Between \u27Silly Novels\u27 and Vegetation Myths: George Eliot\u27s Subversive Use of the Two Suitors Convention in \u3ci\u3eMiddlemarch\u3c/i\u3e

Take a woman\u27s head, stuff it with a smattering of philosophy and literature chopped small, and with false notions of society baked hard, let it hang over a desk a few hours every day, and serve up hot in feeble English, when not required . (Eliot 1992:305) \u27Silly Novels by Lady Novelists\u27, George Eliot\u27s vitriolic overview of popular novels of the 1850s, which is the source of the mock-recipe above, was published in 1856, shortly before Eliot started writing her first work of fiction, \u27The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton\u27 . More than ten years then passed before she began work on Middlemarch, her fifth novel, so it would certainly be far-fetched to assume that there is a direct connection between the opinions she voiced in \u27Silly Novels\u27 and the composition of Middlemarch. However, in my essay I am going to argue that the plot of George Eliot\u27s masterpiece can in fact be seen as a reaction against stereotypical novelistic plot devices which she had ridiculed in her Westminster Review essay