read a Jane Austin novel or the like. I know this is about being a closer reader but I find myself reading sentences or pages over again just to find the meaning and even then it’s my best guess. At this rate I won’t finish this book until next June!”

Greetings to you and your daunting task! Yes, I can share tips on this (and you’re making me think this deserves a post in its own right).

My number one tip is to slow down. You can’t hold yourself accountable for reading Eliot at the same speed you read articles online or contemporary novels. It really is a wholly different form of language and speech. So, let it be weird. Slow down on your very first read across the words — rather than looping back and forth, or feeling the pressure to closely read every sentence, just let yourself slow way down. Take it a word at a time.

My second tip is to read aloud. When you hear yourself reading the text, you may start to find rhythms and patterns in it that you couldn’t detect in the silence of your mind. (Especially if you’ve started to panic, mid-sentence, that you’re not understanding what’s happening.) Deep breath, read aloud, and see what shines through audibly that didn’t come through otherwise.

Finally: try an audiobook. For some folks, audiobooks are the key that unlocks classic fiction. You may even try listening to the chapters you’ve already finished reading — just to see, again, what comes through in a different medium?

Give these a try. And remember: closely reading and reading classics is like any other tricky new hobby or habit. It takes time to find your rhythm with it. (And, in response to your anxiety that you’ll be reading til next June: would that be the worst thing?)

What’s a “pamphlet”?

I’m curious about the “pamphlets” that Dorothea loves to read - I have a suspicion that they aren’t the same kind of pamphlets that we think of today, and I don’t think I fully understand what they are. Are they religious sermons? Bite-sized encyclopedias? What role did they have in society and how did people view them?

Ohhhh, this is an absolutely excellent question!

Pamphlets were some of the first printed materials in social circulation and they were huge during the Victorian era. They weren’t books. They weren’t quite magazines, either. They were a handheld, easily distributed form of information—pages long with short print runs, designed to be passed out on the street or shared at meetings. They were longer than a flyer, but shorter than a proper magazine or newspaper.

Pamphlets covered all kinds of topics—religion, politics, debates, technology, science, government, news, and even to raise awareness on issues like environment, labor, and conservation. Of course, they were also used to spread propaganda and highly biased perspectives on issues to sway public opinion.

There are literary and historical scholars who study pamphlets and their effects in great detail and depth — this is a whole wide field of inquiry, if you’re interested in going deeper. Here are a few places to start your explorations:

JSTOR has a whole collection of them online that you can read!

Victorian periodicals — a small database

The 19th century pamphlet project

What did readers know?

Hi! I’m loving this read along so far. My question is: would the readers of Middlemarch have been expected to know/be familiar with all the historical and literary references? There are many allusions to books that I have never heard of, much less read (Southey’s Peninsular War), and even the epigraphs are from works of literature. So that kind of ties into my second question, of who would have been reading Middlemarch when it was first published? All the references to books and history make me feel like it would have been for more educated, wealthy people, but I may be wrong! Thank you! -Clara

Oh, these are great questions, Clara! Thanks for asking them.

Middlemarch was published serially (meaning: in parts) in Blackwood’s Magazine. The readership, then, was rather wide. Both literary critics and the general public had access to the novel via Blackwood’s Magazine—and could engage with it as each installment was published, or could, later, access the novel in its entirety in its final form.

But, even when we say “general public” here, we’re talking about a specific population. This would’ve been people educated to read who also had the means to either borrow or purchase the magazine (or book) for themselves, for reading.

And then, within that subset of the population, that also doesn’t mean they would have all understood every reference or cultural connection Eliot is making. (Just like today: we don’t recognize every reference, but we can still read the novel.) So, we can ask lots of good questions about why she carries on with such random references and deep cuts to history.

I like to take questions like this from different angles, which you’re doing, too. It’s interesting to wonder Who was reading Middlemarch? and it’s equally interesting to wonder Who was Middlemarch written for?

Of course, we could write entire dissertation chapters on such questions — so I hope the basic insights above answer the base of the question. And, of course, there’s so much more to explore here! If you decide to do more research, I hope you’ll share what you find! (Blackwood’s history, at a glance, sounds so fascinating!)

Eliot’s biography

Hi! Marybeth Roden here. Which Eliot biography or biographies would you recommend? Thank you again for creating this wonderful experience!

Hi Marybeth! I haven’t read any Eliot biographies, myself.

If I was going to pick one up, this is the one that has most caught my eye:

• Clare Carlisle’s The Marriage Question (2023) | Here’s a review in The New Yorker

As I do deeper study during our read-a-long, I’ll be sure to add more recommendations and titles :) Thanks for this excellent question!

On Casaubon’s project

What is Mr. Casaubon’s “great work”? “He had undertaken to show… that all the mythical systems or erratic mythical fragments in the world were corruptions of a tradition originally revealed.” Huh? (Chapter 3, paragraph 2)

Lol. I love this question. Because seriously: “Huh!?”

Casaubon has undertaken a wildly ambitious project.

He believes — so the excerpt you included tell us — that “all the mythical systems…” like religion, society, science “in the world” came from the same place. They are all “corruptions of a tradition originally revealed.”

What I take this to mean is that Casaubon believes, essentially, in a kind of ideological and philosophical “Big Bang” theory. He believes that all thought, and all the systems that human beings have created, started with the same “tradition” and are “corruptions” as they’ve branched out from that center or trunk.

Casaubon, then, is looking for the single key to life’s greatest mysteries by wading through all this “corruption” — or alterations to the “original” system — he can unlock the truth. He wants to know everything. And he apparently believes knowing everything is possible.

His ultimate goal (from the same paragraph you’ve cited) is “to condense these voluminous still-accumulating results and bring them, like the earlier vintage of Hippocratic books, to fit a little shelf.”

(He wants to publish his findings.)

Does this help? Keep an eye on this “project” because it is very important to the novel, at least from what I can tell so far!

On that curious narrator…

I’ve noticed that in the last paragraph of several chapters, the narrator steps back a bit from the story and makes a larger observation about a character. Then, at the end of chapter 7, the narrator switches to first person for two paragraphs. I’m assuming Eliot does this on purpose, but I can’t figure out why she makes this switch.

This is a fantastic question that we don’t know the answer to yet! And, like some of the other questions compiled here…I believe, with all my heart, you could write an entire dissertation trying to answer this question.

For the closely reading purposes of this exercise…rather than answer this question (yet), I’d invite you to turn it into a free write exercise for yourself! Ask yourself: Why does she make this shift?

You’re right that it is very much on purpose and it’s very much meant to have an effect. So ask yourself:

What is that effect on you? Why does Eliot want to provoke that effect in you? Why would an author do that?

On trouts and streams

Hi Haley I am struggling to understand the fish / trout stream metaphor in Chapter 8. What is it in reference to? With Humphrey, does this mean as long as people do what works for him he doesn’t care? Why does it then follow in regards to Casaubon - ‘has got a trout stream and does not care about fishing in it himself.’ Is this in reference to money, knowledge or Dorothea’s admiration?! I am lost! Why are both linked together? Thank you! Luisa

Hi Luisa!

Your question made me laugh because I also was not really following this wandering metaphor, either. I think you’re right about the Rector, Humphrey: as long as the “fish rise to his bait,” everyone is doing what they should. I take this to mean that, as long as his faithful Churchgoers do what the Rector asks of them, he’s not raising any alarms. And Casaubon has a “sound kernel” of a heart (as we learn on the previous page). So, he may not be the “melting” or emotionally sentimental type of man. But Casaubon has a deep well of goodness — he has a good heart and will do the right thing, even if he doesn’t go fishing around in feeling and sentiment. He’s stable and consistent, even if others don’t like him or find him boring.

That’s my reading of what’s going on here. But I’m very open to other readings, too!

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Questions from week 1

Wait, Middlemarch is funny?!

“I enjoyed chapter one and found it quite funny at times! Is that how it was intended to be read when it was originally written, or am I finding it humorous because I'm not reading it with the same social/period context as Eliot was writing? Also curious about the prelude. I found it hard to follow and kind of wordy, and I wasn't sure what the point of it was! Thanks for this, I'm having fun already!” -Kristin Offiler

Hi Kristin! You are not missing any context here — the humor is meant to be there! The novel is not a comedy, but our narrator certainly has a witty voice. It’s a little similar to Pride and Prejudice in that sense. Not meant to be a comedy, but the narrator’s voice brings a lot of joy and humor to the story.

The point of the prelude…an excellent question. It’s definitely wordy — which makes it feel quite different from the more straightforward tone of chapter 1. I wrote about how the prelude works and how it sets up some key themes for us in the week 1 analysis.

I hope this answers your questions, and so glad you’re having fun already!

Dorothea’s religiosity…

“Hi! I am interested in Dorothea’s religiousness and how that was viewed at the time. It seems to be more closely associated with being political/opinionated. What was Eliot’s intent in including this trait and how was it perceived by readers at the time?”

This is a fantastic question!

Dorothea’s religiousness is certainly a big piece of her personality, and at the time, being religious or having religion be a very large part of your life was a sign of devoutness and devotion to god—it was respectable and rather common.

But the “issue” or the irregularity of this trait in Dorothea seems to be how extreme she takes her views—which goes beyond respectable piousness into a strange, exaggerated form of being overtly political and opinionated. And, as we learn in chapter one, that may make it hard for her to marry. Because, in addition to being from a good family, with a big inheritance, and being very beautiful to look at…she’s also given to bouts of feverish prayer, “whims” and big plans for spending her inheritance.

So, I would say that it’s not necessarily that “being religious” is aligned with having strong politics and being opinionated. It’s more that Eliot is creating a character whose exaggerated embrace of her “Puritanical” heritage and religious beliefs moves her beyond the realm of the “sane” or the “normal,” and into a kind of deviancy—or, difference from what is the desired, acceptable norm.

The questions then become: does Dorothea need to change this about herself to get married? Or will she take it to the extreme and become a martyr? That seems to be what’s at stake in chapter 1.

Look for the word “poor…”

“Not actually a question. I teach high school math and our English department is a reading source for me. One the the teachers that LOVES Middlemarch gave me advise that I thought I would share. Look for the word "poor" in front of names and explore what Eliot is saying. Also, really examine narrative voice and how Eliot uses it in this book. I would love to have guidance on narrative voice as we progress.” -Kim Ourada

Oh, I love this—something to watch for! Thanks, Kim!

A “female” theme

“I read a couple places in your Substack comments about tracking themes and one that just came to mind in this first chapter ...will Eliot be exploring the binary aspects of feminine vs female? I am very interested. —Kim Ourada”

Hi Kim! This is an excellent question, and it’s certainly something to add to your list of themes to track. What makes a woman a “respectable female,” or of marriageable quality certainly seems to be on the table for discussion in chapter 1. And, as we learned in the prelude, there are many young women who, like Saint Theresa, desire an epic life, but find themselves derailed by the realities of life. I think the idea of saintliness, and tempering one’s ideals, is certainly going to intersect with questions of what it means to be feminine, or to be a woman, in this novel. Watch for it!

Reading + annotating digitally

“Hi, Haley! I just adore your Substack and I am so excited to read Middlemarch with you… thanks for putting this together! I have a question about how to read closely in digital format... In addition to using my e-reader to highlight passages and write brief comments, I've been thinking about keeping a reading journal to help me work through my thoughts and the text more deliberately. Since I am on low buy mode, and already have lots of books on my digital library, I really want to find better ways to go through my e-books… do you have any additional tips on how I can make this work? (Sorry for any mistakes in my English… I am Brazilian). Xo, Julia.”

Hi Julia! Thank you for these fantastic questions about digital annotation!

I do everything on paper, so I’m not as familiar with what’s possible on a digital format. But here are some ideas!

• Keep a notebook — like you said, you can keep a paper notebook separate from your digital e-reader. Some things you might keep track of:

  • Favorite quotes or passages

  • Page numbers of your favorite sections that you want to bookmark and return to

  • A list of themes you’re tracking

• Keep post-its or index cards nearby for easy notes — In addition to, or instead of, a full notebook, you could decide to simply keep a pad of Post-It notes or a stack of index cards to jot down your thoughts on. You can use a binder clip to keep your notes together. And, if you collect enough, you could decide to tape them into a notebook later.

  • You could use different colored index cards for different books, or even different colors for different themes

  • You could use highlighters to color-code the top of blank or white index cards based on themes (without having to buy colored index cards or Post-its)

• Fellow readers: what additional tips do you have?

On Miss Brooke versus Dorothea

“Hi, first thanks for all your hard work with reading this novel, I don’t think I’d ever have done it without this guidance. I loved the idea of the rapid zooming in, it is very cool. I thought about that for a while, is the use of Miss Brooke rather than calling her Dorothea Brooke in the first sentence part of that zooming in?”

What a fantastic reading! You can absolutely validate your observation here. For a close reading, the way to evidence and validate your observation is to look back at the text and look for what sentences in the novel make you think that referring to Dorothea as “Miss Brooke” are part of the zooming-in from the Prelude to the first chapter.

So you’d first want to identify: What parts of the Prelude into the first chapter feel like a “rapid zooming in,” specifically? When or why does the narrator switch from “Miss Brooke” to “Dorothea” — and what other names do we get associated with Dorothea in chapter one? (There’s at least one: Dodo!)

Nice work! You’ve taken an observation to the next level. And now, you can keep pushing on it, if you like.

What is that “mysterious mixture”?

“The Prelude's opening sentence refers to "the mysterious mixture". Do you read that to be men and women, or something else? (Is this something I should place in the comments? I wasn't sure if we could start publicly parsing these sentences!) - Amanda Henchcliffe”

Hi Amanda — This is a fantastic question! And yes: in the future, you’re more than welcome to put questions like these on the comments of the post each week. Let’s look at where this phrase sits in the first sentence—a long rhetorical question—that introduces the Prelude, and closely read it together.  

“Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa…?”

To put this in more plain or contemporary language, we can paraphrase the question this way:

“If you’ve thought about the history of humankind, and how humans behave during different time periods, you’ve probably thought about Saint Theresa.”

Or, if we want to keep it as a question, we might say:

“Who, beguiled by the mysteries of being alive, hasn’t thought about that brave little girl, Saint Theresa, who longed for an epic life—a life so much grander and bigger than herself?”

My husband, a fiction writer who focuses on craft, paraphrased it this way:

“If you care to know about the bigness of existence, you’ve thought about Saint Theresa, haven’t you?”

Eliot is posing a big question here—and it’s big not only because of its subject matter (the “mysterious mixture” of being a living, breathing human with choice and experience) but also big because it kicks off this enormous, “epic” novel.

Your question is excellent because you’re inviting us to notice the way very gendered language was actually thought of as quite inclusive and universal when Eliot writes this sentence. She is referring to humankind, people of all types and genders, here. And she’s also evoking the language of mystery. The reason she does this, I believe, is because of her historical context.

Eliot lives in a moment of history where atoms haven’t been discovered yet. Where Enlightenment thinkers have been puzzling over questions of the human soul, where it resides, and what it’s made of.

Can human beings—that mysterious mixture of blood and skin and soul and hair and teeth and feelings and ideas—be defined with the languages of science and religion, both evolving greatly during this time? What is a human being, anyway?

Spiritualists and mystics are pondering life-after-death—they were conjuring spirits, holding seances, speaking with the dead. Scientists were discovering things like reflexes; they were hypothesizing about the chemical makeup of the brain. They were running experiments, questioning the past, imagining the future.

And so, by terming humans a “mysterious mixture,” Eliot invokes the mysteries of human life, perhaps compounding the weight of that big question, during her own time period of the 1860s and 70s, when she was writing and publishing Middlemarch.

So, there’s one way to read it—and there are certainly others. Hope this helps!

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