Marian Evans Lewes Letter To Her Summary

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In Western philosophy there is an idea that everyone is born a "tabula rasa"—Latin for "blank slate"—meaning we are born without any innate experiences or beliefs. Without delving into the religious aspects of this proposition, there are many concrete examples of this philosophy. It should exhaust one to find any newborn who is proficient in calculus or woodworking, who has mastered both the art of music and the art of crying for his mommy. No, unfortunately we are not born with the ability to do much of anything, and thus the process of gradually developing skills trudges its way to the forefront. In a letter to an assumed fan of hers, Marian Evans Lewes explores this very topic. Being a relatively successful novelist, she outlines how a writer—particularly …show more content…

Lewes couldn't resist giving one. With a didactic, yet friendly tone, Lewes charts her hypothesis on the development of a writer. Primarily, a person pursues writing because she sees merit in the practice, merit which she glimpses through the eyes of a writer who has already harnessed it. Idolization, then, is the first stage of development. Once the writer has found a dream, she is filled with yearning to create, yet still lacking in any ability to do so. "I was too proud and ambitious to write", Lewes tells her correspondent; "I could not do anything fine, and I did not choose to do anything…mediocre" Lewes knows that abdicating a skill is, of course, no way to foster it; instead, a writer must write that which "has no great glory belonging to it", but which she can still be faithful towards. Eventually, through this method, she might find success, but more importantly she might find that success does not always elicit satisfaction. She may realize that achievement in itself does not fix life's problems, and that because the written word exists outside of herself, the release of it into the world can leave one nothing but "a poor husk". "Does this seem melancholy?" Lewes asks, and further answers her hypophora: "I think it is less melancholy than any sort of self flattery." Still, her letter is more than just a hard-nosed look at the development of a writer; …show more content…

Because of this connection, Lewes' more personal life as a woman in the mid-nineteenth century bleeds into her response. Obviously, life was not usually easy for the Victorian woman who wanted to enter into the intellectual sphere of writing. Lewes even used a pen name, George Eliot, to give her novels more credence. She addresses this shared womanhood with her correspondent by using the word "us" and grouping herself in with Peirce. Furthermore, by referring to an author's work as her "offspring" and expressing the sadness she may feel once it grows on its own merit, she places female writers in a maternal role. Lewes expresses understanding for Peirce's struggle as a woman who longs for more than "domestic duties". This pining, though, is thwarted by "womanly necessities for neatness and household perfection as well as by the lack of bodily strength". Womanhood is terribly relevant to their development as writers, and though it is not an insurmountable task, obtaining a sense of satisfaction becomes that much

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