George Eliot\u27s Poetry of the Soul

The poetic epigraph to Daniel Deranda, written by George Eliot herself, anticipates and encapsulates the novel\u27s interest in the complex processes that make up human psychology: Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul: There, \u27mid the throngs of hurrying desires That trample on the dead to seize their spoil, Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible As exhalations laden with slow death, And o’r the fairest troop of captured joys Breathes pallid pestilence. The epigraph describes psychological phenomena that will feature prominently throughout Daniel Deranda: the multiple and contradictory elements of individual character; the often self-defeating nature of human thought and action; and the inescapable power of unconscious and therefore uncontrollable mental processes. However, the epigraph approaches these phenomena in a manner very different from that of the novel itself. Eschewing the realistic language of Eliot\u27s prose, it relies for its effect both on its melodramatic diction and on its formal qualities. The declamatory admonition is driven by the forceful metre of the blank verse, and it is given conclusive emphasis in the final line through the use of alliteration and the abrupt termination of the verse. The melodramatic tone of the epigraph is accompanied by a metaphysical focus on the \u27soul\u27, and this is indicative of the psychological stance that Eliot adopts throughout her poetry: the author uses verse to emphasize the spiritual and numinous aspects of human nature that are of only secondary importance to the examinations of psychology undertaken in her fiction. Eliot did not publish any of her poetry until her reputation as a novelist was well established. Her poetic chapter epigraphs first appeared in Felix Halt in 1866, and her first book of poetry, the narrative poem The Spanish Gypsy, was published in 1868. However, she had been writing poetry since childhood, and her views on poetic form influenced the composition of at least one of her novels. Writing to her publisher John Blackwood about Silas Mamer, Eliot confided: \u27I have felt all through as if the story would have lent itself best to metrical rather than prose fiction, especially in all that relates to the psychology of Silas\u27. However, she concluded that what she had originally conceived \u27as a sort of legendary tale\u27 would ultimately benefit from \u27a more realistic treatment\u27. The implication that \u27metrical\u27 form impedes \u27realistic treatment\u27 is a revealing indication of Eliot\u27s views on the different functions of poetry and prose. Eliot also suggests that poetry, despite being essentially inimical to realistic representation, may still prove a suitable vehicle for the examination of psychology. This separation of realism and psychology is surprising coming from a novelist celebrated for her meticulous descriptions of the mental states of her characters, and suggests that Eliot saw poetry as enabling an approach to psychology whose emphasis differed from that of the realistic descriptions of mind which predominate in her novels