This book explores the interrelations between communal memory and the sense of history in George Eliot's novels by focusing on issues such as memory and narrative, memory and oblivion, memory and time, and the interactions between personal, communal and national memories. Hao Li offers a fresh critical reading informed by major nineteenth-century theories and argues for a reappraisal of George Eliot's complex understanding of the dialects of memory and history, an understanding that both integrates and transcends the positivist and the romantic-historical approaches of her time.

This book explores the interrelations between communal memory and the sense of history in George Eliot's novels by focusing on issues such as memory and narrative, memory and oblivion, memory and time, and the interactions between personal, communal and national memories. Hao Li offers a fresh critical reading informed by major nineteenth-century theories and argues for a reappraisal of George Eliot's complex understanding of the dialects of memory and history, an understanding that both integrates and transcends the positivist and the romantic-historical approaches of her time.