Background
He was born on April 18, 1817, in London, United Kingdom.
( Is philosophy literature? Is literature philosophy? A r...)
Is philosophy literature? Is literature philosophy? A revelatory treatise on creating lasting works of fiction - a must for every aspiring novelist. "The discoverer and the poet are inventors; and they are so because their mental vision detects the unapparent, unsuspected facts, almost as vividly as ocular vision rests on the apparent and familiar. Success is not an accident. All Literature is founded upon psychological laws, and involves principles which are true for all peoples and for all times. These principles we are to consider here." In Literature we see a few original writers, and a crowd of imitators: men of special aptitudes, and men who mistake their power of repeating with slight variation what others have done, for a power of creating anew. The imitator sees that it is easy to do that which has already been done. He intends to improve on it; to add from his own stores something which the originator could not give; to lend it the luster of a richer mind; to make this situation more impressive, and that character more natural. He is vividly impressed with the imperfections of the original. And it is a perpetual puzzle to him why the public, which applauds his imperfect predecessor, stupidly fails to recognize his own obvious improvements. The art of writing is not, as many seem to imagine, the art of bringing fine phrases into rhythmical order, but the art of placing before the reader intelligible symbols of the thoughts and feelings in the writer's mind. It is always understood as an expression of condemnation when anything in Literature or Art is said to be done for effect; and yet to produce an effect is the aim and end of both. Except in the rare cases of great dynamic thinkers whose thoughts are as turning-points in the history of our race, it is by Style that writers gain distinction, by Style they secure their immortality. Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress. It deepens our natural sensibilities, and strengthens by exercise our intellectual capacities. It stores up the accumulated experience of the race, connecting Past and Present into a conscious unity; and with this store it feeds successive generations, to be fed in turn by them. A man must be himself convinced if he is to convince others. The prophet must be his own disciple, or he will make none. Enthusiasm is contagious: belief creates belief. "The discoverer and the poet are inventors; and they are so because their mental vision detects the unapparent, unsuspected facts, almost as vividly as ocular vision rests on the apparent and familiar.
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(Mary Anne Evans (1819 1880), known by her pen name Georg...)
Mary Anne Evans (1819 1880), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (187172), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of which are set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight. (Wikipedia)
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He was born on April 18, 1817, in London, United Kingdom.
A list of his more important publications between 1840 and 1855 indicates the range of his intellectual activities: The Biographical History of Philosophy (1845-1846); The Spanish Drama: Lope de Vega and CalderónCalderon (1846); essays on philosophy, literature, and the theater in The Leader, of which he was literary editor from 1850 to 1855; Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences (1853); and The Life of Goethe (1855).
In 1854 Lewes, his marriage a failure and divorce out of the question, formed a liaison with Mary Anne Evans that was to last until the end of his life; it was in part his encouragement that started her on a career of writing fiction under the name of George Eliot. In subsequent years Lewes published several largely undistinguished scientific and philosophical works.
(Mary Anne Evans (1819 1880), known by her pen name Georg...)
( Is philosophy literature? Is literature philosophy? A r...)
He condemned the excesses of romanticism and championed French classical literature.
