The position of George Eliot s poetry within Victorian poetry and within her own canon is crucial for an accurate picture of the writer, as Wendy S. Williams shows in her in-depth examination of Eliot s poetry and her role as poetess. Williams argues that even more clearly than her fiction, Eliot s poetry reveals the development of her belief in sympathy as a replacement for orthodox religious views. With knowledge of the Bible and a firm understanding of society s expectations for female authorship, Eliot consciously participated in a tradition of women poets who relied on feminine piety and...